spanking / smacking children right or wrong?

[SWM]

 

The un has for a long time being trying to the law in sovereign nations to prevent parents from hitting their children. The UN have been attempts to criminalize hitting children.

Related articles

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35000

http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000000/00000021.asp

Is it the UN's business to push laws like this on parents around the world ?

Do you think parents hitting their children's bottoms should be outlawed ?

[corwin137]

Most folks argue it being "OK", by citing it's effectiveness, essentially an ends justifying the means mentality, which of course is... wanting.

I always say it's not necessary, as long as there's other methods that don't require hitting another person, it's not really necessary unless one can say all those methods have been exhausted.

[Shell]

I personally believe that using physical forms of punishment puts a child at a higher risk of believing violence is the appropriate method for resolving problems.

I was spanked as a child, but my childhood also involved watching my father beat the crap out of my mother.  So my future was already set up for relationship failure.

I once witnessed a mother smack her child at the back of his 3 year old head (after he had hit her in frustration), saying, "Don't hit."  She used physical punishment to correct a physically violent behavior.  She showed him it was not okay for him to hit, but okay for her to hit.  It sends mixed signals.

I have a child of my own and I have learned that time outs and patience have much better than results than hitting.

Some will say there is a line between abuse and spanking... how do you tell what that line is?  If you are hitting because it is your only way to get through to your child, you probably aren't too eager to seek ways to train yourself on how to deal with your child's behavior.

I study a lot on dog obedience training and find the two almost greatly comparable.  There are always things that motivate your dog - you USE those things to motivate them and MAKE them want to please you.  If you know what motivates your child to behave appropriately, utilize that.  Physical punishment sends the message that you are frustrated and cannot cope with what they have done - what lesson are you teaching?  You are telling them, "Do this and you get spanked."  However, if you send them a positive reinforcement such as rewarding good behavior, you are teaching them to earn their rewards.  If you show them consequences and impact of their behavior, such as taking a toy away because they are misbehaving or allowing them to see that you are hurt when they bite or hit you, then you teach them to suffer the consequence and understand why their behavior is not appropriate.

By resorting to hit your child, your only intention is to provide a quick retaliation of your child's disobedience.

[corwin137]

I personally believe that using physical forms of punishment puts a child at a higher risk of believing violence is the appropriate method for resolving problems.

...Edited for brevity

I once witnessed a mother smack her child at the back of his 3 year old head (after he had hit her in frustration), saying, "Don't hit."  She used physical punishment to correct a physically violent behavior.  She showed him it was not okay for him to hit, but okay for her to hit.  It sends mixed signals.

"Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?"
-  Seen on bumper stickers

Nice post Cecile

[seekinghga]

I do not advocate child abuse, so put that in your head before reading what I have to say.

I think that a lot of the problem with crime and violence in today's society can be attributed to "sparing the rod."  I mean, if your kid steals candy and you punish them, not by spanking, but by putting them in "time-out," there is no discipline achieved.  Next they will be visiting prostitutes and owning guns.  (No, I do not extrapolate idly, I merely read my local paper.) What do you do for that?  Time Out?  Children must be given the message that being "bad" (or the societal equivalent) is to be eschewed, and this must be done in any way possible.  Time-out might work for some, but it might not.  If it does not, then I feel we should go to the spanking.  Remember, you are not to be your child's FRIEND, especially in younger children.  I know this is harder for the mother than the father in most cases.  But, think about it:  do you remember when you were 2 or 4 years old?  Of course not, and neither will your children, but their behavior IS a continuum, even if it is not remembered HOW it got to such-and-such a state.

[liza123]

well, it all depends...on one hand, there is a case of "Spare the rod and spoil the child" and on the other hand, there is a case of child abuse....it all depends on why,how,where,when the parents are hitting the children...

it is good to know that the law has restrictions for parents to ensure that they do not abuse their children in any way...

[anaklio]

One solution to this question is to break out of the false dichotomy. We've set up two choices: To hit or not to hit. There's really many others. If all the better solution we can come up with is violence given the amazing world we live in, we've failed.

[Tham]

Totally wrong.

I sent these links to my naive younger brother (overpampered
and spoilt as a child himself) who had been abusing his two
-year old child just a few months ago.

Unfortunately, it didn't help change him, or more likely he never
bothered to read them, being very stubborn and Chinese-educated.

Chatting with a psychologist two nights ago, she explained that
his current psychological problem stems from his spolit childhood.



Childhood trauma, permanent physical and psychological brain damage :


http://www.childadvocate.net/child_abuse_news.htm

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/culture/articles/961111/archive_034966.htm

http://www.upliftprogram.com/facts_childhood_trauma.html

http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/pub-res/effects_of_childhood_stress.htm

http://www.childtrauma.org/CTAMATERIALS/trauma_and_terror.asp

http://www.snapnetwork.org/psych_effects/how_abuse_andneglect.htm


Childhood trauma and its link to depression, asthma and
other diseases in adulthood :

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/now/20071207/adversity.html

http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/cgi/content/short/70/9/1035?rss=1

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/queryd.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=18399744&itool=pubmed_docsum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/queryd.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12448629&itool=pubmed_docsum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/queryd.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=16927577&itool=pubmed_docsum


General reasons for not hitting a child :

http://www.naturalchild.com/jan_hunt/tenreasons.html

http://www.nospank.net/

http://stophitting.blogspot.com/2007/04/verbal-abuse-harms-children-too.html

http://www.naturalchild.org/jan_hunt/spanked.html

http://www.neverhitachild.org/hitting.html


Martin Teicher's studies on permanent PHYSICAL brain damage from
PSYCHOLOGICAL trauma in childhood.

The entire script of his landmark study :

http://www.dana.org/news/cerebrum/detail.aspx?id=3378


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/queryd.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15231439&itool=pubmed_docsum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/queryd.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12732221&itool=pubmed_docsum

http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/36/5/36


Bruce Perry's websites :

http://www.childtraumaacademy.com/

http://childtraumaacademy.org/Caregiver.aspx

http://childtraumaacademy.org/Scholastic.aspx

http://teacher.scholastic.com/professional/bruceperry/index.htm



Other studies :

http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/res/brain.html


The first missing link in the above page is here :

http://www.ncptsd.va.gov/ncmain/nc_archives/rsch_qtly/V2N4.pdf

[Farsight]

I think that a lot of the problem with crime and violence in today's society can be attributed to "sparing the rod."  I mean, if your kid steals candy and you punish them, not by spanking, but by putting them in "time-out," there is no discipline achieved.  Next they will be visiting prostitutes and owning guns.  (No, I do not extrapolate idly, I merely read my local paper.) What do you do for that?  Time Out?  Children must be given the message that being "bad" (or the societal equivalent) is to be eschewed, and this must be done in any way possible.  Time-out might work for some, but it might not.  If it does not, then I feel we should go to the spanking.  Remember, you are not to be your child's FRIEND, especially in younger children.  I know this is harder for the mother than the father in most cases.  But, think about it:  do you remember when you were 2 or 4 years old?  Of course not, and neither will your children, but their behavior IS a continuum, even if it is not remembered HOW it got to such-and-such a state.

Well said, seekingha. I share this view, though I would say smacking is OK but spanking is not, and you should never smack a child in anger. 

But this view is not widely shared, so by and large I'd say there is no effective sanction imposed upon children, some of whom grow up having been trained into thinking they can do anything they like. This then creates difficulties within education and for society as a whole, plus of course life-changing or even life-threatening difficulties for the offenders themselves.

I see this in microscosm in my own home. When our two children were young, they would misbehave in some way, and I'd give them a playful little smack and say "no" with a smile on my face. But my wife wouldn't do this, because she thought it was wrong. Then they'd play up and push it and push it until she got angry, then she'd smack them too hard and it all ended in tears.

At the other end of the scale I'd say torture is a useful exercise to consider. We all know it's wrong to inflict pain. But imagine you've got an hour before the bomb goes off. It's somewhere in the city, maybe at the football stadium, maybe in a mall. The culprit is in front of you, and you want him to tell you where the bomb is, so you can evacuate the area. I would inflict that pain. It's wrong, and I know it's wrong, but it's the lesser of two evils. If I don't commit this evil, I will be permitting a far greater evil to occur. It's my responsibility, nobody else's, and I will not shirk it.

What I think people miss is that it isn't a black and white world. Sometimes you have to do something that's wrong in order to do what's right. Women seem to have difficulty with this, as demonstrated by absent-father children who on average are more likely to be involved in trouble. It was epitomised by The Simpsons episode where Marge said two wrongs don't make a right and Homer said two wrongs do make a right. I think they do. That's why we have crime and punishment.

[SWM]

i am of the opinion (perhaps it is frame of mind rather than an opion) that there are much better methods than violence to make. there are ways to make people and children respond and react that do not require violence.

with children the work is done before they misbehave, they will have respect for your authority and guidance not because they fear, but because they trust you, with all of their heart and mind.

[anaklio]

Newton and Vandeven (2009) review the existing literature on child care issues. These authors note that several studies document the high rate of spanking, slapping or shaking children. Given these findings, they conclude that the short-term and long-term costs to individuals who experience family violence are well demonstrated and include not only emotional repercussions, but also chronic health conditions, which result in significant cost to society.

[eevee.chung]

personally, i dont think there is a so-called as right or wrong, because you can't generalize a behavior just by a single case. as from biology, there are animals who learn from trail-and-error, which is to cause use electric shock to correct a certain behavior. Thus, it is somewhat like hanging a carrot in front of the donkey, because it motivates the people to react in a certain way.
Some people just have to learn it the hard way, so i suppose you can't say that it is right or wrong to smack children.

However, if hitting the children is based on an express of anger, because it is a release of negative emotions, then it is wrong.
Hitting is okay if that is a way to teach them and to correct them, but if it is in the usage of abuse then i suppose it is wrong.

[Tham]

I would, in fact could, never lay a hand on a child.

Frankly, who are we as adults, knowing that a child is small, weak
and helpless and would not dare to retaliate against bigger human
beings like us, let alone have any  means of retaliation, to hit and
hurt them ?  How could hitting a little kid ever be justified ?  What
right do we have, realistically, to hit another human being ?

Such an action merely glaringly reveals the pathetic human weakness
(and inferiority complex) to express our ego by taking advantage of
our superiority in size, age and seniority to hurt the weak and
helpless.  This essentially transports us back to the barbaric age
- no different from the Nazis' oppression and degradation of the
Jews - and in the end degrades our own humanity and dignity.

What right do we have then, to "punish" another human
being, especially one smaller, younger, weaker and virtually
helpless against us, moreover our own blood ?

The very act of "punishment" is reserved for those who seek
to victimize and oppress helpless prisoners, and thus could
never be justified.  How then, could you even "punish" a child ?

Try hitting your dog, let alone a child, especially repeatedly.
What do you think would be the consequences ?   It will
curl up or run for its life whenever it comes face to face
with a stranger. You've just destroyed a potentially good
watchdog.


This story should be more than enough to convince
most adults never to hit a child :

http://www.neverhitachild.org/never.html


If the above is not enough, then this :

http://www.innerharmonyhypnosis.com/hypnosis_articles/early_childhood_emotional_trauma.pdf

[PsychVegas]

i am of the opinion (perhaps it is frame of mind rather than an opion) that there are much better methods than violence to make. there are ways to make people and children respond and react that do not require violence.

with children the work is done before they misbehave, they will have respect for your authority and guidance not because they fear, but because they trust you, with all of their heart and mind.

We must be careful. I do not endorse abuse and agree there are better ways than violence, but I do believe that to deny the use of physical force as a reality of life sets a child up for some unique challenges. An important lesson in life is that there may always be someone bigger, stronger, and willing to impose immediate retribution. If the parent fails to teach this lesson, the child will eventually learn the hard way from a bully, a peer, the police, a boss, an enemy, etc. And, because the child failed to learn this lesson while young, it may take several encounters to realize (1) that some people just don't have the same value system and (2) there are times when physical forces is the appropriate option.

While psychologically the ideal view violence is never the answer may have merit, philosphically it is flawed. First, there is an assumption it is the parent that will correct the child when the child has done something wrong. Second, there is the assumption time is not a factor. Third, for the ideal view to hold true their must be the underlying assumption that ALL others have the same value system. I would sumbit that all three assumptions are inaccurate.

[SWM]

First, there is an assumption it is the parent that will correct the child when the child has done something wrong. Second, there is the assumption time is not a factor. Third, for the ideal view to hold true their must be the underlying assumption that ALL others have the same value system.

these are assumptions that you assume when you consider the non punitive/violent ways of teaching?

and your assumptions do not necessarliy belong to any "ideal"  per se.

While psychologically the ideal view violence is never the answer may have merit, philosphically it is flawed.

it is never good to use the word never plus we must also ask, violence is not the answer to what?

[PsychVegas]

SMW,

Uh, you just used the word never to make a definitive statement..."it is never good..."? So you are allowed to make a definitive statement, but I am not? I'm confused

I technically agree, there are better ways to make people/children respond and react that do not require violence. I note, you did not use the definitive term never. So you agree there are times when violence is required? If so then would a parent hitting their child on the bottom be appropriate?

You are correct, my assumptions are presented as pragmatic/problematic not as an ideal. While as stated above I agree there are better ways to impart knowledge, there are limiting factors or constraints in the real world. By imposing a law that would outlaw any form of physical discipline is imposing a "never" that goes against the assumptions presented. 

[Bill Hemphill]

Spanking occurs when the ability to communicate has failed.

 It is important to leave these moral decisions up to the citizen. Bill

[SWM]

SMW,

Uh, you just used the word never to make a definitive statement..."it is never good..."? So you are allowed to make a definitive statement, but I am not?

no sorry that is just my sense of humour.

I'm confused

good, that shows i am more intelligent than you
lmao

I technically agree, there are better ways to make people/children respond and react that do not require violence. I note, you did not use the definitive term never. So you agree there are times when violence is required? If so then would a parent hitting their child on the bottom be appropriate?

no, i try to avoid making absolute statements such as never. however that does not mean i agree that violence may have an appropriate use. it is my opinion that there better means. i believe that parents who smack there children on the bottom do so because they have no more effective means.

on this point i agree emphatically with Bill H (see post above) violence occurs when communication has failed.

You are correct, my assumptions are presented as pragmatic/problematic not as an ideal. While as stated above I agree there are better ways to impart knowledge, there are limiting factors or constraints in the real world. By imposing a law that would outlaw any form of physical discipline is imposing a "never" that goes against the assumptions presented. 

i also agree with this. parents would need to have better skills at teaching and nurturing children before any such legislation could be effectively implemented.

[Bill Hemphill]

Great topic SWM! There are principles within this topic that could be utilized in our courts.

[PsychVegas]

SWM,

I agree, ideally it would be great if education could solve the issue. If we then continue down the idealist path there is no need for legislation as through better education there is better communication and therefore no children are spanked. Under either argument, whether pragmatic or idealistic, it can be demonstrated that there is no need for the U.N. to create legislation.

I also agree the use of physical force (violence) can be and most often is a failure of verbal communication. So I also agree with Bill However, this does not mean that the use of physical force is always wrong. One of my assumptions is that physical force can be the result of time constraints. Time constraints can create conditions where verbal communication fails or is not possible, thereby placing an individual in a situation where physical force is the best way to communicate. And this becomes a very slippery slope with tons of variables.

For instance, I would find it very difficult to hold a parent legally accountable if they saw their child reaching for a hot stove and based out of fear and love for the child they instinctively...arguably biological/adaptive, smack the child on the hand or bottom as they pull the child away from the danger. It would be very difficult to have parenting classes that are capable of overriding fight or flight instincts.

[Bill Hemphill]

Great topic SWM! There are principles within this topic that could be utilized in our courts.

[Karaten]

I begged my parents to spank me, I would much rather have small physical punishment than prolonged boredom, or loss of value. People act like spanking is more abusive because it's physical, when it is well known that the greatest tortures that can be inflicted are mental, isolation, for example, depravity, another.

Remember that as punishment, harm does in fact need to be inflicted, otherwise a lesson is not learned. I think the punishment should fit the crime, to reinforce the relative punishments of these actions related to the real world opposed from childhood. Some children may develop the idea that they can get away with this behavior later if they see that the punishment will go away.