Don't Hit A Child!"

by Randy Cox, LCSW

Hitting is wrong.  To hit someone is a violent thing to do.  Violence is a thing one person does to make another person hurt.  With children we do not want to do things that hurt or harm them.  We want to be firm and consistent, yet kind and gentle...   not harsh.  We want to be tender, merciful and compassionate.

There is no situation that changes the act of hitting someone from a wrong thing into a right thing.  There is no excuse that magically turns hurting someone on purpose into a kind or merciful thing.  This is confusing, though, isn't it?  A law can say that it is all right to do something that is normally wrong in order to stop a wrong thing.  Still, hitting someone is almost never a better 'wrong' thing to do or the 'lesser of two bad things'.  Defending ourselves from physical attack (one of few examples) might be less wrong than the physical attack itself.  But the law sets a limit for this rare sort of situation.  The law limits a physical defense that involves hitting someone to interrupting only or ending only the attack upon the physical safety of a person. 

The laws that also allow the physical punishment of children do not magically make hitting a child a better 'wrong' thing to do or the 'lesser of two bad things'.  They only allow it.  They state that parental physical aggression is not illegal.  But hitting children is not tender or compassionate treatment.  Hitting children is not better than treating them in ways that do not hurt.  It does not model the way we want our children to act.  Some day our society will be kinder, gentler and less violent when we all stop hitting children.  To stop hitting children will mean, by the very extermination of the practice, that we are less violent.

Of course, most of us do not say to our children, "hitting is right" or "hitting is a good thing to do."  We do not really believe that it is a good thing to hit people.  Most of us deny that we are 'in favor' of hitting children.  However, most of us behave as if it is a good thing to do.  Most of us are in favor of spanking and physical punishment.  And the law attempts to make a physical attack on a child's body a thing that is all right to do.

The way a spanking looks and feels must be confusing for children.  How can they tell what it means?  Parents are their example of what is right and good.  Parents' behavior is their example of what love looks and feels like.  Hitting a child seems to say that it is all right to hit people... even loved ones.  When a person wants to control others, it must be okay to hit them, spanking seems to say.  For children whose parents tell them that hitting is wrong, hitting might also seem to say that it is all right to do something that is wrong.  It certainly does not show or say to the child what behavior is wanted.
There is no obligation or duty to hit children.  No one of us can show that anything bad happens if we do not hit children.  No one can show that children become less well behaved if we do not hit them.  When people think of not hitting children, however, they often feel afraid and uncertain.  What do they fear?nbsp; Are they just uncomfortable with the unknown or the untried?  Do they just doubt what they have not yet experienced?  They do not really  know that anything bad will happen.  It is enough for them, it seems, that they believe that something bad will happen.  Since people usually do not really think about many of their beliefs, it is hard to use reason to help them to be

unafraid.  But there is no evidence that a child whose parents model appropriate behavior, clearly and unambiguously love and nurture that child, diligently encourage and positively reinforce desired behavior, using reason and persuasion while consistently communicating and enforcing limits, and demonstrating a rational process for problem solving, will not "turn out" as well, if not better, than any child held up as the supposed example of the benefit of spanking her or him. 

So we have no duty, contract or promise to hit.  There is no other social, legal or moral rule that makes us spank our children.  We can, however, certainly count upon our friends and family to say that there is a need for a 'good spanking'.  They will tell us that spanking people during their childhood is the cure for society's ills. They carry tradition and myth, as humans always have, but that does not mean that they know the truth.

Social, legal and moral ties bind us to feed, clothe and shelter our dependent children.  We should teach them to behave well in public and to contribute according to their capacity.  We should help them to find happiness doing these things.  If we do our job well, they become willing and able to give their best to society.  There is no need to hit children in order to do our social, legal and moral duty.  For example, accepting the responsibilities for a dependent adult might become our social and moral duty.  But, we would have no legal right to hit that adult in order to do this duty.  As fully human as any adult of our species, children, therefore, should be entitled to the same special care and protection any adult enjoys.

Nothing good forces us to act aggressively toward our  minor children.  Yet, there seems to be some mistaken, unfounded 'sense of duty' to do it.  We believe that this 'sense' may be the result of a self-conscious feeling that other parents in our family or social group know better than we what we should do.  As children, we saw our parents and other adults do things that we remember as right and good.  Spanking children is one of those things that we memorized.  We copy that behavior with our own children.  We think, therefore, that we are surely being a good and proper parent.  We are following tradition.  However, tradition and morality are separate standards. 

Hitting children does not make it easier for us to do our social, legal or moral duty as parents.  Hitting them may only offer us a sort of shortcut when speed is a higher priority.  But it is ironic that hitting them may actually make it easier, instead, for our children to realize dreadful outcomes; the literal opposites of our goals.  The result of spanking is our children's fear and resentment of us.  Research indicates that several, serious negative side effects may be associated with its use.  So, parents' satisfaction with spanking could be related to some other need, independent of the child. 

Murray Straus is author of Beating the Devil Out of Them: Corporal Punishment in American Families.  He wrote, "The most basic step in eliminating corporal punishment is for parent educators, psychologists, and pediatricians to make a simple and unambiguous statement..."  That is the statement I have quoted at the top of this page.  I agree with it.  I like the statement.   Most people think that it is too strong.  Some have felt that the phrase "except literal physical self-defense" seems to give permission to spanking parents.  Professor Straus also suggests that we say, without qualification, "A child should never be hit."  I believe that after the briefer proscription, though, one must prepare to respond to the certain question, "Well, what about the circumstance: self-defense?"  But, self-defense is not at all common among the routine responses to our children's behavior.  Defense of self indeed!

Professor Straus explained to me that he too could recognize that there is a certain danger in adding "except for self-defense."  He thought that it was, in part, his training in criminology that led to his writing it the way he did.  He explained that many people misunderstand the legal concept of self defense and think that retaliation is self defense.  Of course, self defense becomes a legal justification for assault only if the person is in danger of serious injury or death  and cannot get away.  He said, "If a child hits a parent, the parent can and should restrain the child if it continues, but she or he should never hit back."  In his own opinion, the parents should make a big deal out of any instance of a child hitting.  It should be treated as a moral outrage and something to never be done again.  He said, "Hitting back is not self defense."  Legally, an adult who is attacked and hits back may also be guilty of assault.

It concerns me that the quotation risks deafening listeners so that they hear nothing that follows it.  I live and write, and 'mingle' among the people of Arkansas, USA.  It is a spank-happy place where it is "open season" on children--in their homes as well as in their schools.  Our children stand a one-in-ten chance of being hit by an adult at school, so Arkansas ranks second only to Mississippi as the "worst" among the ten worst school-paddling states. 

Still, "never hit" is the phrase to which most of the provoked readers respond.  Realistically, the people I engage all want to know "What if you're attacked or assaulted by a juvenile delinquent?"  I believe that there has to be an exception.  There almost always is.  Perhaps 'except' is permissive.  This exception, of course, is always some extreme, bizarre and unlikely occurrence.  In such a crisis, however, people do what they are going to do for no certain reason.  

Anticipation rarely has anything to do with the outcome. Besides, most parents really are not parenting armed juveniles.  How realistic is it to expect to have to hit your child to save your life or protect yourself from serious physical threat -- literal physical self-defense?
LITERAL, PHYSICAL, SELF-DEFENSE ... The exception only barely warrants noting.  So, my inconsistency is that I also agree with the "too soft" critics.  I have been around a lot of violence, threats of serious harm to my family, our property and myself.  I do not hit any children.  I worked in child welfare (child protective services, foster care, adoptions, interstate transfers) in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area; that is, Maricopa County.  I worked the pediatric outpatient clinic at the indigent care hospital in Phoenix and conducted interviews with child abusers (some suicidal and homicidal).  I worked nearly ten years in the pediatric department and the ER of a large hospital here in Little Rock.


I am not through with living so it would be disingenuous to make a statement so absolute that I could not realistically expect to live by it.  But I can state, unambiguously, that hitting a child is wrong and a child never, ever, under any circumstances should be hit.                                                         Randy Cox, ACSW, LCSW
                                                       NeverHitAChild.ORG 
                                                       Little Rock, AR

Reference: Beating the Devil Out of Them: Corporal Punishment in American Families, Lexington Books, 1994, Murray A. Straus with Denise A. Donnelly, ISBN 0-02-931730-4
  

"Don't Date This Guy!"

Before I begin with my sense of this article by Jon Lapook about Lisa Grunwald's book, I want to congratulate the miraculous mothers of sons who work hard at learning as much as they can about the paths of boys in this age. 


Fewer and fewer males are graduating high school, and even fewer are entering college.  Our sons...thus our future... are in deep trouble for a plethora of reasons.  I salute, with the most profound respect, the mothers who learn about this, and who work with parenting skills which address their needs as young men, and light a fire under some of their sons' educators.


  In my view, being a parent is an ultimate calling.  We, as parents, are forming the putty of the ultimate sculpture.  Today, that calling is fraught with questions..so many really good parents are a little "insecure" about the job they are doing.  To me, that "insecurity", is actually an anxiety about seeking "wisdom", and is about the parent wanting to fulfill that calling as best as humanly possible.  Seeing this in my clients is deeply moving for me.  So, on Mother's Day, I salute those moms with my deepest respect.


This is a review, more specifically, about the "mothering" (from biological parents, foster parents, and the system at large) which is creating such a difficult path for many of our young men.


If you are familiar with the dismal statistics about males in foster homes and group homes, this book is sadly relevant.  I could write many thoughts, pages, chapters...about the asexual, warmth-depriving patterns of their biological mothers, and those same frequent patterns of foster mothers who "house children for profit". About them, and the lives their sons touch, this article and book are most pertinent.  The rising rates of foster/group home housing, combined with the youth's own family-(mother)-of-origin creates an overabundance of young men who are charming initially, and perhaps even cloaked in respectability....but who are narcissistic, abundantly entitled, self-centered, philandering and unable to make any sense of healthy connection and human intimacy.

Given that a scant 2% do not end up incarcerated, homeless, antisocial, or dead is a grim reflection of the serious flaws in all of the alleged supportive systems.  Likewise, it is a statement about mothering of sons. 

There are a very few puers who have understood the system, thus gotten an education, and/or dodged serious criminal charges. They might even  be superficially and materially functional, or even deemed "successful" in society.  


However they are, almost across the board, misogynistic, emotional and spiritual train wrecks who literally prey upon people who attempt to be genuinely empathic with them.  Their inability to bond, and to have any empathy, creates toxic relationships which are legion.  Their propensity to victimize others is, for them,  like a spectator sport. At best, they inspire a sense of detached compassion...but only for a very short while.  The caveats about even "glancing by" the lives of  men with that profile....are too numerous to ponder.

Whether he is a  Lawrence Taylor, a Michael Vick, a Tiger Woods, an Elliot Spitzer, a George Hugueley,  or more likely a common, boringly predictable,  everyday "Joe" in our lives. And for all the pages of such exploitative males detailed on DDHG (Don't Date Him Girl!), a website devoted to exposing the evils of such men so that others may not be victimized....we need to inform our young women today of this profile.  


To do anything less is simply irresponsible, since the percentage of this type of male (fatally wounded, drug-addicted, misogynistic) grows by the day. The chances of our daughters, and grand daughters, allowing themselves to be sucked into that initial aura is now about 67% nationally in universities alone. Getting it yet?  That's two of three males before age 22!

La Pook's column about this new novel, is spot-on.  It is a loud call to mothers and fathers to discuss the lack of values and character, and the essential cruelty embedded in these puers (eternal boys), who obsessively seek attention in any way they can. Since the psychological "core" of their psyche is shame-based, very little that they do is based on any mature emotion and/or hidden agenda.....no matter how they may appear.

Just as critical is the call to women who have survived and processed their own involvement with men as these...to enlighten their sisters on how to recognize, and avoid, them.

Lastly, the website of Sam Vaknin, an "out-of the-closet", self-professed, malignant narcissist who, ironically, contributes much to this world through his very complete descriptions of this profile...and increases our awareness of the increasingly growing developmental trend of this type of individual.  Merely watching cable news...becomes more and more grim as we observe this condition in many of our "headliners".

Dr. Jon LaPook

Medical correspondent for the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric

Posted: May 6, 2010 01:38 PM

The guy is Henry House, the title character of my friend Lisa Grunwald's latest novel, The Irresistible Henry House, and in addition to the fact that he's fictional, he's not a good bet. Henry knows how to please women -- how to talk to them, react to them, how and when to touch them.

The problem is that he is -- or at any rate seems to be -- utterly incapable of making a true connection with any of them.

Though pure fiction, Henry is based on pure fact: from the 1920s until the end of the 1960s, college home economic classes around the country borrowed infants from orphanages to be used as "practice babies." I kid you not.

Grunwald reels you in with the book's tantalizing first line: "By the time Henry House was four months old, a copy of his picture was being carried in the pocketbooks of seven different women, each of whom called him her son."

We see Henry change his behavior to please whichever mother he happens to be with at the moment. By the time he is a man, his superpower is to make women become infatuated with him. But he is totally unavailable.

The novel begins in the middle of the 20th century, a time when science seemed to offer a solution to so many of society's problems. If science could be applied to technology and population growth and behavior, then why not to childrearing? Well, for one thing, the attempt to train half a dozen or so "practice mothers" at a time flew directly in the face of "attachment theory," being developed by psychiatrist Dr. John Bowlby, psychologist Mary Ainsworth, psychologist Harry Harlow, and others.

Attachment disorder -- the result of the failure of an infant to form a strong bond in the first year or two of life -- results in a host of childhood and adult problems, many of which Henry struggles in the novel to overcome.

For this week's CBS Doc Dot Com, I spoke to Grunwald about her exquisitely researched and written novel. We talked with psychiatrist Dr. William Fisher about attachment disorder, and we touched on other cockamamie parenting strategies, including the advice of psychologist John Watson in 1928: "Never hug and kiss them, never let them sit on your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say good night. Shake hands with them in the morning."

As a parent of two teenage boys, I can tell you with one hundred percent certainty that I am one hundred percent uncertain about how best to raise a child. However, I'm pretty sure that being a dependable, consistent source of love is key. And that Lisa Grunwald has created a delicious, intriguing, "how not to" book.

Ten Ways Christians Tend to Fail at Being Christian

John Shore

Trying God's patience since   1958

Posted: May 7, 2010 01:43 AM

Speaking as someone who, well, had the conversion experience 14 years ago that I recounted in "I, a Rabid Anti-Christian, Very Suddenly Convert," we Christians too often fail in these ten ways:

1) Too much money. "Wealthy Christian" should be an oxymoron. In Luke 12:33, Jesus says, "Sell your possessions and give to the poor." In Matthew 19:21, he says, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor." In Matthew 6:24, he says, "You cannot serve God and Money." Christians are generally pretty huge on cleaving to the word of God. I just don't see how those particular words could be clearer. (For more on this, see my post "Christians: No Fair Heeding Paul on Gays But Not Jesus on Wealth.")

2) Too confident God thinks we're all that and a leather-bound gift Bible. I'd like to humbly suggest that we spend a little more time wondering how we displease God and a little less time being confident that we do. (See my post "Certainty in Christ: A Blessing and a Curse.")

3) Too quick to believe that we know what God really means by what he says in the Bible. The Bible is an extremely complex, multi-leveled work. We're sometimes too quick to assume that we grasp its every meaning. Take this passage, for instance, from Luke 8: 9-10: "His disciples asked him [Jesus] what this parable [of the sower] meant. He said, 'The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, "though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand."'" Huh? And that's Jesus "explaining" what is generally regarded as one of his most readily understood parables! Are we really all that confident that we always know exactly what Jesus meant by everything he said? Wouldn't we do well to sometimes admit that the words attributed to God manifested on earth are just a tad, well, Greek to us? (See my post "The Bible's Two Big Problems.")

4) Too action-oriented. We Christians could stand to spend less time acting in the name of God, and more time reflecting on the (ever subtle) majesty of God. We need more passivity, and less activity. More meditation, less machination. More reflection, less correction. More contemplation, less administration. More prayers, less airs. More mysticism, less ... um ... cretinism. (See my post "Doing Christianity vs. Being Christian.")

5) Too invasive of others generally. It is my personal, humble opinion that anyone seeking to mix church and state has failed to understand the nature and role of either. Being founded upon the principle that all men are created equal and deserving of equal protection under the law is what makes the American system of democracy such a gift to mankind. Attempting to mix the inherently exclusionary imperatives of a particular religion into the resolutely inclusive system of the American constitutional form of government is to work against everything that America stands for. Religion is a personal, subjective affair for the individual; politics and public policy is an impersonal, objective affair for everyone. (See my post "Does the Holy Spirit Vote Republican?")

6) Too invasive of others personally. We Christians are too often too eager to get up into the faces of others about their personal religious beliefs. If you believe in the reality of hell, then wanting to save non-Christians from going there is a worthy sentiment, of course. But the bottom line is it's absolutely impossible to talk someone who isn't a Christian into becoming one; in fact, more than anything else it's likely to push the non-Christian further from God. I believe we Christians would do very well indeed to spend our time "just" living as Christians, and let God worry about the non-Christians. (See my post "What Non-Christians Want Christians to Hear.")

7) Too quick to abandon logic. When talking to others about our faith, we Christians too often resort to a language and line of reasoning that leaves good ol' fashion logic sitting on the ground behind us, waving a sad good-bye. "It's true because the Bible says it's true" is, for instance, an assertion that can't help but leave the non-Christian unimpressed, since it's so manifestly illogical. "It's true because the Bible says it's true" is no more proof of truth than is, "Apples are the best of the fruits, because I think that's true." Christians need to more readily admit that the religious experience -- no matter how riveting and real it is to the person experiencing it -- remains a subjective phenomenon, and talk about it that way. (See my "Let's Be Real: No One 'Walks' and 'Talks' with Jesus.")

8) Too fixated on homosexuality. Can we Christians stop already with the gay and lesbian fixation? I know many of us understand our stance on the matter to be unassailably Biblical. I know a great many of us are deeply concerned about the "homosexual agenda." I know. We all know. Maybe Christians could just give that issue a rest for a while. It's not like gay and lesbian people are going anywhere. They'll all be there when we get back. Maybe -- for just a week, a day, a month -- we could concern ourselves with something else, and let them be. (See my post "Christians: When It Comes to Homosexuality, Man Up.")

9) Too insular. When I became a Christian, one of the things that most amazed me about Christians is the degree to which they tend to hang out only with other Christians. We should stop doing that. How are we supposed to share Christ's love with non-Christians (which we're forever saying we want to do) when we barely know any non-Christians? Time to widen that social base, I say. (Plus, Christian or not, we still want to throw good, fun parties, don't we? Well, let's face it: The heathen class has all the good music. We might as well invite a few of them to our next party. Maybe they'll bring their CD's!) (See my post, "My Answer to Christians Denouncing R. Crumb's "Genesis Illustrated.")

10) Too uneducated about Christianity. Generally speaking (which of course is the most offensive way to speak about any group of people), Christians tend to embarrass themselves by knowing so little about either the Bible or the history of Christianity. Believing that the Bible is the word of God, for instance, is one thing; knowing nothing about the long process by which men decided which texts would and wouldn't make it into the Bible is another. It's not that all Christians should be full-on theologians or historians. But if you're a Christian who doesn't know the Great Schism from The Great Santini, or the Diet of Worms from ... well, the diet of worms, then you've got some homework to do.