Submitted by Kimberly Dienes, guest blogger.
This week on Wednesday, the state Appellate Division of New York determined that open-hand spanking of an 8-year-old boy at a party was ‘a reasonable use of force.’ According to an article published on the case in the New York Daily News, the perspective that spanking does not constitute “excessive corporal punishment” is a common finding in courts across the country, regardless of the type of spanking (hand, spoon, or paddle), and the frequency and duration of spanking (several times a day, once a week, one spank, 37 spanks). After yet another case involving child corporal punishment has hit the courts, we must turn once again to the question of whether child corporal punishment should be regulated, or perhaps even prohibited, by law.
The moral issue of child corporal punishment has been hotly debated, with people on either side arguing on the basis of personal experience, race, religion and culture. However, personal opinion aside, when we address this issue in our lives or in our laws it’s important to recognize several facts that have been well established in psychological research: a) spanking doesn’t work nearly as well as other behavioral techniques and b) it leads to immediate and long term negative consequences for the child.
Spanking is a form of behavioral modification called “positive punishment.” If you want to increase the frequency of behaviors you engage in reinforcement, positive or negative. If you want to decrease the frequency of behaviors you engage in punishment, positive or negative. Positive refers to adding a stimulus, negative to taking it away. Some examples are: giving gold stars in class for good behavior (positive reinforcement), cleaning your room to avoid mom’s nagging (negative reinforcement), spanking to reduce cursing (positive punishment), taking away allowance to reduce cursing (negative punishment). The majority of child psychological research suggests that reinforcement works better than punishment for learning. Punishment is moderately effective when employed immediately and consistently, but otherwise it just doesn’t work. Reinforcement is much stronger as a behavioral modification technique for children (interesting study on why).
Secondly, research has shown that spanking leads to a host of negative consequences. There is a wonderful meta-analysis by Gershoff (2002), where she summarizes the results from 88 studies on child corporal punishment and clearly supports point b. She reports that corporal punishment does result in immediate compliance (sometimes), but also immediate aggression. Corporal punishment actually reduces long-term compliance, and increases long-term aggression and antisocial behavior. There are a number of articles out there about the negative mental health effects of spanking as well.
Statements a and b are relatively well known and empirically supported, however the question remains whether the legislative branch of the United States should regulate child corporal punishment. 31 countries worldwide, with Sweden leading the way, have passed legislation to prohibit all child corporal punishment, with the US as a notable exception. The US is one of two countries along with Somalia that hasn’t ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child that recognizes the human rights of persons under 18. Approximately 90% of American parents have spanked their children according to polls from 1999 and 2005, and rates are relatively consistent. No US state prohibits corporal punishment, although 31 states and the District of Columbia do prohibit corporal punishment in schools. Most states do have statutes addressing child corporal punishment. Alaska has my favorite statute, because what on earth could constitute reasonable and appropriate non-deadly force (and incompetent people?! But that is another issue)?
“When and to the extent reasonably necessary and appropriate to promote the welfare of the child or incompetent person, a parent, guardian, or other person entrusted with the care and supervision of a child under 18 years of age or an incompetent person may use reasonable and appropriate non deadly force upon that child or incompetent person”
Most states have statutes against excessive corporal punishment of a child. This begs the question of what exactly is excessive corporal punishment? Straus and Gershoff provide reasonable definitions of corporal punishment:
“Corporal punishment is the use of physical force with the intention of causing a child to experience pain but not injury for the purposes of correction or control of the child’s behavior” (p. 4).
“Behaviors that do not result in significant physical injury (e.g., spank, slap) are considered corporal punishment, whereas behaviors that risk injury (e.g., punching, kicking, burning) are considered physical abuse.” (p. 564)
But a spank or a slap can result in significant physical injury depending on a number of factors. Further, it is almost impossible to determine cutoffs for mild, moderate, and excessive corporal punishment. In clinical practice, we are mandated to report anything that might leave a mark…but, for how long? How much of a mark? Is spanking once a week ok? What about spanking once a week, but with a wooden spoon, and lasting for an hour? The marks might be gone the next day and let’s face it, can be very well hidden. What about how hard the individual hits? I know that a wooden spoon in the hands of a heavy weight boxer intent on mayhem is a whole lot different than a wooden spoon in the hands of my 94-year-old grandma.
When a child has bruises and broken bones we are relatively certain excessive corporal punishment has occurred, but how do we determine what is acceptable when we get into the grey area where spanking resides? What about those mild and moderate corporal punishment categories where a child still suffers but isn’t going to the hospital? Who is going to take into account frequency, duration, strength of perpetrator, age of child, mechanism etc. of spanking and tell us that it is “acceptable?” I cannot conceive of a failsafe algorithm that would tell us whether a spanking is acceptable.
Therefore, based on the statements that spanking doesn’t work as a behavior technique, it leads to negative consequences for our children immediately and later on in life, countries who have banned it have shown very positive consequences, and that it is almost impossible to provide general criteria for excessive corporal punishment, why don’t we just prohibit spanking all together and create some legislation to that effect?
Sadly, realistically speaking, I don’t see us going black and white and banning all child corporal punishment any time soon on a countrywide basis. One argument against it is that we would be arresting 90% of parents. However, in Sweden, the social service representatives don’t immediately arrest parents for spanking their children, they will tell them it’s against the law and give them some support materials; and the transition to uphold the new legislation was moderate and smooth. But we aren’t Sweden. Assuming, knowing the US, that we aren’t going the route of Sweden, we can start with good personal steps. Can’t we as individuals realize that irrespective of whether spanking is ethically unacceptable, it really doesn’t work? Research has shown that parents who read literature illustrating how useless spanking is a behavioral technique tend to stop doing it or at least reduce the frequency, so let’s start there. Then let’s get some state legislation going against child corporal punishment.
Take a look at the definition of child corporal punishment above. Corporal punishment involves causing a child pain. I bet we can think of something better to do to help our children learn.
“The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.”
Do you prefer Kim, Ms. Dienes, Dr. Dienes, or some other moniker?
iconoclast, ADHD is a real problem and it is also used as an excuse to keep kids, predominantly young boys, under control. And, your information on Ritalin is erroneous. The myth was/is it only works if the person has ADD or ADHD. Ritalin and Adderal are stimulants that help a person focus. Even a person w/o ADD or ADHD will benefit from its use. That’s one reason there is a huge black market on college campuses, particularly around exam time.
It has been wonderful to see the different reactions this blog generated. I loved the personal stories and thank you for sharing them. I remember the one time my dad ever spanked me. We were in the 7 story toy store in London and I wandered away completely distracted by all the toys. I got a tap on my bottom when he found me…mostly I think out of fear. I’ll always remember it and I don’t think I wandered again soon. That experience is in support of the “spanking works” hypothesis that many of you are supporting. The thing is if it is used as a regular behavioral modification tool it really doesn’t. Time outs, token economies…”negative” punishment where things are taken away works best, but reinforcement is always better, rewarding good behavior when you see it. Easier said than done sometimes I know.
I see what you mean about the government being in charge of childrearing…but I do stand by the position that it is HARD to determine what is abuse and what isn’t. There seems to be some confusion about it even in these comments. I’ve encountered this confusion in my own practice and in the students I train. Some things seem pretty clearly acceptable, like my dad’s tap, and some clearly aren’t, like beating, but there is a huge grey area that is very hard to clarify. I think state legislation that discourages child corporal punishment could be a great help…but I know that it might be a while…so in the mean time a personal effort to use alternate behavioral techniques is always a good way to go. And, if you do use spanking, mild spanking in a consistent manner and infrequently following severe infractions seems to be a good way to go in my opinion.
Thanks again for all the great comments. I look forward to writing more!
Jerry– I’m sure you didn’t mean to be flip about what is a very challenging condition to many Americans, both young and older. While it can be argued that ADHD meds are over-prescribed, please read more about this condition before you suggest that it is simply a behavior problem and people are using drugs to get kids under control. If you really don’t have ADHD, those medications won’t have any effect at all on you. You do realize that stimulants are used to calm down people with ADHD. If a person doesn’t have ADHD, you can pretty well imagine what kind of effect the stimulant can have.
I totally agree with professor Turley that a third party using corporal punishment is not a good idea. That was the point of my earlier post about corporal punishment in school. More parent education helps avoid bratty children AND tipping over the line from a pop on the rear to abuse. I have to say that there are kids who push the envelope very hard in schools knowing full well, the means of discipline available to teachers can be very limited (depending upon the community and school district.) There- I’d put a camera in the classroom, so that parents can see firsthand how lovely their kids can be.
Spare the rod and spoil the child was a 2000 year plus experiment that absolutely did not work! I got beatings at my Prep School in Tanganyika for forgeting or stuttering on poetry reciting. I can assure you it never helped! My school was a ‘Beatings will continue until morale improves” school.
At the same time, making all corporal punishment illegal is also the wrong direction, leading to the government unfairly taking children from relatively competant parents.
@samantha
I should not have said it, sooo I deserved my “spanking. ” Just don ‘t nobody tell my mom or dad, OK???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Samantha,
That comment was deleted so I also deleted your comment reposting it. I hope that this is end the personal jabs today. I agree that it was a violation.
This blog has no interest in or patience with the personal distaste that individual posters may have to each other. We do not police passionate discourse, but direct insults are juvenile and distracting — no matter what the poster claims as his or her justification. If a comment appears to violate our rule, you can email me. I may not always agree, but I see absolutely no distinction with those who use the same taunts and insults under the guise of being injured or defending others. This problem has been historically confined to a small number of people on this blog. I will say it again: there is a world of blogs out there that not only tolerate but even encourage such trash talk and personal attacks. We are not one of them.
Thank you Squeeky Fromm.
max-1
mine had “never spank a child in the face, nature provides a better place”
with a picture
Nick Spinelli
I don’t care if it’s free… The question is, can I still swallow that bitter pill?
What Bettykath said.
Max, Your childhood is being analyzed by the team of experts here and a diagnosis and treatment plan will be forthcoming. And, it’s gratis!
Look how far we’ve come.
“Spare the rod, spoil the child.”
“The rule of thumb.”
1839 Alphonse Karr Le Figaro
“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”
“The more things change, the more they stay the same,”
After the impending financial collapse of America,
we might enjoy a dose of Sharia law.
How’d that be?
Mom had a paddle. Wood, with a picture painted on it… something about “this hurts us more than it hurts you” b.s. The last time she used it on me I was going on 6. I laughed so hard when she did… Laughed, I tell ya.never did she make me laugh like that again. Now dad, that was a different beast when he got mad. What ever he had in his hand became that paddle. The last item he ‘broke’ on my backside was his hair brush… no more Mr. Messy hair for him after that.
The short answer is no. My mom raised 3 boys and 2 girls as a single mom. I can only imagine how unruly we would have been had corporal punishment not been available to her on those rare occasions it was needed.
“Female teachers”? How can someone who says this be taken seriously?
Orthorexia is being diagnosed in increasing numbers the past decade.
Jerry, Great point. Female teachers encourage and guilt trip parents w/ boys w/ the oft heard question, “Has Justin been tested for ADHD?” We are drugging the boy out of boys. It is scandalous.
Well, I am always suspect of any new law because those behind it always have something to gain. Here the usual suspects are probably unions for child protective services and associations of psychologists. Imagine the demand for new case workers when every child who is spanked calls 911.
When it comes to concern for child abuse, there is no greater crime than to mutilate a helpless child, as with circumcision. Well, abortion certainly would be greater. That circumcision still exists is damning evidence of man’s weakness for cultural and religious elixirs that so easily subvert intellect and common sense. There’s outrage against religion everywhere, yet those most outraged can’t or won’t even see circumcision for what it really is — mutilation. Isn’t it sexist to ban circumcision for females but not males? Their Kool Aid is as powerful as a pre frontal lobotomy.
It’s the business of government to protect a child from the insanity of mutilation. I do not think it is the business of government to regulate child rearing, short of injury.
Now, f you really are concerned about the welfare of children, how about doing what Russia is already doing — banning dangerous ingredients in food?
Torre just finished thanking all of his family. He did not mention his father. I was blessed w/ two great parents. I thank God every day for that. But, the inspiration of seeing people who had to overcome horror in their childhood as did Joe Torre, is truly humbling. Interesting his speech was given during the turmoil on this thread.
Paddle or Pill? Time to see a doctor?
Today, mom, dad and third parties use other things besides a spanking. And there is a lot!
ADHD Medication to Treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder:
Adderall, Wellbutrin XL, Vyvanse, Concerta, nortriptyline, clonidine, Strattera, bupropion HCI, Amphetamine Salt, Ritalin, Tegretol, Focalin XR, Methlphenidate, Intuniv, Daytrana transdermal………
And the drug list goes on. It’s long, Really!
Thank you, Dr. Dienes,
I was raised by parents who used whatever was handy, wooden spoons, hairbrushes, willow switches, belts (my dad’s favorite), flat of hand, fist. The fist finally got me to tell my father that if he ever, EVER, hit me again, there would be serious consequences. It worked, for me at least. My brothers and sisters all had issues about how to behave, due, I believe, to the overenthusiastic use of corporal punishment.
I have no children but nieces and nephews and a much younger sister were frequently in my care for extended periods. I, too, briefly, used spanking on them. I found that it was alienating them from me and made me really hate myself for hurting them. This made me think about other ways of providing discipline. Age appropriate timeouts or “grounding” worked best. The occasional temper tantrum was to be done in the child’s room.
My experience suggests that hitting a child only teaches them to hit others. There’s always an excuse or rationale. It can lead to a form of John Wayne mentality – settle your disagreement with a fist or a gun.