September 6, 2010 in Features

Parents blog: Spanking

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I honestly don’t know any parents who spank their children – or any who will at least admit to it.

Although once a common practice in many American homes and even some schools, corporal punishment is now generally viewed as an ineffective means of disciplining children. It’s also considered a human rights violation in many countries.

A recent study, however, found that corporal punishment is actually still common in the United States. In fact, about 65 percent of 3-year-olds had been spanked by one or both parents within the previous month, according to the “Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study.”

The research – conducted by the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans – involved nearly 5,000 families in large U.S. cities.

According to the Fragile Families website, about 75 percent of the children who were part of the study were born to unmarried parents, which put them at greater risk of breaking up and living in poverty.

The researchers also found that there was a link between spanking and intimate-partner violence.

“The presence of even minor forms of aggression between parents, such as criticism and controlling behaviors, were linked with increased odds of using corporal punishment with young children,” the researchers wrote.

Another study, published last year and conducted by researchers from the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University, also found that spanking makes children more aggressive and can have negative, long-lasting effects.

“We’re talking about infants and toddlers, and I think that just, cognitively, they just don’t understand enough about right or wrong or punishment to benefit from being spanked,” Lisa Berlin, a research scientist and the study’s lead author, told CNN.

Parents who were spanked as children themselves are more likely to use spanking as a form of discipline, according to the study.

Many experts and professional organizations including the American Academy of Pediatrics have discouraged the use of corporal punishment at home.

Still, some moms and dads as well as grandparents and other guardians say spanking can teach a lesson – but only if it’s used on very rare occasions and doesn’t serve as a family’s only and most commonly used form of discipline.

What do you think?

– Posted by

Virginia de Leon

Join the conversation at www.spokesman.com/blogs/parents.

Three comments on this story so far. Add yours!

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  oneanddone on September 06 at 12:18 p.m.

  Beating a child, in any form, is reprehensible. However - firm, not violent or angry, spanking with one swat can be a very effective method of informing that child they are not conforming to expectations. It’s ridiculous that this article makes so many claims which “prove” how damaging spanking is, while it fails to explain why so many children today are abysmally behaved. You also need to explain why the Supreme Court has ruled that schools can (and do) inject corporal punishment into their disciplinary structure. THAT I have a problem with, yet the law allows it.

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  ericdx on September 06 at 11:24 p.m.

  Frankly, as a child that was raised in a family that used spanking as a punishment, I think that a lot of these studies that say it is damaging to th child are a bunch of BS. I did not get spanked a lot, but when I deserved it, my parents delivered. I was not beaten. I would get one or two swats, and why I was getting thse swats. I learned real quick not to repeat whatever I had done, and I maybe got spanked 15 or 20 times in my life.

  I was well behaved, well adjusted, have never been in trouble with the law, and have never raised a hand towards my wife of almost 20 years, and I have been sucessful in my career field. I see children now a days that are not spanked when they deserve it, and I have no problem understanding why the youth of today are as obnoxious as they are. They are not held accountable, and feel that they should be allowed to get away with whatever they want, or that there are no consequenses for doing wrong.

  People that beat there children for no reason are wrong, and that shoudl be prevented, but there are times that any child needs a good swat at some point when they are growing up. I think the last (and only) child that was raised that did not need a paddling at least once in his life was named Jesus, and lived over 2000 years ago.

  In the end, after all is said and done, the meathods of corporal punishment have raised many more well behaved chldren over the last few hundred years, then the new namby-pamby “reaon with them, dont spank them” meathods have done in the last 30 years. And what do you know, crime rates really started to climb after the Social scientist BS of the last 20-25 years took hold.

  As far as the comment about corporal punishment in schools, I also went to a school that had corporal punishment, and it only took 2 hacks to figure out I never wanted that agaiin. And what do you know, I dont remember anyone shooting anyone in any of the schools I was in, or bringing guns to school for protection then, or teachers feeling they needed weapons or armed guards in the schools at that time. Hell, I can remember there being guns in the parking lot, locked in people’s vehicles, because people had come to school from straight out of their hunting blinds, and before anyone says that could never happen in Spokane, I was raised here, and went to school here.

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  KidsRpeople2 on September 19 at 6:17 a.m.

  20 states school disciplinary practices promote violence and sexual abuse of children. Physical/Corporal Punishment is especially disturbing as today it is legal for teachers to hit school children with wooden paddles to deliberately inflict physical pain and suffering as punishment in schools in 20 U.S. states, (these actions constitute sexual assault when done to a non-consenting adult),when the practice is already illegal in schools in 30 states and prohibited by Federal law in prisons and juvenile detention centers. An Enfield, Conn. High School Teacher is facing sexual assault charges after being accused of spanking a female student in class in stark contrast to a recent incident where over a dozen high school girls in Alabama received “Spankings” for prom dresses that were too revealing. Note the disparity. For a real education of what is really happening to our children in our tax-payer funded schools simply type “A Violent Education” and “School is Not Supposed to Hurt” into an internet search engine to review recent shocking reports.

  U.S. Congress H.R. 5628 “Ending Corporal Punishment in Schools Act” was introduced to Congress on June 29th by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) and is about to be put on a SHELF due to lack of votes in support of the ban, as it requires 25 votes to move it on to the next stage: as of July 27th it had 21 votes. Please don’t allow our children’s fundamental human rights to be Politicized.

  Please urge your U.S. Congress Rep. to Co-Sponsor/Support H.R. 5628 “Ending Physical/Corporal Punishment in Schools Act”