Curiouser and curiouser ...

.... is the mind of the spanker.

http://www.angriesout.com/parents10.htm


Talk, Trust & Feel
Therapeutics
Dr. Lynne Namka
Licensed Psychologist
www.AngriesOut.com


What The Research Literature Says About Corporal Punishment

Lynne Namka, Ed. D © 2002



Should you spank your child for misbehavior? Psychologist,
Elizabeth Thompson Gershoff examined 55 studies of corporal punishment
to determine the long lasting effects. She reviewed the studies and
found more negatives than positives regarding spanking. Corporal
punishment was defined as using force and physical pain to get the
child to control his behavior.

Discipline is the use of an aversive consequence to decrease or
eliminate negative behavior, but does not involve physical force.
Discipline teaches the child what to do and how to behave the next
time. Discipline helps the child internalize your standards and values
so that he will have internal reasons to act appropriately. You
discipline every time you reason with your child explaining what he did
wrong and use a natural consequence so that he will refrain from the
undesired behavior in the future.

The Undesirable Side Effects Of Corporal Punishment

Physical punishment serves as a model for aggression. Children
imitate or model what they see adults due to them. Aggression begets
aggression.

Punishment for hitting, shoving and kicking may stop the child¹s
misbehavior temporarily, but it stimulates further aggression in the
child. He will learn that it is all right to hurt others. Spanking does
not teach the child the'moral message' that you should not hurt or
abuse people.

The punishing adult may be identified as a negative and aversive
person. When punishment is paired with criticism, name-calling or
verbal abuse, the child may become afraid of the punisher. The parent
loses trust with the child.

The effects of punishment have been shown to last only for a short
time. While the child may stop the inappropriate behavior, the
punishment does not teach the child what to do in the future.

After being punished, the child is left in emotional turmoil and
resentment. He may focus on fantasy and revenge, which then can grow
into hatred.

The child learns not misbehave when the parent is around. The
punished behavior may stop only in the presence of the adult. The child
may continue the negative behavior when the adult is not around.

The child may stop the behavior for which he is punished and
substitute another aggressive act. He may stop the negative behavior
such as hitting but then increase other aggressive behavior such as
verbal abuse of the person he is upset with.

The frequent use of punishment may cause a child to withdraw or
regress into acting younger. He may become non trusting and fearful of
others.

The child may lie or become sneaky to avoid being punished. He will
not learn to take responsibility for what he did wrong, but may justify
it or minimalizes it.

The child may develop negative beliefs of himself that are
associated with the frequent use of punishment such as " I'm a bad
person. I'm mean." These negative beliefs result in further lowered
self-esteem.

When punished, the child may strike back at the person or h e may
take his anger and displace it at an object, animal or another child.

When the parent threatens the child with a terrible consequence
that is not carried out, there can be several responses. The child can
become excessively frightened or the child learns to distrust the
parent and view the parent as a liar.

Guidelines to Make Punishment More Effective

Sometimes punishment is chosen to stop a behavior that is harmful
to the child or another person. There are situations where punishment
is chosen because other methods of correction do not work. When the
child's misbehavior gives him something he enjoys and does not want to
give up, (attention, feelings of power), positive methods of correction
may not work well with him. Sometimes powerful reinforcers such as
payoffs from the behavior keep the child acting out.

When considering using corporal punishment ask yourself, " Can I
get the desired result to get my child to stop doing the misbehavior by
using another technique that is less harmful to my child¹s self
esteem? When I use in this particular form of punishment, what message
am I sending to my child?'

Effective punishment should be clearly outlined to the child in
advance. He needs to know clear rules about what is and what is not
allowed. Clear direct consequences for a specific misbehavior could be
given so that when the child misbehaves, he is making a choice to get
the consequences.

Dispense the punishment in a calm, neutral voice. If you yell, you
are training your child to refrain from minding until the adult yells
at him.

Punishment should be consistent and applied every time that the
child engages in the misbehavior. Punishment must be given depending on
the child's actions, not your mood on your fatigue level.

Give the punishment immediately after the misbehavior to make the
association between the act of wrongdoing and the consequence of
punishment.

Use of warning signal to tell the child what he is doing wrong
before administrating punishment. Give the child a choice to stop his
misbehavior before giving him the consequences.

Effective warnings do not threaten, but gives clear information
about what will happen if the child does not stop the acting out.

One verbal warning is enough. The research shows that if you give
the child three chances (or ten) before you move in, the child will
wait until the third warning (or tenth) before he stops the
misbehavior. Saying things like,'Did you hear what I said? Don¹t make
me tell you one more time.' actually make your child resistant to
following through on your commands. Repeated warnings train your child
to become amazingly'parent deaf!'

If You Believe That You Must Spank

Physical abuse is associated with long-term negative effects on
children. The research does not point to an occasional spanking as
causing long-term harm in children. If you must use spanking, use it
sparingly to make a strong point that you will not tolerate potentially
harmful behavior. Use spanking with a clear purpose in mind after you
have tried other methods of discipline.

If you have been raised in an angry home, you may inadvertently
perpetuate some of the abuse you suffered. Do not apply corporal
punishment when you are frustrated or angry. You may not know the
boundaries and when to stop spanking. It is too easy to get out of
control when spanking a child and lose your sense of reason. For this
reason, parents who have experienced severe discipline methods as a
child may decide not to use corporal punishment. They choose to stop
the generational violence that has been passed down to them.

Some parents save corporal punishment for those times when the
child does something that is dangerous to himself or others. This
includes continuing to play with an electric plug or playing in a busy
street. Punishment is used only to make a strong statement. For
example, one mother spanked her five-year-old son when he ran away to
play in the deep drainage ditch filled with water. Because she rarely
used corporal punishment, the child learned that his mother meant
business and would not tolerate life-threatening behavior.

Other times, a child seems to increasingly accelerate the
misbehavior and ignore verbal warnings, time out and other forms of
discipline. He appears to be testing the limits to see how far he can
go in acting out. My mother used to say that this child with frenzied
energy and behavior out of control needed to have a'knot jerked in his
tail.' It is the surprise of the spanking, rather than the force that
breaks the child¹s escalating acting-out-behavior.

As a mother with three young children thirty years ago, I was not
trained as a psychologist. When my oldest child reached the age of
seven, we decided that he was too old to be spanked, and we needed to
find more other ways to discipline him. Talk about frustration! I had
to come up with creative ways of discipline such as reasoning, taking
away privileges and Time Out. At this time, I returned to the
University to get my master¹s degree in Child Psychology. My training
in Behavior Modification helped tremendously. I used charts and stars
as a token system to provide positive reinforcement to motivate my
children to do their chores and be kind to each other.

My article for a parent of angry children is available at
http://members.aol.com/AngriesOut/parent8.htm

Parent and Teachers Against Violence for Kids links many web site
on alternatives to violence at www.nospank.net/toc.htm

Alice Miller, a psychologist and well-known writer, discusses how
violence committed to children results in hatred, terrorism and
dictatorships. Her writings can be seen at www.nospank.net/milindex.htm

Shame is the major emotion that lingers after corporal punishment.
For two fine papers on shame, go to http://www.nospank.net/shame.htm

What should you do when you see someone hitting his or her kid? For
ideas, go to http://www.nospank.net/intervn.htm

If you find yourself challenged with your child's misbehavior, take
a parenting course. There are great courses to help parents learn the
necessary skills to helping children develop good self esteem as well
as stop misbehavior. I recommend taking a course when your child is two
and a half and another when your child is twelve. The courses are low
cost and meet once a week for six weeks. Call your local school, church
or mental health center to find a course. I taught Systematic Training
for Effective Parenting as a graduate student back in the seventies.
Great stuff!