There is a wide spectrum of attitudes about the efficacy of using corporal punishment on children. Some people claim that it is quite effective, and when they were kids the use of corporal punishment on them corrected their bad behaviors very effectively, and they are now law abiding and productive citizens. In other words it did not warp them mentally in some fashion.
Others claim it is barbaric and corrects nothing, it only terrorizes the child and makes them more likely to be violent with their own children and peers in the future.
My own opinion is that corporal punishment has it’s place, especially with behaviors that are potentially dangerous, but it must be used judiciously and in moderation. If every misbehavior becomes a physical confrontation it models a dysfunctional way to interact with people for the child.
Almost all psychological studies I’ve seen are usually strongly anti-corporal punishment. The flip side is that many people have observed in their own life experiences the real world efficacy of physical punishment in immediately stopping dangerous or out of control behavior, so they take these studies with a grain of salt.
What is the truth about the effectiveness and dangers of corporal punishment in modernity? What does the latest research show?
I’m sure this one will get moved to IMHO. Having said that, my answer is it depends a lot on the family and child, and probably it’s not the same for each child in a family which could give rise to perceived fairness issues. I’ve known children who much preferred it to other punishments and vice versa – though that is certainly not the only reason to use it or avoid it.
I think it’s effective for some behavior and not for others. I think as a child gets older it becomes less and less effective. You can get used to almost anything and a child may wise up and take 5 minutes of being hit rather than have a month with no TV.
Since I suspect that this topic is going to draw many more statements of personal opinion than citations of scientific research, it’s probably best to move this to IMHO.
Let’s start by defining our terms. For instance, is it corporal punishment to slap a kid’s wrist when they’re reaching for something they shouldn’t? Bare-handed spanking? Or does it only count if a belt, switch, or other implement is used, or if it causes injury?
All corporal punishment ever did for me was make me sneakier and more angry.
It only worked for either us once - the day my parents punished me for something I didn’t do. Because I wouldn’t admit it and apologize the punishment was the worst I’d ever gotten. 3 days later my father discovered my brother and his friend smoking the cigarettes they were sure I had stolen from my mother, and that was the day my parents gave up on corporal punishment. They also basically kissed my ass for weeks. I’m pretty sure that my first horse was a direct result of this incident.
[ul]
[li]As an extreme punishment for behavior that directly endangers yourself or others – running out into the street, for example.[/li]
[li]As a punishment for ignoring other forms of discipline. If you don’t respect time-out, then you get spanked AND sent back into time-out.[/li][/ul]
It should be rare so that it’s MEMORABLE. I can count the number of times I spanked my kids on one hand. (No pun intended.) Each time was calculated to leave a strong impression that the particular thing they were being punished for was a big deal. If you do it all the time for every little thing, what do you keep in reserve for when they do something serious?
My parents weren’t big on spanking but they did it a few times. It certainly didn’t cause any physical damage and I never felt abused. It was mainly the effect of a step up from normal punishment that made it effective. They were pretty solemn about it so it was humiliating especially because they mainly used it when I hurt my little brother intentionally and they let me see him crying and they made it clear that I was about to feel JUST SOME of the pain that I caused him.
We had corporal punishment in public school as well. I got that a number of times. That was simply preferred over the other alternatives. There was no way any sensible person would choose detention or suspension over three quick licks from a teacher (at least not ours) and just be done with it. It stung a little but not that much and it was over quickly with no lasting damage. After we got that, we usually played it cool for a while before doing anything else wrong.
I was abused as a kid. No way I ever condone that. But on the other extreme, I’ve seen parents be absolutely paralized into surrendering their parental authority over their child because they were never going to hit their child and they didn’t know what else to do.
A few years back they had a study in the paper and said that it caused more harm then good. But to me the study was seriously flawed in that they were talking about ‘times per week’ when a kid would get spanked, and on the extreme end it was ‘five times or more per week’. Seriously? Almost every day? There’s something wrong with YOU THE PARENT at that point. But a couple of times a year to end dangerous behavior or to reassert control over a kid who is out of control? Smack the kid and be done with it.
Just be absolutely sure the kid actually did what you’re punishing him/her for.
If used in the way my father did, it is very effective in scaring the shit out of you. He’d be hurt to learn this, but I was scared of him all throughout my childhood and adolescence because he was such an angry, violent person with his children. Sometimes I think there was something not quite right about him, at least up to the time I left home. No one should have such an easy trigger if they have kids. So I’d say corporal punishment should definitely not be used if you have a temper. It would be way too easy to beat the living hell out of your kids for the slightest thing.
The biggest problem with corporal punishment is that, like with anything else, you become desensitized to it if it’s used too often. My rebellious sister, who had her own demons, simply learned it was a price that she had to pay to do what she wanted. So she became immune to it. But she actually responded to calm and reasoned “talking to’s” (at least according to her…she could just be saying this).
If I were going to use corporal punishment, it would be reserved for extreme emergencies (kid about to touch the stove or run into the street after I told his ass to stop, that kind of thing). There would be no accessories involved (belts, switches, high heel shoes) and there would be no anger involved either. Also, once the kid is over the age of 10, it just wouldn’t be used anymore. At that point, in order to really get the point across, you’d have to actually inflict some lasting pain to make it count as punishment. A slap to the fanny just isn’t going to do anything. And I think at that age, the kid would be able to understand actions and consequences enough where they wouldn’t need a Pavlovian-type of “lesson”. You can yell at them and take away privileges at that point.
Kat Williams once said black people need to stop beating their children in public. PUBLICLY. I.e. it’s ok to smack your kids but not in front of the whole grocery store. I agree with him, but I think it applies for all races. I think children who have never gotten hit are usually one of two things. One, spoiled like brats who are very entitled. Two, little thugs who parents are probably afraid of them. I’ll take it one step further. I think teachers should be allowed to whoop your kid’s ass if they misbehave. Most of them will spend more time with them than you will. I’ll tell you something. I didn’t get hit much, but when I did I stopped doing whatever got me hit.
I also want to say, I think too many people try to rationalize with children. Especially young children. I hear parents say all the time asking their little kids why they (the children) think doing X was wrong. I think at a certain age, it’s just a waste of time. Children aren’t adults and too times are treated like they are.
I only ever remember my mom hitting me one time. I was maybe 12 or so, and had mouthed off to her sarcastically, and she just lost her shit and walloped me one across my face, knocking my glasses off and breaking them in the process. I was more stunned than anything else.
And it didn’t really stop me from being a smart-ass in the future, either. (Obviously.)
I’ve always been able to manage my kids effectively without hitting/spanking/etc. I don’t want to say that this means that everyone in the world should be able to do so, because crap, maybe I just got lucky with kids that respond well to other forms of discipline. But I do think that generally speaking, if you are going to spank, it should be a total last resort and you should save it for very rare occasions. You don’t want a kid that is living in fear of being hit, and you also don’t want a kid that is learning from your example that when something goes wrong, you start hitting on people. And you definitely don’t want to strike in anger. I think that is bad news and can go very wrong very quickly. (Also you might break your kid’s glasses, and that is expensive.)
I definitely do not think that teachers should be in the business of hitting kids. If I choose to spank my kid (not that I have done so, but hypothetically speaking) I know it’s for a good reason. I know nothing of the sort about some random teacher at the kid’s school. I have had a few really vicious old bastards as teachers over the years, and I don’t want someone like that getting the chance to take out some frustration on my kid’s backside, you know?
Slapping is one thing that makes me wince. I’d rather be hit on the backside than slapped in the face.
My father once slapped my sister for screaming after I stole one of her Doritos. In family legend, it is referred to as the “Dorito Slap.” But actually it should have been called the “Dorito Slaps”. She couldn’t have been older than nine, and my father–a huge guy–must have laid into her half a dozen times. Her nose sprayed blood all over the place. He just walked away as she crumpled to the floor, which was strewn with blood and food.
She hadn’t broken any rule. She was a “good” girl.
I think black people play up the corporal punishment thing too much. A lot of the knuckleheads that are in prison right now were beaten as kids. True, a lot of good people were given whuppin’s as well, but there were probably other things in the household that kept them in line. Like simply having a strong male presence in the home. Or innate personality traits (like learning quickly so that one beating was enough!)
I think physically correcting misbehavior is essential, but “physical correction” does not have to mean hitting or spanking. I also think it is age limited as the child becomes more intelligent.
In my personal experience with dogs (I’m not trying to compare children to dogs…but I think the fact that very young children cannot understand your commands very well sort of creates some parallels) you can produce a very well trained canine without ever hitting them. However you may need to physically correct their activity from time to time. For example give them chew toys when they want to chew, and praise them for chewing it. Physically take shoes or power cords from them when they are trying to chew them, and do not praise them when you do this, and replace it with a chew toy.
I’ve seen parents (and even some people on this board) say that they would even consider removing an unruly child from a car and taking them inside is a form of abuse and if they could not rationalize with their child they would not use force to move them. I think that there are many times when you will need to physically move a young child from one place to another to stop them from doing something. I don’t think you need to hit them to get the point across but I also don’t think you have to hold yourself to only “rationalizing” with a very young child. I think that ascribes far too much rational thought ability to young children whose brains are still developing.
I’ve always been irritated by the people who claim that children get all upset about being spanked because it’s all about a bigger person v. a little person. I got paddled twice before age ten that I remember, and I remember them because both times I had done something out of line and I deserved the reminder. It served to show me just how my actions could scare and affect someone negatively, and I never did those things again. Even though the one paddling was probably a tiny bit of an over-reaction to something that was an accident, I still was doing something I had been warned not to do. And since there was corporal punishment in my school then, too, I got paddled again in the sixth grade…again, for something not really my fault, but it was a political move on the teacher’s part, and it was really in my best interest to get punished.
Get spanked every single day of your life isn’t corporal punishment. And it won’t work. But if it is saved for those times when it is the only thing that will get the severity of the offense across, or to focus a child who is clearly out of control, then it can be extremely helpful.
You know what I think it worse than corporal punishment? People who endlessly threaten their kids with it, but actually inflict it only randomly. It’s like you’ve got the whole “teaching them that might makes right” problem, but you also have the added problem of putting your kid ina world where violence randomly descends from above, and it’s horribly ineffective.