Corporal Punishment: Archaic, Barbaric And Ineffective

It is a commonly held belief that if you "spare the rod" you'll spoil the child. In many parts of the world, spanking is still utilised as a mainstay method of discipline. However, more research and studies are revealing the negative effects of spanking on a child's psychological development and its ineffectiveness in correcting "bad behaviour".

Why is spanking used as a form of discipline?

The most common reason why spanking is adopted by many parents is because this was the accepted practice of discipline during their childhood. Their parents spanked them as children and so they spank their own children. Many parents are ignorant of the psychological harm that spanking causes.

Spanking is also one of the easiest methods of discipline to adopt. It requires no thought and it allows parents to release their frustration and anger resulting from their children's ill behaviours.

There has been an incorrect association between the increase prevalence of teenage delinquency and the belief that this is the result of parents who are too lax or soft in their methods of discipline. The fear of their children becoming one of those problematic youths leads some parents to adopt unnecessarily harsh methods of discipline to combat the negative behaviours of their children.

The fallacy behind the notion that spanking is okay
Many parents who were spanked as children make the following assumption: "I was spanked as a child and I turned out okay". But what is okay? Could it be that if we weren't spanked we might have more deeper and meaningful friendships? Better relationships? Lasting marriages? Feel less depressed? Perform better at work? Have a better outlook and attitude towards life?

The argument "my parents spanked me and I turned out okay" is flawed. Jordan Riak from Nospank.net cites an excellent example that articulates the fallacy of this belief:

"Let's test the I-turned-out-okay argument by examining a few real-life examples from my own childhood. See if they apply to you.

1. There were ashtrays in every room of our house. My parents smoked, as did most adult visitors to our home. The aroma of cigarette, cigar and pipe smoke was always present. Nobody minded. In fact, not one day passed in my early life when I was not exposed to tobacco smoke. I was even exposed in the womb because my mother smoked when she was pregnant with me. And I turned out okay.

2. The first family car I remember was a 1937 Chevrolet sedan. It had no seat belts. When we traveled, I was merely plunked down on the back seat with the expectation that gravity would keep me there. It did. And I turned out okay.

3. All the places in which I lived as a child were painted with lead-based paint. And I turned out okay.

4. I used a bicycle throughout my childhood and teen years, but never wore any kind of protective headgear. And I turned out okay.
Was my family wise or just lucky? Today, we don't do those things anymore. We don't take such risks, and we don't expose our children to such risks - not if we know the facts."

Here are a few more:

In the 70s and 80s, there were no regulations for dentists to practice with gloves. In this day and age of H1N1 would you attend a dental surgery if you knew the dentist didn't wear gloves to treat you?

In the 70s it was common practice for health professionals to encourage mothers to wean their babies and offer formula milk. These days, many health care professionals wouldn't dream of discouraging a mother from breastfeeding her baby. In fact, it is highly recommended as the best form of nutrition.

It is likely that one of the uncomfortable notions about criticising spanking results from the fact that many of us were spanked at some stage when we were children. The idea that our parents did wrong against us can be rather uncomfortable to face. However, it should be noted that our parents did what they felt was right at the time because they lacked the awareness of the possible side effects. All the examples cited above are other ways our parents did "wrong" against us but they were accepted practices in their day because they didn't know better.

It was also researched and found that children who were spanked by misguided but well-intentioned parents were later able to reach a well adjusted adulthood because of the love, nurturing and appropriate limit-setting they also received from their parents, not because of the physical violence they received.

What are the negative effects of spanking on a child's psychological development?

Research on child brain development has revealed the following findings as a result of utilising spanking as a method of discipline:

- Spanking causes stress in a child that is no different to the stress a child experiences when being bullied or when being abused.

- Brain scans of children who have been spanked show structural and biochemical changes that affect their social behaviour.

- Spanking leads to cell death in the anterior cingulate gyrus which affects a child's ability to moderate fear and to empathise. The changes in the brain's pathways affect a child's ability to manage stress. It also makes the child more prone to being impulsive, aggressive and/or anxious.

- Spanking also causes long term changes to the adrenaline systems in the brain affect the ability to think clearly. Impairment in the brain stem has been linked to ADHD, depression and impaired attention. It also leads to more aggression and irritability.

- Spanking leads to a decrease in size of the corpus callosum causing manic shifts in mood states.

- Children who were spanked had a reduced amygdala and hippocampus resulting in depression, irritability and hostility. They also had poor memory function.

- Spanking also resulted in changes to the GABA system making a child feel unsafe. These children were constantly living in a state of alarm.

Violent methods of discipline have also been linked to children with anti-social behaviour and an increased prevalence of psychiatric disorders, while non-violent methods of discipline has been linked to higher cognitive function.

The effectiveness of spanking

One might argue that spanking is effective in conveying the message across to a child that they did wrong and that nothing else works quite as well. Longitudinal studies have shown the converse to be true. In fact, studies have found that schools which had the highest rates of spanking also had the lowest graduation rates, the highest rates of teen pregnancy, the highest incarceration rates and the highest murder rates.

Studies also show a positive correlation between the severity of spanking received and severity of crimes committed. For instance, 100% of the violent inmates at San Quentin bore a history of extreme physical punishment when they were children, whereas the majority of professionals experienced moderate to an absence of physical punishment when they were children.

Adults who were spank when they were children can seldom articulate any way in which it helped them even though they believe that it did them "no harm". If you were spanked as a child and you behaved after that, why did you behave? Was it because you knew it was wrong? Because you were afraid of getting spanked again? Or because you didn't want to disappoint your parents? For many children, the reason is most often the fear of being spanked again that prevents further misdeeds. For other children, spanking merely serves to encourage them to be more careful about not getting caught the next time.

What are the lessons learned from being hit? Often it leads to children bullying other children and the acceptance that it is okay to hit others. What happens to the moral of the story? Your child might behave in your presence but how does he or she behave when you are not looking? Discipline should be about raising morally-aware children with a social conscience, and not creating fear-inspired behaviour in a child that doesn't last once the child is out of sight.

There have been all manner of guidelines offered to indicate "appropriate" methods to spank a child. For instance, never spank when you are angry, only spank the bottom not the face, only use your hand, etc. Yet there is a flaw to this idealism. While you might be able to lightly slap a young child on the wrist for bad behaviour, what happens when that child continues to misbehave? How much harder can you continue to hit your child before spanking constitutes violence against that child? What about an older child? It is unlikely that a teenager is going to be deterred by a slap on the wrist. Just how far can spanking go?

There are other ways to discipline

There is a common misconception that parents who choose not to use spanking as a form of discipline are perceived as lax parents who let their children run wild. It is assumed that a refusal to hit a child in the name of discipline equates to a refusal to discipline a child. This is a narrow view of discipline, for the root of the word discipline means "to teach". You can still teach a child that certain behaviours are inappropriate and undesirable without having to resort to spanking. Just because a parent chooses not to spank a child does not mean that parent does not discipline that child. That parent may merely have chosen different methods to discipline the child.

There are better ways to teach a child how to behave besides spanking. These methods are generally more time consuming and they also require more effort. It is much easier to yell at or spank a child for misbehaving. It doesn't require any thought and the action alone helps release some steam from the anger buttons the child has just pushed. Utilising non-violent methods of discipline often require parents to think first then act. This is perhaps the more appropriate way to discipline a child since it is important tobe aware of the message and lesson that we wish to communicate.

Spanking is not only harmful to a child but also an ineffective method of discipline. In light of this, isn't it our duty as parents to make it a point to search for more effective and beneficial methods of discipline for our children?

Shen-Li is a stay-at-home-mum dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in parenting. She has a formal educational background and former work experience in healthcare. If you enjoyed this article, visit her blog Babylicious and follow her as she learns how to raise a happy, confident and successful person.