By 
My community newspaper published a letter to the editor asking, “When will society stop domestic violence?”
The answer to the question is surprisingly simple, but difficult for people to accept, because domestic violence is installed in the deepest fiber of many families: religion. Many religions teach that ‘save the rod, you spoil the child’ or that the Bible, specifically the book of Proverbs, commands whipping.
There is a distinction, however, that is of key interest to fundamentalists, between the practice in King Solomon’s day of beating people on the back for discipline. The latter is not prescribed for children anywhere in the Bible.
Furthermore, it should be noted that the Old Testament contains passages that could be (and in some cases have been) interpreted as divine endorsements of wife-beating, race warfare, slavery, stoning to death of rebellious children, and other behaviors that they are outrageous by today’s standards.
If our laws no longer allow these biblical mandates regarding adults, why then do we beat children, that is, punish to supposedly correct unacceptable behavior?
The answer is not complicated. We cannot conceive of this biblical and societally sanctioned form of child discipline as abuse until we can honestly acknowledge the mistreatment of our own childhood experiences and examine the shortcomings of our own parents.
As long as we believe: “I got hit and I got away with it,” the practice of violence through spanking will continue to be perpetuated in the home with the blessing of religion and the blind eye of society, unless, of course, the ‘spanking ‘ ‘Goes too far and the boy is bloodied and bruised.
A fundamental common feature among all the men and women in prison is the fact that they were all flogged. If spanking created compliance with society’s rules, why is this the only thing in common between people on the wrong side of the law?
Our laws and cultural values are unequivocal about adults hitting, attacking, or verbally threatening other adults. Such behavior is recognized as criminal and we hold the perpetrator accountable.
Why then, when so much is at stake for society, do we accept and promote physical aggression against children? So we wonder why domestic violence exists. Adults tend to repeat what they experienced most of the time. The old saying, ‘The acorn does not fall far from the tree’ makes reference to this point. The child accepts the message: “If I don’t like something someone says or does, hitting is the acceptable response.”
As a physical and sexual abuse prevention specialist, I’ve heard a plethora of reasons why spanking is the only form of discipline some kids seem to need to get the message across. All of these reasons are biologically flawed, because when a child is hit, her brain goes into shock, and when the brain is in shock it can no longer assimilate information. Thus, the message that the father intends to convey is lost. Also, hitting is a betrayal of trust and breeds anger/rage, not compliance.
Think about it, if spanking is the magic bullet for correcting aberrant behavior, then why doesn’t spanking solve the problem? Why does the child keep repeating the same unacceptable behavior over and over again?
Again, the answer is simple: spanking doesn’t work and children repeat any behavior, acceptable or unacceptable, because they are learning and learn by repetition.
Additional tasks, which consist of consequences such as time out, punishment, important withholding, teach critical thinking, problem solving, relationship building, and understanding how they are the creator of the consequence.
While hitting/spanking because it is usually given when the parent is desperate or when the parent(s) are in a bad mood for something that is sometimes unrelated to what the child did, it breeds mistrust. How can a child continue to trust a parent who has betrayed him? Children implicitly trust their parents, but once that trust has been betrayed, it is rarely regained because there is no way to reconcile with a parent/person who does not acknowledge their unacceptable behavior.
When will society stop domestic violence? The simple answer is: When society stops sanctioning and promoting hitting or spanking children at home or at school.
More than 100 countries prohibit corporal punishment in schools. Forty-two countries have enacted laws prohibiting violence against children at home and at school. The United States does not have laws that prohibit corporal punishment in the home. Nineteen states allow corporal punishment with a wooden paddle in schools. Is your state one of the nineteen? Alabama, Arizona Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming allow kids to row with a wooden paddle in the schools.
The real question is “When will they stop sanctioning and promoting child spanking in your community, your school, your state?” As Voltaire pointed out long ago: “We are not only responsible for what we do, but also for what we do not do.” If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Take steps to educate yourself and others about this insidious crime against children.
1. “Grounded For Life: Canadian Study Links Spanking To Addiction And Psychiatric Disorders.”
2. Harriet McMillan, et al., “Slapping and spanking in childhood and its association with lifetime prevalence of psychiatric disorders in a general population sample,” Canadian Medical Association Journal, 1999-OCT-5.
3. Jane Gadd, “Spanking Children Suffer Intellectually,” The Globe and Mail, Toronto ON, July 30, 1998
4. MA Straus, Corporal Punishment of Children and Adults, Depression, and Suicidal Ideation,” Chapter 5 of: “Hit Them Out: Corporal Punishment in American Families and Its Effects on Children.”
5. P. Greven, “Spare the child: The religious roots of physical punishment and the psychological impact of physical abuse”, Knopf, (1991)
6. Irvin Wolkoff, “A Spanked Child Can Become a Self-Hating Adult,” The Toronto Star, November 26, 1999, page F4.
7. E. Larzelere, “A review of the results of parental use of nonabusive or habitual physical punishment,” Pediatrics 98: 824-831
8. Patricia McBroom, “UC Berkeley Study Finds No Lasting Harm Among Adolescents From Mild Spanking Earlier in Childhood.”
9. Maggie Fox, “Why Some Kids Turn Bad: Genetic Study May Show Why Abused Turn Violent,” Reuters News Agency, August 1, 2002.
10. Michael A. Milburn and Sheree D. Conrad, “The Politics of Denial,” MIT Press, (1996). Read reviews or order this book safely at the Amazon.com online bookstore
11. Andrew Grogan-Kaylor, “The Effect of Corporal Punishment on Children’s Antisocial Behavior,” Social Work Research, Vol. 28, #3, 2004-SEP, pages 153-162.
12. “UM Study: Spanking May Lead to More Misbehavior in Kids,” University of Michigan News Service, 2004-SEP-08.
13. Sean Fine, “Study Links Spanking to Future Alcohol Abuse,” The Globe and Mail, Toronto, October 5, 1999, pages A1 and A13.