"The Bottom Line I have lots more, hope you like my shortened version of why I am against corporal punishment! :)
I realize this is a heated subject. Since I am a Mom I have carefully studied and observed this subject for the past 9 years. I have collected TONS of documentation about the subject and would like to share this with all of you. I was raised in a peaceful home and was never spanked, belted, smacked, soap wasn't put in my mouth and hot sauce definately wasn't. We were all GREAT kids & people called my parents for parenting advice all the time and said we were so polite & well-behaved. I have children and they are also doing terrific. I also don't spank. I realize we are in the minority, but hope this will someday change as once it was acceptable to hit your wife, animal or employee and that is no longer accepted. My view on this has been backed up by research, so with an open mind...please read.
Statistics on spanking (compiled from over 100 studies combined):
Children who are spanked are shown to display:
many emotional & social problems, impaired parent/child relationships, lower IQ, increased aggressiveness, behavior problems, learning problems, lower academic scores, antisocial behavior, depression problems, more likely to suffer from addictions & commit domestic abuse, prone to be angry and show less long term compliance. Not a single study shows ANY benefit that cannot be achieved from other non-violent forms of discipline. Not all adults who are corporally punished as kids have all these problems, but not all people who smoke get lung cancer either. It's not a good thing...
The US department of Health & Human services reports 142,000 children are seriously injured from Corporal punishment every year in this country, 18,000 of them are permanantly disabled. Between 1-2,000 children die each year in this country alone from Corporal punishment. Nearly 70% of child abuse cases in CPS agencies result from corporal punishment. The defense of "discipline" is raised in 41% of homicide prosecutions when parents "accidentally" kill their children. 99% of people in jail were corporally punished.
Some use the Biblical verses from Proverbs to justify their behaviors towards children. Proverbs is the only part of the Bible where this could be justification could be assimilated. It is wise to know; however, that King Solomon's harsh methods of discipline led his own son, Rehoboam to become a tyrannical and oppressive dictator whom only narrowly escaped being stoned to death by hid own people for his cruelty. Not a parent I'd want to take advice from as we see how his child turned out! Many people refer to the phrase "spare the rod, spoil the child" when advocating corporal punishment. This is not even a verse from the Bible, but in fact a 16th century Samuel Butler poem about sex! Funny how's it's been so mis-used!
The other fallicy is that parents who don't spank have wild kids and they let them get away with everything. That is not true. Actually, spanking is the EASY way out. It's much harder to actually teach good behavior. Good parenting means being involved, modeling good behavior, being consistent, praising good behavior, being available, teaching, loving and not accepting bad behavior. I am actually a very strict parent, as were my parents and neither of us hit. What exactly would hitting teach? That it's ok to hit if we don't agree, that if I'm bigger than you I can hit you. The real message of the lesson get's lost. If a child learns to not do something undesirable simply from the fear of being hit, he/she's not learning the real reason to not do it. Children who are NOT hit learn right/wrong for the sake of right/wrong, not for the fear of being hit. There's a big difference there.
People who belt, paddle, pull pants down, hot-sauce, soap, and whatever else people do to their kids are simply less civilized (for lack of a nicer word). It really sickens me what people do to their kids. I really don't know why people don't see this. If I were that kid, I would rebel and revolt like there was no tomorrow!!! That would be the last you'd see of me. Statistics do show that the higher the socioeconomic and education background a person has the less likely he/she is to do these things to their children.
It takes patience to raise children. I've heard "spank with love". I'm sorry spanking is hitting, and there is nothing loving about hitting.
What some famous experts say about spanking children:
Ann Landers -
"Parents who hit their children teach them to hit others. And please tell me, when does hitting end and beating begin? And who decides where the line is? If you read the history of the most violent criminals, you will find that almost without exception, they were physically abused throughout their childhood."
Dr. Spock -
"Physical punishment certainly plays a role in our acceptance of violence. If we are to turn toward a kindlier, society and a safer world, a revulsion against the physical punishment of children would be a good place to start." (p. 173)
"My other reasons for advising against physical punishment are, in brief, that it teaches children that might make right, that it encourages some children to be bullies, and most fundamentally, that to the degree that it results in good behavior it's because of the fear of pain. I have a strong belief that the best reason for behaving well is that you like people, want to get along with them, want them to like you." (p.173)
Albert Einstein:
"To me the worst thing seems to be for a school
principally to work with methods of fear, force and
artificial authority. Such treatment destroys the
sound sentiments, the sincerity and self-confidence of
the pupil. It produces the submissive subject. . . It
is comparatively simple to keep the school free from
this worst of all evils. Give into the power of the
teacher the fewest possible coercive measures, so that
the only source of the pupil's respect for the teacher
is the human and intellectual qualities of the
latter."
A quick story I'd like to share:
something to think about...
a story told by Astrid Lindgren
[Author of Pippi Longstocking]
"Above all, I believe that there should never be any violence." In 1978, Astrid Lindgren received the German Book Trade Peace Prize for her literary contributions. In acceptance, she told the following story.
"When I was about 20 years old, I met an old pastor's wife who told me that when she was young and had her first child, she didn't believe in striking children, although spanking kids with a switch pulled from a tree was standard punishment at the time. But one day when her son was four or five, he did something that she felt warranted a spanking - the first of his life. And she told him that he would have to go outside and find a switch for her to hit him with. The boy was gone a long time. And when he came back in, he was crying. He said to her, "Mama, I couldn't find a switch, but here's a rock that you can throw at me."
All of a sudden the mother understood how the situation felt from the child's point of view: that if my mother wants to hurt me, then it makes no difference what she does it with; she might as well do it with a stone. And the mother took the boy onto her lap and they both cried. Then she laid the rock on a shelf in the kitchen to remind herself forever: never violence. And that is something I think everyone should keep in mind. Because violence begins in the nursery - one can raise children into violence."
I think that too often we fail to feel situations "from the child's point of view," and that failure leads us to teach our children other than what we think we're teaching them.
.............maybe one day....? "
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