Looking at the proposed changes to the laws on “reasonable chastisement” of children, I find myself asking: “Am I a child abuser?” Smacking my two-year-old son will soon be illegal, as will hitting any child with an implement or striking them on the head.

The changes, announced by Justice Minister Jim Wallace, will do nothing to halt real child abuse, but will further undermine the confidence of adults in their dealings with children.

Discipline in schools is a constant issue for teachers, with many increasingly relying on the guidance staff to deal with disruptive pupils - while out on the street, the fear of young people is intense.

The authority of adults over children is no longer straightforward, especially when involving force.

The move away from “authoritarian” punishment is seen as a move towards a more tolerant, child-centred society. However, the motivation for these changes often comes not from a trust and respect for children, but a growing contempt for adults and children.

Today we are living in times when the relationships between adults and children are increasingly seen through the prism of abuse and distrust. During my research into the Hamilton curfew, I was often taken aback by the negative image many children’s charities had of parents. They would argue that children are safer on the street than in their own home, although they are far more likely to be abused.

Meanwhile, teachers are being advised not to talk to children alone and windows are being added to doors in many schoolrooms - so that we can all see what is going on. Following this logic, if teachers need to be watched to ensure good practice with children, why should we not monitor the relationships between parents and children?

My more snooty middle-class colleagues tell me that the smacking law will not be used against people such as themselves but against those “socially excluded types” - which is probably half-true.

But we have learned another lesson from the example of the North Lanarkshire teacher who was taken to court for smacking his daughter and then banned from teaching, until this was overturned by the Court of Session: once parental discipline is seen through the prism of abuse, anything is possible.

In schools, an inability to deal with disruptive pupils has resulted in record numbers of exclusions. On estates where adults would once have attempted to resolve local difficulties with children themselves, they are increasingly being encouraged (via initiatives such as the curfew) to contact the police.

Rather than children being empowered through these processes, it appears that it is only the “enlightened” child professionals and the judiciary that have increased their authority over all of our lives, adults and children alike.

Indeed, for children themselves the preoccupation with abuse is having a direct impact. Children, it appears, are not only at great risk of being abused by adults, but are increasingly seen as the culprits.

The main sexual abusers of children, the latest NSPCC research tells us, are not strangers or even adults in the home, but children themselves. Indeed, as they explain, the main offenders are often described as “boyfriend or girlfriend”. Similarly, and even more worryingly, the sexual offenders’ register is fast filling up with names of children - some as young as 10.

Here relationships between children, like those between adults and children, are being examined through the prism of abuse and the everyday activities of groping adolescents and the experimental games of infants are being reinterpreted as abusive and criminal.

To answer my own question, “Am I an abuser?”, it appears in one way or another we are all abusers, adults and children alike. Rather than creating a tolerant, child-friendly society, measures such as the new laws against smacking are undermining parents’ authority and helping to create a distrustful environment where almost every act of discipline can be reinterpreted as abusive.

Stuart Waiton is a youth researcher and author of Scared of the Kids? (Sheffield Hallam University Press).