A Victorian woman has been questioned by police and threatened to be charged with assault after hitting her 9-year-old daughter with a wooden spoon.

Claire Davidson was warned by police that she risked an assault-with-a-weapon charge after her child revealed in a classroom discussion that her mother hit her with the spoon.

Ms Davidson said she was shocked when a support worker from Yea Public School reported the smacking to police.

"We only use the wooden spoon and that is only when she is being naughty and we give her fair chance to rectify the situation and we talk her through it," she told the Herald Sun.

She said her daughters gets three warnings and, then, "it is spoon time."

Ms Davidson of Flowerdale, north of Melbourne, was told by police she would be charged with assault if another instance of her daughter being hit with the spoon was reported again.

The incident has sparked a debate about smacking between parents and child-welfare advocates.

A criminal lawyer said that whether parents are charged with assaulting their children or not depends on how severe the smacking is.

"Just because you are mother or daughter doesn't make you exempt from the law," criminal lawyer James Dowsley said.

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