Corporal punishment: perspectives and considerations

¶ … corporal punishment with regard to children and now the use of corporal punishment has changed over the years.

There are few parenting topics that spark the intensity of debate more strongly than the topic of spanking. For many years parents and experts have argued, studied, and examined the use of corporal punishment on children with mixed results. In the 1950's corporal punishment was not only an accepted source of punishment, it was also a recommended form of punishment by pediatricians and other child experts across the nation. A few decades ago, the tide began to turn and child experts started to advise against spanking as a punishment for children. Today, for the most part, experts believe that the use of spanking as a form of punishment is at best ineffective and at its worst, harmful. This paper examines the changing views of spanking for punishment over the past few decades and argues that its use has become outdated.

History

Historically, the use of corporal punishment as a child has been alternately supported then discarded with each passing decade (Stewart, 2002).

During the 1930's, 1940's and 1950's spanking a child to teach him or her a lesson was an accepted form of punishment. Not only was it accepted but it was advised and encouraged by pediatricians and other child experts around the nation (Stewart, 2002).

The use of corporal punishment is one of the most controversial parenting practices and it will continue to be controversial (Stewart, 2002). Although the effects of corporal punishment on children is still undergoing rigorous scientific debate.

Corporal punishment is a discipline method in which a supervising adult deliberately inflicts pain upon a child in response to a child's unacceptable behavior and/or inappropriate language. The immediate aims of such punishment are usually to halt the offence, prevent its recurrence and set an example for others. The purported long-term goal is to change the child's behavior and to make it more consistent with the adult's expectations. In corporal punishment, the adult usually hits various parts of the child's body with a hand, or with canes, paddles, yardsticks, belts, or other objects expected to cause pain and fear (Dayton 1994) (Stewart, 2002)."

In addition to parental use of corporal punishment, there have been many debates about the use of corporal punishment on students in the school districts around the nation (Stewart, 2002).

In the landmark Supreme Court decision Ingraham v. Wright, the court held that corporal punishment of students does not violate the Eighth Amendment nor the due process guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment (Stewart, 2002). The Court said that the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment applies to criminals only and is not applicable to the disciplining of students in public schools (Stewart, 2002). The Court noted that at common law a single principle has governed the use of corporal punishment since before the American Revolution: Teachers may impose reasonable but not excessive force to discipline a child (Stewart, 2002). The crucial area of concern for this review, then, has been the breadth and scope of progress involvement in the issues of corporal punishment in schools and at home (Stewart, 2002)."

While the debates rage on it is interesting to note the changes over the past few decades with regards to its use.

In the 1950's many fad magazines provided articles not only in support of spanking children, but also provided methods and discussions about how to use it and how to implement it.

In America, the use of corporal punishment as a discipline method has been used since the colonial times. For hundreds of years literature and experts have supported the use of spanking to make children behave or stop an undesired habit or behavior. For the past two decades however, the tide has turned and experts now agree the use of corporal punishment has been shunned as something that is not only ineffective but as something that can cause mental distress and long lasting problems for the children who are spanked.

Corporal punishment in schools has been proscribed in Europe (including Eastern Europe), as well as in other countries (Stewart, 2002). One can trace the roots of corporal punishment in the United States to England, which remains the only European nation legally allowing it (Stewart, 2002). In 1979, Sweden further advanced the rejection of corporal punishment in schools by banning physical punishment by parents, as well (Stewart, 2002)."

Currently in the United States, the use of corporal punishment by teachers on students is allowed in approximately 30 states while New Jersey was the first to ban corporal punishment in schools in 1867.

One of the reasons the changes in attitude are taking place with regard to spanking children is the research being conducted on the topic.

Recent studies have concluded that the use of corporal punishment on children as a form of discipline is not effective and may actually promote later anti-social behaviors in some children (Grogan, 2004).

Researchers studying parenting and family life have long been interested in studying the ways in which parents discipline their children (Grogan, 2004). A particular focus of empirical research has been parental use of corporal punishment. Although many U.S. parents believe in spanking their children when their children misbehave (Gershoff, 2002; Straus & Donnelly, 2001; Straus, Sugarman, & Giles-Sims, 1997) (Grogan, 2004), some research suggests that the use of corporal punishment may increase behavior problems among children (Eamon, 2001; Gershoff; Straus & Donnelly; Straus et al.) (Grogan, 2004).

In a seminal article, Straus and colleagues (1997) examined the effect of corporal punishment on a cohort of six- to nine-year-olds drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) (Grogan, 2004). Despite introducing several control variables into their model, these authors found that the use of corporal punishment predicted an increase in later antisocial behavior among children (Grogan, 2004). In response to this contention that the use of corporal punishment is harmful, other authors have suggested that corporal punishment is either not always harmful (Gunnoe & Mariner, 1997) or is only harmful when it is excessive (Larzelere, 2000) (Grogan, 2004)."

There have been a significant number of studies done on the effect and impact that corporal punishment has on children.

One such study conducted in 1997 argued that while parents use corporal punishment to change a behavior or attitude of a child, it often times has the opposite effect and the child becomes more defiant, even if the spanking appears initially to have been effective.

Straus and colleagues' (1997) finding that corporal punishment has detrimental effects on children has been echoed by other researchers, many of whom have also used the NLSY. Eamon and Zuehl (2001) and Eamon (2001) analyzed samples of four- to nine-year-olds from the 1992 and 1994 waves of the NLSY (Grogan, 2004). In both cases, the authors found that physical punishment had adverse effects on children's levels of socioemotional problems (Grogan, 2004). McLeod and Shanahan (1993) used data from the 1986 NLSY and McLeod and Nonnemaker (2000) used data from the 1992 NLSY; they found that the mother's use of physical punishment tended to increase children's socioemotional problems (Grogan, 2004)."

Advice has changed because of the studies and today, the use of corporal punishment is almost never recommended or condoned by child experts.

WHEN Murray Straus was raising his children in the 1950s and '60s, spanking was de rigueur in the American household. The Straus residence was no exception, with the father of two occasionally reacting to their misbehavior with a swat to the bottom.

But times have changed, and so has Straus' perception of spanking (Harder, 2007).

If I knew then what I know now, I would not have spanked them at all," he says. "My research has convinced me that there should be no hitting -- never, under any circumstances (Harder, 2007)."

The Bottom Line

The bottom line when it comes to the use of spanking children as a form of punishment is that it should never be done.

If an adult will go to jail for hitting another adult, why on earth would it ever be acceptable and okay to strike a child for any reason?

Children are smaller and more fragile than adults and deserve at the very least the same protections that adults have under the law from being hit any time one does not like that adult's actions.

Those who support the use of corporal punishment insist that it is different because the child being spanked is related to the spanker, however that argument is not valid either as it is illegal for related spouses to hit each other as well. It is called domestic violence and when it happens someone goes to jail.