Regarding Spanking: Don't

It doesn't take much time or space to say all that needs to be said about spanking! In a word, don't!

Spanking is intended to hurt a child, and by that hurt communicate some lesson or message. But it is a poor tool, a barbaric method, for teaching good behavior. I was delighted to learn that Representative Major Owens (D-NY) introduced legislation that would deny federal funding to schools that physically punish students. Noted Mr. Owens, "Of all public institutions, schools remain the only institutions in which battery and assault are legal, accepted forms of discipline," which he further characterized as a "barbaric practice." Mr. Irwen Hyman, Director of the Philadelphia-based National Center for the Study of Corporal Punishment and Alternatives in the Schools, reported that "There is no pedagogical, psychological, or moral reason to continue hitting and inflicting pain on children in the name of discipline." On the contrary. As reported by the National Education Association and the National Association of School Psychologists, research indicates that physical punishment modifies student behavior only in the short run, and often leads to psychological problems and academic failure. Such aversive approaches to managing student behavior also prompts students to avoid and escape school, which helps explain the nearly one million students who drop out of American schools annually. It also produces counter-control (or get-even) behavior. I recently read where a group of students, fed up with the coercive policies of their high school, went on a rampage and slashed the tires on the cars of over 40 teachers. (Parents, at the time of this writing, only 22 states ban corporal punishment in their schools. If you live in a state where corporal punishment is allowed in schools, I urge you to use every reasonable, lawful means at your disposal to get it outlawed.) Rather then correcting "bad" behavior, spanking teaches a child that when someone does something that is annoying or frustrating, or causes one to be angry, the way to handle that is to strike out physically, to hurt someone. This is a terrible message to deliver to a child, a message that TV, for example, gives our children dozens of times a day! Is it any wonder that we live in a world of violence?

While I was sitting in the boarding area of an airport waiting for an airplane, across from me was a boy whom I estimated to be 5 years old, and his parents. He was sitting between his parents fidgeting about as 5-year-olds do, excited about riding in an airplane. Sharply and abruptly, his father angrily said, "Knock that off or I'm going to smack you!" The boy's sad eyes looked up to his father then he slid off his seat and climbed into the seat on the other side of his mother, took hold of her arm and drew himself close to her. He was seeking protection. It was a sad but dramatic illustration of the effects of coercion: the boy escaped and avoided the coercer, his father. Pitifully, the father probably thought he did exactly the correct thing since the kid immediately quit fidgeting and became very quiet, in fact docile.

I agree, spanking and other coercive methods might work for the moment. That is, the child might momentarily quit behaving badly. But think about it. The child is being good only to avoid being hurt. Being good is not necessarily desirable to the child. No attention whatsoever has been given to good behavior. As one parent put it so well:

No child is ever 'asking for a whipping.' He or she is asking for attention, concern, involvement, love. Unfortunately, in many families, kids don't get that parental involvement until and unless they screw up. In other words, from a child's viewpoint, negative attention is better than no attention at all. If more men talked with their sons and daughters, we'd have a better and safer society.
C.D. Grant, Cloverdale, California

Parents spank children to punish them only to find that they turn right around and behave the same way again and again. More spankings follow with the assumption being that once the necessary pain levels have been reached, the children will finally get the message and "shape up." Have the children been punished? No! Their behavior has been reinforced. This is evident because the behavior recurs. Remember the principle: the only way we can know whether what we do to a child is punishing or reinforcing is to observe what happens to the child's behavior in the future. If the behavior continues, or becomes more frequent or more intense, then our response-even a spanking-was reinforcing! If the behavior grows weaker, occurs less frequently, or stops entirely then we know our response was punishing. That's the only way we can know. We have to watch to see what happens to behavior in the future.

Most of the spankings I observe, and am told about by parents, are really an expression of parental frustration and anger, not a method for teaching good behavior. Parents vent their frustrations and anger on the kid. The spanking has little or nothing to do with what's good for the child. One day dad comes home after having had a good day at work, the kid behaves badly and dad just lets it pass. The next day, dad comes home from a bad day at work, the kid does the very thing that was ignored the day before, but this time it set dad off and POW!, the kid gets a beating. What does the child learn? He has learned to avoid dad. He has learned that dad hurts. Then later in life when the boy is really hurting and craves comfort and understanding in an uncertain and insensitive world, guess who he isn't going to go to for help! You guessed it!

Pain is not a bonding agent. Rather pain teaches us to avoid the pain giver. The better way is to let social or natural consequences of behavior deliver the message. If the child misbehaves, he deprives himself of desirable privileges; he separates himself from pleasure, and has no one to blame but himself. But when pain is imposed on him, as with a spanking, it is easy for the child to resent the pain giver while justifying the bad behavior. Every lesson has been taught except the right one.

Parents, eliminate spanking as a teaching tool. It does teach, but it teaches the wrong thing! And those it teaches pass the lesson along to future generations, and coercion lives on. What a terrible legacy! Hitting, which spanking is, becomes a learned behavior. It becomes paired with anger and frustration. Before long, every bit of anger or frustration is accompanied by hitting and spanking. The child learns that the natural thing to do when he is angry or frustrated is to hit. Hitting leads to hurting, and hurting others leads to the degeneration of society in the form of assaults, abuse, riots, homicide, and war. It typically begins benignly by parents who really don't believe in spanking. A gentle slap on the hand or tap on the bottom. Then a little harder and a little more often as the child gets older. My oldest daughter, a school teacher, gave me a copy of a wonderful story, a child's account of spanking entitled "Momma Spanks Me." It's a story of inconsistencies seen through the eyes of a child:

Why is doing a thing all right sometimes when doing the same thing you get spanked for other times? Spankings come and go so suddenly you can never be sure about anything.

Daddy is big and he spanks me. Spankings hurt. Somebody is always licking somebody on our block but not any of the little kids ever like any of the big ones. Daddy says any fool can force his will on someone smaller.

My parents don't believe in spanking. They do it because they are mad about something. What would they do if they believed in spanking?

-Author Unknown

Spanking does not teach a child how to behave. It only teaches a child how not to behave.

The spanking behavior of parents is maintained by three things:

1. Ignorance. They don't know a better way.
2. Immediacy of results. The child immediately comes into line, thus convincing the parents that spanking works. The fact that the behavior for which the child was spanked continues, and even gets worse, almost never suggests to the parents that spanking is really not solving anything.
3. Conventional wisdom. Since everyone does it, and since it's been a staple parenting strategy for thousands of years, it must be the right thing, or at least a right thing to do. How often I hear fathers say, "My dad beat the tar out of me every time I misbehaved. If I even looked like I was going to do something bad-WHAP! He gave it to me good. It was the best thing my dad could have done for me. I thank him every day of my life for keeping me on the straight and narrow."

I sincerely hope, by the time you've finished this book, you'll accept as fact that spanking, or any kind of hitting for the purpose of inflicting pain as a method of teaching, has its origins not in the science of behavior but in ignorance, half truths, and our barbaric past. Furthermore, I hope you'll abandon it completely and use scientifically sound teaching methods as the strategy of choice when your children need to be taught to behave well.

The enduring and venerable adage "Spare the rod and spoil the child" has inadvertently heaped mountains of misery on children in the guise of discipline masquerading as good parenting. It has its origin in a Biblical scripture found in Proverbs 13:24, "He that spareth the rod hateth his son; but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes." Subsequent verses in Proverbs reinforce the notion that "beating" children is a reasonable way of correcting them (Chapter 23:14). It is not my intention to take on the book of Proverbs, nor to question the wisdom of Solomon, but a lot has been learned through science in the last 3,000 years about teaching children to behave well, and I'm sure if Solomon were alive today, and as wise as he was then, he'd counsel us to learn wiser and more fitting lessons from science. He would probably even quote his father, David, who said, "Thy rod and thy staff comfort me" (Psalms 23:4).

I heard a wonderful, modern-day adaptation of the word "rod." It was redefined as "the word of God"; hence, in this context, the scripture would read "Spare the word of God and spoil the child." I like that! In light of what contemporary research about high and low risk families has taught us, not only is that a fitting interpretation, it's good advice.

Now a note of caution. I'm sure you have heard it said that to every rule there is an exception. Though, in a literal sense, I don't regard what I'm about to say as an exception to the rule "don't spank your children," it might be unjustifiably used by some as an excuse to use pain as a teaching or management tool. Just remember, what I'm about to touch on is a caution, not an excuse. Here goes.

In some clinical settings, where it is used therapeutically, is highly controlled and supervised, and is very selectively administered by expertly trained professionals who document every imaginable facet of the procedure, pain-based therapies are altogether appropriate. In fact, in some instances, for example with self-mutilating subjects, it might very well be the only therapeutic procedure left. Such procedures, used under the controls described above at leading research institutions and treatment centers across , have freed children of a life bound up in straight jackets, confined to padded enclosures, and manacled to a bed or a crib. In such instances, pain-based therapies have been found, after all else failed, to be the most humane treatment available. It is not unlike a surgeon who might have to inflict some pain and discomfort-such as rebreaking a bone then resetting it-in order to do what is ultimately in the best interest of the patient. As with a medical procedure that would be accompanied by pain, pain-based behavioral treatment is typically short-lived, professionally managed, and the client is ultimately better off because of it.

I am very aware that this is a highly emotionally charged issue. In fact, there are state legislatures that are considering legislation that would ban any and all behavioral therapies that involve pain-based methods. After 33 years working with behavior problems, and knowing well the range of treatment needs, I regard such bans as irresponsible. In the final analysis, in matters of extreme behaviors that have failed to respond to any other clinically-sound treatment, for the well-being of the involved individual, treatment must be a matter of science, not a matter of emotion or politics.

NOW TO REVIEW

1. Behavior responds better to positive than to negative consequences; therefore, spanking a child is a super crummy consequence for an inappropriate behavior.
2. Spanking is more likely to be an out-of-control expression of parental frustration than it is a serious attempt to teach children to behave better.
3. Teaching children to behave well is initially more appropriate than hurting a child for behaving badly.
4. Inflicting pain-even the threat of inflicting pain-on children will prompt children to escape us, avoid us, and even get even with us.
5. In highly selected instances, as part of a well controlled and managed form of professionally administered therapy, pain-based treatments may be appropriate.