Please Don't Spank or Slap Your Children

My brother Wally, age 3, and me, age 10

My reaction to a Reuters story today [or read it here] was Well, of course! But then I realized that a lot of Americans might see things differently. Those are the 90% of Americans who, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians, think that spanking is an appropriate method for disciplining children.

As someone who was slapped across the face, spanked on the buttocks with a hand, and whipped on the buttocks with leather belts as a child, I'm appalled that any percentage of Americans believes that children should be spanked. The story from Reuters says that spanking can fuel aggression and anxiety in children and can cause other behavior problems:

Children who are spanked when they misbehave are more likely to be anxious and aggressive than children who are disciplined in nonphysical ways, research shows. This is true even if spanking is the "cultural norm."

Whether parents should spank their children or use other forms of physical discipline is controversial. Some experts argue that children should not be spanked when they act out, citing evidence that it leads to more, rather than fewer, behavior problems and it could escalate into physical abuse. There are data to support this argument.

Anxiety? Well, of course. But they left out other effects: low self-esteem, fear of adults, a sense of powerlessness, destroyed parent–child relationships, social difficulties in childhood, difficulty forming normal intimate relationships in adulthood, and the potential to pass this destructive way of relating on to future generations.

My brother and sister and I all have major psychic scars from the physical and emotional abuse our parents meted out. I'm on my second marriage (I had self-esteem too poor to allow me to pick someone the first time around who was good for me), my sister's on her third marriage, and my brother (who had the added burden of being gay in a homophobic family) has a hard time seeing himself as worthy of anyone's love.

I remember being 7 years old and being on vacation at my maternal grandparents' home with my siblings and parents, and watching as my father slapped my infant brother's thighs, as my brother lay crying in an infant seat, and then said, "I'll give you something to cry about." What kind of person slaps a child, much less one younger than a year old?

Years of abuse like that are why, when my first marriage ended and I had a chance to take back my birth surname, I decided to instead take the surname O'Moore, the birth name of my maternal grandmother, a sweet woman who had never hit me. I did not want to be associated by name with people who hit children—with the people who had hit me.

What are you teaching your children when you hit them?

• That it's okay to hit someone smaller and weaker than they are
• That their feelings don't matter
• That their bodies are not their own
• That adults can't control their own anger
• That love equals hitting
• That adults aren't to be trusted; one time they'll show affection, and the next time they'll hit

Are those the lessons you really want them to learn? Do you want them to grow up harboring vast stores of anger toward—and even hatred for—you? Do you want to contribute to American society's tendency to violence?

There are ways to teach children good behavior and self-control that don't involve hitting:

1. The goal of discipline is to teach children acceptable behavior. Whenever possible, teach children what you want to see rather than punishing them.
   
 
2. View children's misbehavior as a mistake in judgment. It will be easier to think of ways to teach more acceptable behavior.
   
 
3. Never hit or shake infants. They do not know right and wrong. They do not misbehave on purpose. They need love and protection, not punishment.
   
 
4. Create a safe environment for children. Baby-proof the house. Distract or remove infants and toddlers when they are doing something they shouldn't be doing.
   
 
5. Provide order and consistency. Whenever possible have regular times for meals, studying and bedtime.
   
 
6. Give toddlers and preschoolers age-appropriate choices and consequences.
   
 
7. Establish family rules that are appropriate for children's ages. Keep them few in number with clear and reasonable consequences for not obeying.
   
 
8. Develop a trusting relationship with children by protecting them from harm, by being honest and trustworthy, and by exhibiting predictable and mature behavior.
   
 
9. Children need to hear more good things about themselves than bad things. Offer praise for appropriate behavior. Praise will increase that behavior.
   
 
10. Adopt a "no-hitting" attitude. No one has a right to hit anyone else in the household ... that includes hitting children for misbehavior.

Please stop using violence against your children. They will be more whole people, and the world will be a better place. Thank you.

Take 2

corporal punishment violence children parenting discipline misbehavior EditorMom