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A great article on spanking
On Sat, 28 Feb 2004, Doan wrote:
On Sat, 28 Feb 2004, billy f wrote: http://www.christian-parents.net/Chi...16_Bum_Rap.htm from...... http://www.nextcity.com/main/town/12bumrap.htm and this one: Corporal Punishment in the Culture Wars Richard W. Cross With the educational and artistic highlands well occupied in the interminable culture wars, the tireless warriors of cultural deconstruction have shifted their attention back to the siege of the family with their critique of child-rearing practices. Their focus is again on corporal punishment, or spanking. The revival of the battles over the practice of spanking is pointed directly at the family, and the family is quite vulnerable here. Child-rearing practices involving discipline are that part of culture making that is akin to pulling up the weeds. Not a very pleasant task, sometimes quite difficult, often easy to botch, and even easier for an onlooker to criticize. But as on all matters of discipline, these practices cut at the joints in the family by pointing directly at the relationship between parent and child in the formation of habits that sustain culture. Twenty years ago, spanking was a major point of contention, but the legislative efforts to retrict or prohibit spanking then were only successful in the schools. The tide has turned. Over the last three years there has been a spurt of litigation against parents who have spanked their own children and the European Court of Human Rights is currently litigating a case against a parent's use of corporal punishment to overturn British law. Legislative initiatives both nationally, as well as internationally have taken on a significant momentum. The United Nations Treaty Convention on the Rights of Children, which has over 125 signatories and may be put before the U.S.Senate, proscribes the use of spanking. Several European countries already outlaw the practice, including Austria, Finland, Italy, Norway and Sweden. And some others have had the matter under review,including Germany. A group of sociologists who have been highly successful in disseminating research and popular literature that can only be described as abolitionist, has begun to use language that envisions protections against spanking as a fundamental human right. Murray Straus and associates pronounce: Children are next on the [civil rights] agenda, including the right of a child to be free from the risk of physical assault by parents. The basis of this change is not evidence that corporal punishment harms children... Instead, the change is in moral principles or beliefs. Of course, in the name of civil rights large segments of our people have undergone a rather substantial change of moral sensibility about the family. As a result, it would seem that we have an explosion in illegitimacy, abandonment, and youth suicide. These rights and their link to domestic violence are left unnoted by Straus, nor does he specify what other rights children may have. However, his rhetoric is becoming de regueur in academia and the professions. Some notables have been swept along in the rhetorical tide. Benjamin Spock after 35 years finally came out againstspanking in the late '80s. Amongst more serious researchers, Penn State psychologist Jay Belsky was recently dismayed that the courts afford more protection to criminals than children who are spanked in the schools. He laments that the general plight of children will worsen as long as parents "rear their offspring in a society in which violence is rampant, corporal punishment is condoned as a child-rearing technique, and parenthood itself is construed in terms of ownership." This line of thinking fails to account for two very basic distinctions. First, that the justifiable use of coercion with children is directed principally to the good of the child, because it is intended to be educative. Surely, we wouldn't describe aparent picking up and carrying a resistant child as tantamount to kidnapping. But, just as surely, if I forced someone into my car, as I have done many times to my own children, as a competent adult the person would rightly feel imposed upon. Second, children are not competent to make rational judgments about their behavior, because they lack emotional stability, as well as experience and a fully developed capacity for reasoning. Yet they are capable of acting and emoting just the same. At those times when affection or good judgement fail,they do good through fear alone. Social scientists miss these distinctions because they have neglected the basic insight-captured by the religious notion of original sin-that man must work at being good, since by nature we are inclined to take the course of least resistance. Lacking this fundamental insight, it becomes easy to distort traditional practices on punishment as a kind of revenge, or constraint as ownership. Belsky's allusion to the legal protections of the Constitution raises a further and more ominous question whether we wish to redefine familial relations in the same legalistic terms as those that already apply between the state and its citizens. Are our attempts to secure the welfare of children advanced by equating the treatment of children who are spanked with the coercive restraints employed by the state against the criminal? If the law must be structured such that the government secures the relationship between parent and child, as Belsky suggests, then we are in a very bleak condition as a society, since trust is at the base of any social order, and trust begins in the family, not in government. Unlike many other battles in the culture wars, it is remarkable that there has never been anything close to a consensus among research psychologists on the question of spanking. Although the National Education Association and the American Psychological Association each passed resolutions condemning the practice over twenty years ago, behind the scenes the debate over spanking has persisted. The disputedquestion is whether psychological research shows that the ordinary use of spanking is beneficial, benign, or harmful to children under its domain. The good news on this particular front is that the research evidence, which was quite mixed twenty years back, is becoming increasingly clear in support of the practice. Nevertheless, to date, the public relations advantage remains with the spanking abolitionists, such as Murray Straus, whose reports saturated the media the last week of this August. Strauss and his cohort continue to promote the notion that spanking children for misbehavior is a major cause of violence and mental illness. Psychological researchers are likely to play a pivotal role in the debate, if their research on the corporal punishment of children is ever made widely known. For over twenty years they suspected that the data simply did not support the sweeping resolutions of the professional societies and the persistant publications of Straus' group. First, data were inconsistent, suggesting spanking was harmful or benign. Second, psychologists knew that researching spanking in the home was necessary to settle the issue, and that this kind of research was very complex, time consuming, and far from complete. The easier research strategies could not resolve the main issues. Third, the theoretical models that were used to explain how spanking was bad did not adequately conform to several pertinent theories. Fourth, early on in the more open debate of the 1960s, researchers knew that the push for political correctness could easily overwhelm dispassionate scientific discussion. A few prominent researchers dug in their heels, and James Dobson was the lone professional who stood firm with his book Dare to Discipline. In spite of all these doubts, the APA adopted the antispanking resolution in the mid-seventies, after which the issue moved to the back burner. Following twenty plus years of simmering, the issue is again coming to a researcher's boil. In Chicago in February of 1996, the American Academy of Pediatrics and Albert Einstein College of Medicine sponsored a major conference on CP. Two months later, Chapel Hill hosted another conference entitled Research on Discipline: the State of the Art, Deficits, and Implications. The proceedings of each were published respectively in Pediatrics (October, 1996) and the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. (August, 1997) As expected, the Goliath of the abolitionists, sociologist Murray Straus, made his presence felt. However, two Davids were present, one at each conference. Each landed serious blows to abolitionist orthodoxy that were reinforced with extensive commentary by Berkeley researcher Diana Baumrind (perhaps today's most prominent parenting researcher, who has been looking at childrearing practices since the 1950s.) As a result of these conferences and the data which have been accumulating for several years now, it is no surprise that Straus, as a social scientist who is supposed to be concerned about the facts, demurs. The basis of this change is not evidence that corporal punishment harms children. Indeed. At the Chicago conference,psychologist Robert Larzelere of Boys' Town gave special attention to the types of research designs and their various problems. He concluded that a substantial number of the studies that purport to provide strong findings revealing the harmful effects of spanking, such as Straus', suffer from serious flaws. The well-designed studies show that spanking did not produce the bad effects so routinely reported. Also, evidence is mounting that moderate spanking of younger children is actually beneficial. Baumrind largely concurred, noting, "A Blanket Injunction Against Disciplinary Use of Spanking Is not Warranted by the Data." Other conference participants such as Drs. Friedman and Schonberg were refreshingly candid: "Although we attempted to achieve neutrality, we must confess, that we had a preconceived notion that corporal punishment, including spanking, was innately and always bad." (p. 857) Larzelere and Baumrind seem to be making some headway. At Chapel Hill, psychologist Marjorie Linder-Gunnoe of Calvin College criticized the dominant theory in the sociology of violence--the children who experience or witness spanking, simply desire to imitate it. She showed that the effects ofspanking are mediated by the meaning that the child attaches to the parent's actions. This is a way of stating the thoroughly common sense idea that children interpret parental actions according to their sense of justice. If children realize they have done something wrong,they can interpret a spanking not as an undeserved assault as some would have it, but rather as just deserts. The emerging consensus in this group can be summarized as follows: First and foremost, the short and long-term effects of spanking are influenced by the child's perception of its fairness; spanking that conforms to clear rules, and a reasonable explanation, legitimize the punishment for the child, and do not encourage the child simply to use violence to settle a score. Second, timing and vigilance by the parent is important; all punishment, including spanking, loses effectiveness if it is not administered shortly after the bad deed. Third, spanking is most effective when it is used in conjunction with other non-corporal disciplinary measures, and where there is a routine display of parental affection outside the disciplinary encounter. Fourth, punishments that include spanking, are especially suited for children between the ages of two and six years, and it helps the child internalize the parents' values. Fifth, temperament affects the efficaciousness of various kinds of discipline; some boys who are temperamentally impulsive may not be socialized without spanking, whereas temperamentally fearful or anxious children may suffer in their social development because of it. Despite the mounting evidence pointing toward the potentially beneficial effects of spanking under specific circumstances, conference organizers were reluctant to acknowledge the implications of the major findings. The "Consensus Statements" in Pediatrics declare that: "There are no data bearing on the effectiveness of spanking to control misbehavior..." (p.853) The Archives editors conclude, "...that undesirable discipline includes inconsistency, noncontingent discipline, harsh punishment,corporal punishment for infants, and negative parental demeanor." Alas, the editors fail to mention that none of these points has been under serious debate for more than twenty years. And in a seeming miff, the Archives editor Dr. DeAngelis avers in the leading pull quote "I still believe that it is better to spare the child and spoil the rod." The issue of spanking will continue to be an uphill battle for the near future, but at least some reinforcements are becoming available. Compared to so many encounters with the professions and research communities in the culture wars, there is a ray of hope on the question of corporal punishment if the word can get out. Psychological research is providing the ever-mounting technical evidence on the side of commonsense: too little punishment leads to unruly children. And this is as it should be, since the balance in family life is found where the practice of punishment is a part of the larger practice of love. Although the village cannot make parents love their children, if it proscribes a natural tool of child-rearing, it may make children very much harder to love. Author Note Richard W.Cross, Ph.D. has taught in graduate psychology training programs at Eastern Illinois University. He currently teaches psychology at Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio. |
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