Mom.me asks, “Is there a right way to spank your child?”
Ericka Souter, Editor of a well-known online magazine Mom.Me just published an article titled, “Is there a right way to spank your child?” Just the title of this article makes me cringe. Can you imagine the uproar on Mom.me if there was an article titled, “Is there a right way to slap your wife?” The double standard is mind bending!
Ms. Souter does not hit her own child, thankfully. And yet, she sees no problem with other parents hitting their own children. In her view, its a personal choice. She even admonishes herself as going into “judgmental mommy mode,” when she witnesses a mother strike her son five times on the subway. Ms. Souter looks away.
I can understand that intervening with a stranger is a very difficult situation, and I am not suggesting that the stressed out mother deserved an eye-roll from Ms. Souter. I am suggesting that if Ms. Souter was less muddled in her own mind about violence against children, her response may have been very different. She may have found a way to intervene, to say something on behalf of the child, to recognize the mother’s distress and also voice a boundary. “I can see you are really upset. It isn’t OK to hit children.” Or “I’m here to help” as she intervenes and stops the hitting. Maybe she could have given the mother a note with resources for getting help.
It gets sticky here, doesn’t it? It takes practice, and it is really uncomfortable. What if the mother gets angry with me or lashes out? This is a topic for a whole other article, but we didn’t even get that far, because, for Ms. Souter and many others – hitting children is a personal choice.
“Personally, I still feel spanking is not right for my child, but it’s ultimately up to each parent to decide what’s best for their family,” Ms. Souter concludes. Isn’t that like saying, “Personally, my husband has decided hitting me is not right, but it’s ultimately up to each couple to decide?” Since when is hitting a personal choice?
This article attempts to be journalistic, by seeking multiple perspectives. But the question itself is disingenuous. If she had asked, “Is there a right way to hit a child,” it would have been a very different article. I doubt Dr. Zelinger or Dr. Elkind would have been so willing to represent the pro-hitting view. The question itself euphemistically diminishes and in some sense condones violence against children.
It’s about asking the right questions. Ms. Souter didn’t – at least not in this article. How about…
How does the belief in hitting children contribute to cultural violence?
Or
How do you intervene on behalf of a child who is being hit in public?
Or
How do I stand up for the child while maintaining a connection to the parent?
.
There are so many questions we need to be asking. Ms. Souter did ask some intriguing questions for her article that she did not include. I thought I would share them here with my responses. What questions do you think we should be asking?
What are the biggest dangers of spanking?
In my opinion, the greatest risk associated with spanking is creating an ambivalent attachment between yourself and your child especially when the child is the most vulnerable in the first five years of life. The quality of our connection to our children during this time has a profound effect on long-term brain development. Spanking activates the stress response in the child’s brain and thereby short circuits their ability to learn, think clearly, and feel for others. Instead of encouraging learning, spanking heightens a child’s hyper-vigilance and interferes with his ability to self-regulate or cognitively understand consequences. It is no surprise that most children can recall a spanking, even years later, but have difficulty remembering exactly what they did wrong at the time. The brain stores a memory of the threat, but the brain does not record any meaningful learning. Often the memory associated with the spanking is a feeling that “I was bad,” or “I was a bad kid.”
We’ve learned through research that maternal warmth does not lessen the negative risks associated with spanking. A recent study showed an increase in anxiety in children whose parents spank and then express physical warmth toward them. This may be surprising to some parents, but when you understand that the child experiences the parent as a threat, it makes sense that the child would have an ambivalent response toward affectionate physical touch following physical pain. An ambivalent attachment is a very serious problem, because it negatively impacts ongoing development of the brain and can change brain chemistry and architecture in ways that show up much later on. Early toxic stress, including harsh punishment, can alter brain development and lead to problems in adolescence and adulthood such as anxiety, depression, anger problems, increased risk for smoking, and alcohol and substance abuse. These problems stem from damage to the attachment the child feels toward the parent and the development of the self-regulatory system in the first four years of life.
Another serious risk of spanking is the increased risk of criminal child abuse. Spanking activates the stress arousal response in the parent’s brain as well as the child’s. That heightened level of arousal diminishes the parent’s ability to access feelings of empathy. When we strike our child, our brain experiences our child as a threat and we are essentially disconnected emotionally from him. The part of our brain that can feel how our child feels is turned off line. It is no surprise that parents who believe in spanking are 4X more likely to meet the criteria for criminal child abuse and parents who believe in spanking with an implement (such as a belt, paddle or spoon) are 9X more likely to meet the criteria for criminal child abuse. 85% of all substantiated child abuse cases begin with the parent attempting to use physical discipline. Child abuse is an epidemic in this country. 5 children die every day in the US due to child abuse and neglect, usually at the hands of their own parents. When we condone spanking, we are giving stressed out parents permission to abuse their children. The more stressed the parent, the greater the risk for serious harm.
james
One thing I have done once or twice at “grocery store violence” is to look at the interaction, make a decision to approach and say something like “That little kid is definitely tired. And I’ll bet Mommy/Daddy is kind tired, too.” Then I share the frustrations I used to have with my own daughter at that age and then finally tell the harried parent what I did to confront my own little child: there are a wealth of imaginative ways we can respond to conflict rather than giving in or fighting back. I then tell the parent that I never had to spank my daughter and then share a few techniques that used to work for me.
Build awareness.
We tend to treat others the way we ourselves were treated. Violence is always the result of being unable to recognize and process our own suffering so we act it out on others. It’s kind of a “return to the scene of the crime” situation in which we repeat unfinished business over and over again to try to figure out what is happening.
Robbyn Peters Bennett, LMHC, CMHS
Thank you for your words of wisdom and compassion!
Natalie™
Thank you for all the work you do, Robbyn! This is so helpful. …One thing I noticed in the Mom.me article is a reference I see & hear ALL THE TIME from corporal punishment proponents that is totally inaccurate, but rarely gets called out and corrected, and that is the assumption that the phrase “Spare the rod and spoil the child” is a verse in the Bible. It is not. It is actually a line from a 17th century poem, and in the context, references an erotic spanking between lovers (disturbing, then, that the phrase is used to condone the same act forced on children, no?) – more on that here:
http://gracethrufaith.com/topical-studies/spare-the-rod-and-spoil-the-child/
The verse that IS in the Bible that people are most likely misquoting is Proverbs 13:24, “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly.” However, there is still a problem with interpreting this verse as promoting physical punishment, which is explained very well, I think, in this post by L.R. Knost:
http://www.littleheartsbooks.com/2014/05/10/spare-the-rod-the-heart-of-the-matter-2/
…Although I certainly have respect for the Bible and for faith, what really matters for me personally is 1) the fact that children are human beings and have the right to be treated as such, and 2) the vast amount of research and evidence that physical punishment is harmful. …Oh yeah, and my own childhood experience, which, while pretty tame compared to what many people have been through, and most parents in our culture would probably see it as totally acceptable and not a big deal, left me feeling violated, broken, and alienated from the people I most needed to be able to trust. But I bring up this misquotation that gets casually tossed out so often and the resulting discussion about what the Bible *really* says because, having grown up in the Christian church, I know that many people who are committed to following the Bible will always put their interpretation of scripture above what any person or organization or collection of evidence has to say, no matter how scientific and well-founded, because they believe it is from God, and they believe that it therefore trumps anything else. For those of such a mindset, the only thing that will change their belief that the Bible instructs them to hit their children is to be convinced that, despite what they’ve been told over and over in their churches and religious communities, hitting children is NOT what the Bible is promoting, and that in fact, a closer look at scripture would point to the importance of raising our children NOT with violence, but with love, grace, and kindness, and leading by our example.
More great resources from a Christian perspective:
http://hippiehousewife.blogspot.com/2011/11/rod-verses-taking-rod-verses-literally.html?m=1
http://gentlefirmness.wintersauthor.com/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-d-tabor/spanking-children-does-th_b_5888520.html
http://whynottrainachild.com/2013/06/22/download-martins-book/
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/permissiontolive/2011/01/spanking-and-trust.html
…And a bit of satire holding up the “Biblical” belief in spanking next to Biblical passages about stoning rebellious children:
http://dulcefamily.blogspot.com/2011/01/good-old-fashioned-stoning.html
Sorry for such a long comment; I am just very familiar with the culture of spanking within certain Christian traditions, and it’s my hope that by working through some of these deeply-held beliefs, the mindset that hitting children is “godly”, “loving”, “commanded”, etc. can be changed.
Thank you again for all your work and your commitment to this issue!
Robbyn Peters Bennett, LMHC, CMHS
Thank you so much for all these resources, Natalie!