Child Psychology

Spanking is most often a deliberate form of punishment seen as corporal punishment. "Corporal punishment is the deliberate infliction of pain intended as correction or punishment."(www.wikipedia.com) This practice is limited because of its intent for disciplinary reasons and not torture. Although corporal punishment is still widely used in domestic situations it has been banned in seventeen countries, although in the United States some states still allow paddling.

Massachusetts has proposed a bill banning all forms of corporal punishment of persons under 18. Although there are many types of corporal punishment that are mild ranging from spanking on the hand to spanking on the buttocks, there are also forms of punishment that are more stringent such as hitting a child with a paddle or belt although less common still found today. Spanking only teaches a child violent behavior and should not be used, rather other methods of punishment such as denying privileges would teach more valuable less violent lessons to children today.

Murray Strauss argues that spanking teaches children aggressiveness and is associated with subsequent violent behavior. He has made a career out of linking all kinds of negative outcomes to spanking or corporal punishment. His argument is that when children are spanked they see it as a way of dealing with problems, which Strauss sees as modeling children to be violent and in turn detrimental to society as a whole. Strauss wants to work toward the elimination of child maltreatment. Strauss believes that if all parents stopped hitting their children there would not be an end to all violence but the result would be significantly less, with less indirect victims.

Robert Larzelere contends that spankings, should not be considered detrimental to children. Larzelere looked at articles published that cited investigations on parental physical punishment and where child outcome was considered, with studies excluding abuse more likely to have beneficial outcomes. The most important finding Larzelere fell upon was that there are not enough quality studies documenting detrimental outcomes of nonabusive physical punishment to support advice or policies against this practice of many parents. One of the found weaknesses of these studies is that no perspectives to what the original frequency or severity of child behavioral problems were measured before the study was done. Larzelere clearly identifies what he considers fallacies of numerous research studies on spanking. He distinguishes between beating which he feels is not an acceptable practice an spanking which he contends can be a useful guidance tool for children. It is often quoted "I was spanked as a child and I turned out okay, spanking teaches children how to act, kids need spankings to know who is boss."

In a public opinion poll, parents were asked how they disciplined their children during previous years, the responses are as follows 79% denied privileges, 59% confined children to their rooms, 49% spanking or hitting and 45% used insults and swearing. Clearly in the above study spanking is still used, but parents have also opted for other choices of disciplining their children.

Corporal punishment is often done impulsively out of anger, where many come to regret this has a liability and great risk. It has been found that the greater approval of corporal punishment the higher the overall homicide rate is this is also true of the homicide rate for infants. The states that allow corporal punishment also have higher violence levels among students in their school systems. "Hitting, slapping or spanking children as a form of punishment shows them that it is okay to hit others to solve problems and can train them to punish others in the same way they were punished." Although it has not been proven it is evident that corporal punishment may be dangerous