To Spank or Not to Spank?

Yes, that is the question.  When I was reading articles and drafting my recent post on the frightening child abuse statistics in this country, I also began to think about spanking.  As I mentioned then, that's a topic for another day.  Today, in fact.

I will again provide the caveat that I am not necessarily equating child abuse and spanking. Sometimes, it's simply a form of discipline. My parents spanked me when I was a kid - that was before the advent of "time outs" - and I do not feel like I was abused at all.

Photo from corpun.com

But some parents don't just swat their kids' bottoms when they're frustrated. Some hit hard. Some use other things than hands, such as belts or other household objects.

And that, dear readers, is abusive in my book.

I recently read an article on Parents.com called "The Great Spanking Debate."  The article noted that the term "spanking" encompasses many forms of corporal punishment.  I was surprised to learn that 81% of people in the Parents.com reader poll had spanked their children.....even though it is strongly disfavored by the American Academy of Pediatrics.


What I'm wondering is this: where do you stand on this issue?  Is spanking abusive? Is it a perfectly acceptable and effective form of discipline? Or is it to be disfavored, but somewhere in between the two extremes?

I fall into the latter category. I do NOT think spanking is an effective form of discipline because I think it can make kids fear their parents and I don't think it really teaches kids a lesson. Sure, they may in the future refrain from doing whatever it was that prompted the spanking....but have they learned why it was not okay? Are they going to try to avoid that behavior in the future because it was wrong?

I don't think so.

Sure, spanking may sometimes (definitely not always) prompt the obedience you want from your child, but it's far less likely that he or she learned something and far more likely that he or she simply doesn't want to get hit again. Is that really how we want our kids to learn to adapt their behavior?

Printed 5/3/04, Dallas Morning News

It's hard to remember what was going on in my child's mind when I got spanked. All I remember is trying to take off as fast as possible when I saw a hand coming for me. I know it made me mad. I don't think I was really scared. But I also don't think I learned from it. In fact, I had a verbal attitude problem that persisted far past spanking age, and being disciplined that way didn't make me any less of a smart ass.

On the other extreme though, I don't necessarily think spanking is always abusive. I think it depends on how the parent acts, how angry he or she is, and how the child is spanked. While I don't think it's good, I don't think a swat on the bottom should really be equated with repeated lashings with a belt. It's a tough line to draw....which is why I'm not going to draw it. I'm not going to spank my child no matter how angry I get.

But I will say that I'm not sure how legitimate some concerns I've read are, such as that children who are spanked grow up to be violent people or think that physical aggression is an acceptable problem-solving method. Neither is true for me or my brother, or for many other people I know who were punished that way as children. Again, I suppose it depends on what the discipline is like.

However, it can be hard to know what to do when time outs don't seem to be effective. Thankfully, with Anna, taking away favorite activities is pretty successful when it comes to behavior correction. Having a conversation about why she got in trouble is important too. I want her to be able to draw connections between the time out or the loss of a privilege and the bad behavior so she can actually learn from it.

What do you think? Do you spank? If not, why not? And if so, is it effective? How do you feel about it?