Posted on 11/21/2004 7:06:25 AM PST by The Great Yazoo
As the recent recipient of Gov. Bush's 2004 Peace At Home Award for excellence in children's services, the Shelter for Abused Women & Children needs to weigh in on the recent articles and editorials about spanking.
Many, particularly those of the grandparent and great-grandparent generations, see the issue of spanking in simple terms. Their parents spanked them and it did no harm. It is easy to draw a flawed conclusion that the troubles with children of the current generation stem from their parents "sparing the rod and spoiling the child." I'd like to shed some light on why such a conclusion is faulty.
Years ago when many of us were children we lived in a society where our front doors were never locked. We seldom saw or heard about violence in our neighborhoods. If we saw an act of violence committed by a media hero on radio, television, the movies, children's books or comic books it was because the good guy was fighting evil.
Seldom was the bad guy killed. If the "bad guy" was killed it was usually off camera or bloodless.
The music we listened to was sanitized. Remember when "Louie, Louie" was banned from the radio?
We lived in a society where the worst thing kids did at school was chew gum or smoke cigarettes. If we walked blocks to the corner candy store to satisfy our sweet tooth our parents were not worried about our safety.
Our childhood world was a safe one.
Our monsters were mostly phantoms of our imaginations. There were evils we didn't understand far away in Europe or Russia. And children were starving in Asia or Africa. But in our neighborhoods, our schools, and most of our homes, we were safe.
Today, children live in a society overflowing with violence at every turn and filled with danger our parents could not even have imagined. They play with ultra-realistic video games which award points if they rape and murder people.
They listen to music with lyrics that sanctify violence against women and promote the use of handguns. There is an entire genre of music and clothes that celebrate gangster-criminals. Gun-toting gangs that honor child members for raping or killing are recruiting children in our schools. The teen pregnancy rate has never been higher. Young children are addicted to prescription medication, alcohol and street drugs and are dying.
There are metal detectors in schools and law enforcement officers on every campus. Children make and carry out plans to bring weapons to school and kill their school mates. Movies and television cel ebrate violence. Today, children are committing suicide, assaulting or even murdering their parents in alarming numbers.
It is impossible to remove children from the violence-filled society and neighborhoods in which they live. You cannot equate the impact of spanking in previous generations to spanking that occurs in today's children's environment.
The overwhelming preponderance of scientific research has found that spanking a child today is likely to fill a child with resentment, anger and self-doubt.
It is an over-simplified point of view to believe that while spanking caused one generation no harm it would therefore not harm another generation. It is more than shortsighted. It is just plain wrong.
Children who grow up in violent homes are more likely to end up in jail than those where violent discipline is not practiced. Those in prison today report that they were spanked as children. Was it the parental discipline that put them on a criminal path?
Spanking a child teaches him or her that hitting a small, defenseless person is acceptable adult behavior.
Parents are likely to resort to hitting when they are frustrated or angry, which could result in real harm to the child.
Some parents are unable to control their anger and hit very small children to the point that they commit a crime, harm their child or are put at risk of losing custody of their child. The spanking I received in the 1950s would today be considered criminal.
Advocating that parents use spanking to discipline their children is irresponsible and dangerous. There are alternative and effective disciplinary tactics. Enlightened and caring parents take the time to learn these techniques. It is time that our schools begin to teach the next generation of parents how to be effective disciplinarians.
Kathy Herrmann is chief executive officer of the Shelter for Abused Women & Children in Collier County.
I willing to bet that Kathy Herrmann does not have a 3 year old.
A calculated, limited spanking delivered in sorrow, not anger, or a quick swat on the behind when the kid is caught flagrante delicto, is a far cry from the sort of savage indiscriminate beating that sends women and children to her organization.
Most sensible people know when the line is crossed between a spanking and child abuse. But for Ms. Hermann, ALL "violence" down to poking somebody with an elbow or a slap on the back is "evil" and there is no question of degree. Of course in the real world that she has left behind, there is always a question of degree. She's probably anti-war too.
One would be to argue at length about how flawed her premises and conclusions are. That's a fine approach, and has been done.
Another is to quote a verse like this one —
He who withholds his rod hates his son,— and simply to observe that consistent, loving corporal discipline is part and parcel of the practice of Christian faith. To urge that it be abandoned is to urge that Christianity not be practiced — which is to assert that Jesus was a liar, and is now dead.
But he who loves him seeks him early with discipline
(Proverbs 13:24, my translation of the Hebrew text)
None of which I find tenable.
Dan
Biblical Christianity web site
Biblical Christianity message board
Why I Am (Still) a Christian
I'll bet she's got a sh**load of cats though!
...or that, if she does, you'd not want to be confined in a room with it for long!
Dan
And they were also beaten and abused by mama's boyfriend of the week and took out their sociopathology on law abiding citizens. Cry me a river.
Once we "hooked" them into the privileges (TV, GameCube, Gameboy and Disney World Trips) we can deprive them of a favored privilege to modify their behavior.
Works like a charm. We are lucky, though. We have wonderful kids. We are seeing straight A's from our eldest this year.
My first wife had two young sons and an infant. For the first 6 or 8 months we were together the older boys (5 and 6) disrespected, ignored, and defied their mother.
Finally i had enough and began spanking them. Inside of one year I could stop spanking them because they knew I meant business. Once I had gotten their attention other punishments were effective. The infant grew into obedience and respect and never needed a spanking.
Well said. I was spanked as a child, and it filled me with self-discipline and a respect for legitimate authority, not resentment or anger.
I wonder how much of our tax money went into this "scientific research."
The author of this article is essentially brain-dead.
The author of the article should be spanked.
As the mother of 5 now grown children, I would have at least left the store if I were so squimish about spanking.
In the days in which parental (and school) spankings were prelevant, "we were safe." Not that they aren't, we aren't?
That - and there is a difference between "spanking" and "violent abuse"
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