That definitively onomatopoeic word has been bounding about this week: smacking. The very sound of the word delivering pain. I hear the word smack and feel the need to duck. This time it’s doctors – the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health – issuing a report to say that smacking can be damaging to children’s behaviour, health and wellbeing.
Researchers examined data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, which included 11,858 children aged 9 to 10, and discovered that a lack of sleep and a long sleep latency - the amount of time it takes to fall asleep - had a substantial link to impulsive behaviours later in life.