It's Time To Ban Spanking

Yesterday, I re-posted a link on the Teacher Tom Facebook page to yet another study about the negative consequences of hitting children -- what some folks call spanking. Whenever the subject comes up, I'm always shocked, and then depressed, by the fact that there are so many people out there who still insist upon their right, even responsibility, to hit their kids. Some even seem proud of it.

Those of you who have been reading here for any time know that I don't shy away from debate, but this is one of those issues that preemptively exhausts me, like arguing evolution with people who simply don't "believe in it." It's getting harder and harder for me to summon up the strength to keep debating things that have been settled science my entire life. I remember my mom, 40+ years ago, telling me about research that linked spanking to a wide array of negative consequences. The evidence has only gotten stronger since then.

I'm grateful to the brilliant Alec from Child's Play Music for yesterday linking to better studies in the comments than did I in the original Facebook post, including a comprehensive meta-analysis of 89 studies. Alec wrote:

This isn't an isolated study - this is just one of hundreds of studies which show the negative outcomes that are associated with corporal punishment. The research is clear and well understood: corporal punishment has overwhelmingly negative effects on children's development, and there is now almost total unanimity amongst scholars and child development experts that the effects of CP are undesirable at least and extremely harmful (sometimes fatal) at worst.

People, it is settled science that hitting kids is a bad idea. Prisons are not full of people who weren't hit enough as children -- it fact, the opposite is true. Kids today are not more "spoiled" than past generations because they've not been hit enough: mean-spirited people have always made that complaint about the next generation. From reader Erin:

The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority, they show disrespect to their elders . . . They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and are tyrants over their teachers.  ~Socrates, circa 400 BCE 

I'm also not buying the necessity for children to learn obedience, let alone via being hit. In fact, I've found that obedient people are dangers to both themselves and others. I find it bizarre that it is illegal in our country to hit another person, except if that person is a child and you call it spanking. The thought of a big strong adult hitting a weaker child sickens me.

And I have no patience for the argument that "I was spanked and I turned out okay," or more simply, "It works." As I wrote before:

There are lots of things that work that I will never try. If I disagree with you, shouting you down works, but wouldn't it be better if I engaged you in a reasonable debate? If I need money, stealing works, but wouldn't it be better if I worked to earn a higher income? If you're standing in my way, pushing you works, but wouldn't it be better to politely ask you to allow me to pass? Indeed, spanking may "work," but there are better ways, with far fewer negative consequences. They just take more effort.

But you know, none of this even comes into consideration when forming my own opinion about spanking. These are all rationales fashioned to persuade other people that spanking must stop, but for me it comes down to simple morality. I don't hit people. I don't hit people even when I'm right. I don't hit people when I'm angry. I don't hit people when they won't do what I want them to do. I don't hit other people because hitting is immoral. And it doesn't soften me to call it "spanking."

Again, I thank Alec for both the quote and the link:

To see how an effective spanking ban can work you only have to look at Sweden. They banned all corporal punishment in 1979 (the first country to do so - 31 others countries have now also banned all CP). Sweden wisely did not criminalise corporal punishment; instead parents who use CP are offered help with learning more effective methods. Naturally, physical abuse and assault remain crimes, but smacking per se does not result in parent's being criminalised. As a result children in Sweden experience some of the lowest rates of physical abuse in the world, and also have excellent outcomes on a wide range of developmental and societal measures. Support for CP has fallen to single digit levels, and few children are ever subjected to it.

We should follow in Sweden's footsteps.

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