The Question, again

A punishing predicament
Spanking still provokes debate among parents, psychologists
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Mark Ellis
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
EVANGELIA PHILIPPIDIS | DISPATCH

(S)torm warnings were in the air as a 13-year-old George Chatters
approached his East Side home on his bike. ''People in the
neighborhood were saying my dad was looking for me," recalled Chatters,
39. ''He was touring the city in his car."

The youth had broken a family rule not to leave the area without
permission.

The enforcer: Dad's belt.

''I got it really good when I got home," he said. ''I was
hardheaded."

As a father of two, the Pickerington resident favors a less-physical
approach to discipline, although he keeps spanking in his toolbox as a
last resort.

Many other Americans do, too.

Despite a move away from spanking in recent decades, a majority of U.S.
parents still approve of - and sometimes rely on - corporal
punishment.

In 1968, according to the Family Research Laboratory at the University
of New Hampshire, 94 percent of parents deemed spanking sometimes
necessary - a figure that dropped to 61 percent by 2004, according to
a national survey commissioned by the Center for Child and Family
Studies in San Francisco.

The topic - particularly the question of when physical punishment
becomes abuse - lay at the heart of a Hamilton County Municipal Court
case in Cincinnati that involved former City Councilman Sam Malone.

He was found not guilty of domestic violence on Friday. He had been
accused of beating his 14-year-old son with a belt for disrespecting a
teacher.

The teenager suffered welts on his arms, legs, chest and buttocks.

Monitored by discipline experts, the case has refueled debate about
physical punishment that causes pain but not injury to a child.

Psychologists are divided over any ban on the physical punishment of
children, but even those who see no harm in occasional spanking view it
as potentially damaging when used severely or as the main method of
discipline.

In a survey, most pediatricians said they advise against physical
punishment.

The American Psychological Association and the American Academy of
Pediatrics have asked educators to stop spanking students, but the
groups haven't told parents never to spank their children.

Physical punishment is outlawed in 14 nations and limited in Canada to
those older than 3 and younger than 13.

Twenty-eight states ban such punishment in schools. Ohio leaves the
decision to individual districts; about 25 of 613 permit the practice.

Chatters, an author and enrollment adviser at Columbus State Community
College, has 11- and 3-year-old daughters with wife Adrienne.

He counts on spanking as the "last layer of discipline - when
there's no other means to rectify the problem."

"It's really not necessary to always physically punish," he said. "It
can be a stern look or commenting . . . that I'm very disappointed,
and then here come the tears."

His next step might be to take away TV, computer or telephone time.

Cari Brackett, an associate professor of pharmacy and family medicine
at Ohio State University, remembers slapping her son at age 2 while
changing a diaper. He had kicked her in the face. "I was hit a lot as a
child," said the Grandview Heights mother, 48. "It was a reaction on my
part. We both cried." In the 12 years since, the boy hasn't been
struck in discipline. The approach that Brackett - along with her
husband, David Anderson - considers most effective is based on
discussing problems and modeling behavior.

"A child is a reflection of who you are and what you have taught him,"
she said. "If you deal with a child as a wellintentioned,
willing-to-learn, willing-to-please little person, and if you don't
put them in a position where they can get themselves into trouble, they
will do as you ask because they love you."

A child who is struck, Brackett said, learns that hitting is
acceptable.

"We're admitting we don't know what else to do."

Keeping youngsters busy and redirecting their behavior before trouble
starts represent the best strategies, Dublin psychologist Robert
Fathman said.

A spoken reprimand usually suffices - followed by a task or chore
"that benefits the injured party."

The 60-year-old father of four grown children was fond of making them
clean his car as punishment.

Fathman serves as president of the nonprofit Center for Effective
Discipline in Columbus - which opposes physical punishment.

"Almost all child abuse starts with hitting or shaking," he said.

As experts acknowledge, however, mild physical punishment is at least
immediately effective.

Spanking works in the short term, research indicates, but no better
than other methods, said Murray Straus, co-director of the Family
Research Laboratory.

"The parent says: 'That's wrong. You've hurt your brother.'
Almost always, the child stops," he said. "Just like if you slap a
child's hand, they almost always stop.

"Whatever you do, it takes many repetitions," he said, because toddlers
lack control of their behavior.

"In the longer run, spanking is less effective because it builds up an
immunity. And, bit by bit, it chips away at the bond between child and
parent."

As studies show, Straus said, children subjected to frequent physical
punishment suffer depression as adults.

Those who say they are unharmed by childhood beatings, he said, are
"the lucky ones."

Strict-parenting advocate John Rosemond - a psychologist, columnist
and public speaker from Gastonia, N.C. - challenges such conclusions.

He doesn't advocate spanking but calls it not necessarily harmful.

"Sometimes, with children, you have to do something dramatic in order
to create a memory," he said.

Corporal punishment is most effective with ages 2 to 6, he said, and
might be appropriate - but rarely - through 10.

"If you find yourself spanking a lot or . . . on some regular basis
with a child older than 6, the message is quite clear: Spanking is not
working."

It should never be impulsive, even in the face of "belligerent
defiance," Rosemond said.

"Cool yourself down."

The hand is the best tool for the job, he said: An adult whose hand
begins to sting while spanking should stop.

A biblical reference (Proverbs 13:24) about the use of a rod for
discipline is metaphorical, Rosemond and Fathman said.

They cited it as the cause of too much spanking with an object by
parents who interpret the Bible literally.

"The rod was the guiding staff of shepherds," Fathman said. "The rod
was a tool for guidance, not inflicting pain."