The hot button debate about whether or not spanking is a viable, productive way to discipline children has gotten more fuel for its ongoing fire because, you know, proponents for each side just didn’t have quite enough material to quibble over up until now. The latest in the long lineup of postulations is new research from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, which claims disciplining kids with physical punishment such as spanking—and, of course, its handmaidens, shoving and slapping—may raise their risk for developing mental health problems when they get older.
From the gate, there’s a problem with the assertion. The research is clearly skewed as a bully pulpit against corporal punishment because shoving and slapping are so not in the same category of discipline as a swat across a kid’s behind in a moment of correction or a spanking out of love as part of a parent’s plan to set an unruly child straight.
As a matter of fact, the study’s author, Dr. Tracie O. Afifi, lumps spanking in with not only shoving and slapping, but hitting, grabbing, and pushing, in essence making those actions out to be one in the same. WebMD takes it one step further by adding in denying bathroom privileges, forcing a child to eat disgusting substances, or withholding water and food.
More from The Stir: My Parents Spanked Me & It Still Hurts Me Now
Seriously? I know opponents are eager to prove their point that all physical discipline is the handiwork of a less loving parent, but there is a line between punishment and just flat out abuse. Let’s review: if you wail on your kid without any kind of emotional or psychological bolstering, if you pull out the belt or snap off a switch at the least little misstep, if your kneejerk reaction is to raise a hand or foot to mollywhop a child into better behavior, then you might just be an abuser. But that’s not the case for moms and dads who correct with an occasional spanking and follow that up with loving conversation that reinforces the values and expectations behind the punishment in the first place.
American parents are pretty much split down the middle between the spankers and the non-spankers. Forty-eight percent of U.S. moms and dads use corporal strategy when time-outs and talking-tos just won’t get the point across. But according to Afifi’s research, physical punishment increases a person's odds for having a mood or anxiety issues, alcohol or drug abuse, and personality disorders. According to the study, between 2 and 7 percent of mental health problems among the 35,000 subjects involved can be attributed to physical punishment.
At the end of the day, you can find research to support just about any theory, thought, idea, or belief if you dig long and hard enough. I think this is just another attempt to pare parenting down to one blanketed method instead of letting folks find out what works for their families with free conscience. And since kids don’t come with an instruction manual, I think our time would be better served stepping out of the gray area of corporal punishment and trying to figure out how to help in some of the 1,001 other areas that are less objective, more cut and dry, and much more in-our-faces.
So, do you think kids who get spanked are more susceptible to having mental issues as adults?
Image via goodnight_photography/Flickr
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Comments 121
My mother used to hit (I say hit and not spank because that's exactly what it was) with fly swatters, wooden spoons, hairbrushes, and even a tennis racket once. To this day, I still won't have a wooden spoon in my house. That said, I absolutely believe in spanking a child, I spank my son on occasion but I never do it out of anger or like I'm "trying to show him who's boss." I only use my hand, and even then it's one or two quick swats and then we discuss why it happened. This study KILLS me because it is talking about abuse. The study is NOT discipline.
Furthermore, a new study comes out every month, "this casues cancer, this parenting technique we've been using for 50 years causes kids to not think they're special, blah blah blah." Frankly, I'm shocked any of us made it out alive.
I agree 100% with this article. I have many examples of when spanking has work for myself and others in my family without any mental problems developing later in life. Kid keeps running towards the road? Time outs and talking doesn't work. Spank them and tell them that's what will happen if he does it again. Kid never ran towards the road again. Kid keeps hitting siblings or friends but time outs and talking isn't doing a damn thing? Spank them and they will stop. Kid keeps trying to cook his toys in the microwave and timeouts and talking doesn't work? Spank them and you wont be smelling cooked barbie doll for days. I understand that timeouts and talking works for some kids but others just need a little something extra to get the point across. And I'm just talking about regular open handed swat on the butt a couple of times. I am in no way saying it is OK to abuse your kids. Spanking as a punishment is not abuse just make sure you don't take it to far. There is only one person in my family that has never been spanked a day in his life and do wanna know were he is in life now? He is a pathological liar breaks the law in one way or another every single day oh and did I mention the massive amounts of drugs? Maybe we should do a study on how not spanking your child turns your kids into criminals?
"Spanking out of love?" Really?
Spanking is just a sugar-coated way of saying "hitting". So what you're really saying is "hitting out of love is not abuse."
Now imagine those words coming from a fully grown man, who was talking about hitting his fully grown wife, and not his 5 year-old daughter.
Is that less acceptable? More acceptable? Or is hitting your loved ones, and using the excuse "I only hurt you because I love you", only acceptable when you're hitting a defenseless child much smaller than you are?
Stop bullying your kids, and take a parenting class.