I feel it is important to make it very clear to all concerned that the spanking debate within the scientific and academic communities is dead, and has been for a number of years. The most substantial indicator of this development is evidenced by the fact that virtually every professional organization in the US and Canada dealing with the care and treatment of children has taken a public stand against the practice of spanking. .
Based on the overwhelming body of research conducted over the past 50+ years linking spanking to a host of risk factors, the professional consensus against the practice has grown to worldwide proportions…even to the point of that 52 countries have legislated outright bans on spanking. …including countries like Sweden, Finland, Austria, Norway, Croatia, Denmark, Hungary, Israel, Cyprus, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Germany, Latvia, Iceland, Romania, Greece, New Zealand, Austria, Venezuela, Spain, Portugal, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, France and the Ukraine… with Italy, South Africa, Scotland, Canada and Ireland apparently in the process of doing the same. It should also be noted that every industrialized country in the world except the US has instituted outright bans on corporal punishment in schools. The evidence is available, and the evidence has ruled against the practice of spanking in an irresistibly conclusive manner.
Just as one can find views supporting the promotion of spanking (typically) on websites sponsored by fundamentalist Christian sects, one can also find supporting views promoting homophobia, racism, misogyny, and other propaganda. of “hate groups”. Due to the fact that the actual agendas of these sites are often deceptively disguised under organizational titles such as ‘Family Council’, ‘People’s Choice’, ‘Rights and Freedoms’, etc., people are forced to exercise very judicious information is available on the Internet. Some netizens have had to learn the hard way that the Internet abounds with persuasive presentations of “facts and figures” that can be shown to represent nothing more than religious, political, or philosophical attempts to spread self-serving misinformation.
Having spent over 40 years reviewing/evaluating the research on this topic of child spanking, I can state with a high degree of confidence that there has never been a peer-reviewed study that has been able to establish the efficacy of spanking as a means of long-term behavior modification; as an effective teaching modality; as effective punishment; or as a means of instilling self-discipline. There have also been no research findings published in peer-reviewed professional journals that would serve to refute previous research.
This earlier research found that spanking is associated with a risk of undesirable emotional consequences; a risk of physical injury; a risk of counterproductive behavioral outcomes; a risk of emergence of dependency on external controls; and a propensity toward behavior directed by authority. Furthermore, there has never been any research data to show that spanking does not carry a risk to the quality of the parent-child relationship (and I should add that conservative, pro-spanking editorial reviews of previous research findings do not constitute a real investigation, as is sometimes done). claimed to be the case).
However, there are some whippersnappers who will find reasons to discount, ignore or dismiss research findings from experimental field studies related to Social Sciences. Well, it is especially to these people that I would like to address the startling new research findings, which represent the most serious consequences of corporal punishment yet uncovered… when done in the form of documented scientific evidence*.
These revelations come from brain research studies that have provided CAT SCAN images showing an abnormal lack of brain development (within the part of the brain responsible for emotional functioning) in children who had been spanked as a punitive measure. For the sake of sample homogeneity, the researchers chose subjects for their study who had been categorized as ‘abused’ children. Common sense tells us that this does not rule out the possibility of a lesser degree of brain damage occurring in spanked children who are subjected to a lesser degree of harmless violence.
In other words, it would be fun to assume that a child must first suffer bruises, cuts, or welts (or other injuries) before brain damage occurs as a result of physical punishment. Rather, it is much more logical to infer that acts of physical aggression towards young children can alter or impede the optimal conditions necessary to facilitate a normal process of healthy brain development.
As far as I’m concerned, this new area of research (apparently not yet freely available on the Internet) represents the most compelling and undeniable reason ever discovered for persuading parents to stop (or never start) hitting their children. children as a punitive measure. And I hope any pro-spankers reading this feel the same way. It is hard to imagine a parent who would be willing to treat their child in a way that would carry a remote risk of causing a measure of brain damage to their child.
But despite all that being said, we really shouldn’t need research to end child beating any more than we need research to end wife beating. As a society, there was no need for research findings to convince us of the harmful effects associated with the practice of physically punishing wives.
Instead, when society reached the point where it was no longer willing to grant social tolerance to the tradition of husbands physically disciplining their wives, our decision to do so was based on having progressed socially toward the higher morality of a greater humanity. . Perhaps our next step forward should be to make a decision to start acknowledging that children are also subservient to those same protections against being punitively beaten.
We no longer see any adult member of our society remaining outside the jurisdiction of protective laws once enjoyed only by the most privileged and ‘deserving’ (i.e. the white males who made the laws), regardless of race, gender, religion, ethnic group. , or sexual orientation. None of our adult citizens remains legally unprotected from being violated through harassment, threats, defamation, discrimination or being the victim of violence in any degree or form.
So, given our heritage of bestowing greater humanity on those of lower social status by receiving them as our equals in the eyes of the law (in terms of violent treatment), would it be so out of character for us to also protect members? youngest and weakest members of our society by allowing them to join those of us who already share the safety and comfort of security provided under the umbrella of legal protections against violence?
Bringing our little ones into the fold doesn’t really seem that magnanimous when you consider that we’ve already been willing to share the shelter of our umbrella of assault laws with even the most vicious adult criminals. After all, children are the last segment of our shared human collective that still remains easy prey for acts of physical aggression.
We show a strange sense of priorities when we don’t let the prison guard pull out a paddle and start beating the unruly buttocks of a sociopathic inmate on death row who kills for the thrill of it, but we find ourselves helpless. , helpless little children as servants of such treatment.
The fact is that we define corporal punishment of inmates as ‘cruel and unusual punishment’, ‘guard brutality’ or ‘aggravated assault’. And, if physical punishment is repeated as a routine punitive measure, such treatment of prisoners would fall under the definition of ‘Torture’.
Why would a murderous inmate be less subject to physical discipline than a helpless 3 year old?
Logically, morally, humanely, and scientifically, the spanking debate is dead… except for those who would oppose further social progress.
As we evolve as a society, we need to keep in mind that historically there was a time when it was acceptable to legally own other people; a time when the mentally ill were generally considered to be possessed by evil spirits; a time when men legally shot each other in official duels; a time when public hangings were attended as a family outing complete with picnic basket; a time when public flogging was considered an acceptable punishment; a time when it was a gentleman’s agreement that husbands were not to beat their wives with a cane that was ’rounder than the thumb’ (later known as ‘the general rule’); and there was a time when there were no laws against parents severely beating their children (killing children was unacceptable, of course, but the occasional accidental mutilation as a result of disciplinary action was tolerated).
Obviously, we no longer allow these punishments. The time has come for us to further increase our level of societal sophistication by coming to a general agreement that any degree of physical punishment used against children is socially unacceptable and repugnant like the violent behaviors of the past that we have decided to put behind us.
