Opinion

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Last updated April 5, 2007 5:01 p.m. PT
There's no gray area: Don't hit kids

By SUSAN PAYNTER
P-I COLUMNIST

There are no two sides to spanking -- only the backside of the kid on
the receiving end.

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Susan Paynter takes on the week's news Friday mornings 10-11 on KUOW-
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Not the side of the parent who reasons that it's OK if the kid is too
small to understand words of warning, even about the possibility of
imminent death from running into the street. (A child that little also
is inherently too undersized and out of proportion to the size of the
spanker for a smack from a full-grown adult.)

Not the side of the parent who claims it's OK if no marks are left. Or
if they "never spank in anger." Or if, after they are whupped, their
children are reassured that they are loved. (Can we say "mixed
message?")

And certainly not the side of a public-school P.E. teacher who
allegedly used a yardstick to "discipline" a fifth-grader on the leg.

By now you've heard about the Hawthorne Elementary School physical-
education instructor who recently was suspended by the district and is
under investigation by the City Attorney's Office for possible
criminal charges. According to police, the teacher went to her office
and came back packing a yardstick when two kids were shoving each
other in class.

No, shoving is not acceptable. That's why schools have rules as strict
and intricate as those of the Geneva Convention when it comes to
student-on-student physical contact and intimidation. If your kid has
been caught even poking another child in class or in the hallway you
know how swiftly official wrath descends. Mechanisms are in place.

Without taking a cleansing breath, the teacher in question reportedly
hit one of the boys on the leg. Then, later, during class, she yanked
the boy's friend by the sweater, dragging him some distance while
warning him not to intervene in other people's problems or "he was
going to get shot."

If, indeed, the investigation proves that all of this is true (and
there have been allegations of previous problems), this teacher
deserves to be out on her own behind.

Oh, I know, I know. Messages and calls beginning with words like
"These kids ...," "You liberals ..." and "First, you have to get their
attention ...," are en route as we speak.

You spanked all four of your wonderful kids, and they grew up to be a
doctor, a missionary, a cop and a preacher.

But, after interviewing countless parents, child-development
specialists, psychologists and practitioners of juvenile justice over
the years, I am convinced of this: Kids learn nothing at the other end
of a hand, fist, belt or backscratcher except a sense of impotent rage
that they are highly likely to pass on like an ugly, poisonous hand-me-
down.

Between the raised arm and the point of contact the adult trades
instruction for assault, proving he has lost the high ground. There's
a reason schools abandoned corporal punishment a decade ago unless
it's to keep a kid from hurting himself or someone else. And that
reason goes beyond a potential lawsuit.

My high school still used a "hack paddle," especially on boys. But,
then, parents used to sit in closed cars and smoke. Throw kids in the
back without seat belts. Tell their children that big boys don't cry.
I hope, over time, we evolve and learn.

Still, every year, we read news stories about "discipline" gone
grotesquely wrong. About children injured by the power and size
differential.

Two years ago I wrote a column about an otherwise loving, even
admirable foster mom who lost her kids and her foster-care license for
leaving welts on her daughter's behind with a backscratcher.

It was a tragic loss, both for the mom and her kids. But, for a host
of reasons, we hold foster families to high standards. Should the
benchmark for teachers be lower?

Three years earlier there was the infamous parking lot punching of a 4-
year-old in the back seat of a van by a mom named Madelyne Gorman
Toogood. TV aired store surveillance video of the sickening event over
and over until we all turned numb.

"Give her a break. She just lost her temper," readers scolded when I
wrote about the mother's repeated thumping of the helpless child
strapped in a car seat. "Here comes the nanny state again, telling us
how to raise our kids."

Some excused spanking as a "cultural thing," claiming that it's
somehow all right, not a sign of a lack of parenting skills and even
"traditional" that African American families spank. They said that
white folks just don't understand.

But an equal number of readers said it's simple. "Big people don't hit
little people."

One African American mom I talked to then spoke about breaking the
cycle with her own son after growing up with welts from a "spare the
rod, spoil the child" dad who left her a "legacy of anger" that lasted
long after her leg welts had healed.

That mom learned the hard way that a hand, a switch or a yardstick
measures up as a darned poor parenting tool.

No two ways about it, that's a lesson any teacher ought to know.
Susan Paynter's column appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Call
her at 206-448-8392 or e-mail .