New Zealand parents reject smacking ban

Carolyn Moynihan

The Great Smacking Debate is in full flight in New Zealand where a lawchange two years ago specifically banned the use of “force” for thepurpose of correcting children. Opponents of the new law collectedenough signatures to secure a referendum on the smacking issue, whichtakes place next month. A New Zealand Herald poll last week shows that85 per cent of parents of young children plan to vote No on thequestion: “Should a smack as part of good parental be a criminaloffence in New Zealand?”

http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/view/new_zealand_parents_reject_smacking_ban/

The spanking wars: anti group rolls out a meta-analysis

Carolyn Moynihan

The latest shot in the spanking wars has been fired by the US anti-spanking group End Physical Punishment of Children, through a review of existing research on the subject. The national lobby group suggested the idea of the meta-analysis to Elizabeth Gershoff of the University of Michigan (but did not fund the study) and she found that corporal punishment is not a good way to improve a child's behaviour...

However, the Family Research Council points out:Ironically, though, the research did not focus on spanking at all, but on "physical punishment." The study explicitly lumps together words like "spank," "slap," "beat," "punch," and "whip," treating them as if they are all the same thing...

Dr Gershoff, a mother of two, affirms the importance of discipline and suggests parents raise their voice or immediately take something away from the child to get their attention. Hmmm. But what if a toddler throws a tantrum precisely because you took something away from them, and what if they can make more noise than you? Isn't that the time for a short, sharp smack to snap them out of it? That's what 70 per cent of US adults still think, despite the campaign against such correction. ~ Arizona Republic, Mar 19

http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/the_spanking_wars_anti_group_rolls_out_a_meta_analysis/#comments

Spanking

In response to my article, "Some People Just Need to get Spanked."

In response to your article, I must say first that I am proud of Sally
Lieber's bill and second that I am proud to be from a state that cares about the welfare of it's youngest members. Many countries around the world have totally banned the spanking of children. You don't hear about too many problems with their children either. Why? Because their children are being raised in generally peaceful societies where they do not fear being smacked by the people who are supposed to love them and protect them.

We are one of the last Western countries to not have a ban on hitting children. Have we ever been a peaceful society? Hardly. Before you mock our state and our legislaters in another article, perhaps you should do some soul searching and ask yourself why you would advocate hitting children no matter how "mild" that hitting would be. We are talking about children - where even a small slap can be traumatic.

We have laws in every state where if you hit an animal or another adult you could find yourself before a judge. How then do we allow adults to hit the smallest members of our society without having to be accountable for their actions? Hopefully soon it will not be just CA that bans hitting children but all states - that way we can join the intelligent countries in the rest of the world that have recognized the evils of hitting children.

What does she know anyhow?

Great article. What does she know about raising children - she's single and has no children but thinks she and the government should tell parents how to bring their children up in this world. There's a lot of other areas that the state government should be involved in such as cutting back on welfare recipients, etc.

Another reader.

In a way, this is the real question of that article: what business does a childless woman have telling other people what to do and not do with their kids? The original article in the Murky News stated that 10 European countries have banned spanking. But that doesn't impress me. Most European countries are not having enough chidlren to reproduce their societies. Some, like Italy and Spain are at disastrous levels of 1.2 chidlren per woman, which means the society is almost dropping in half every generation.
I would love to know which countries in Europe have banned spanking. Does anyone out there know?

Does this count as abuse?

Another reader tells his story:

For a two year old in the middle of a screaming tantrum a glass of cold water in the face is much better than a spanking. First time i saw it was while in college in a grocery store. A young mother asked a clerk for a glass of water and then she silenced her screaming kid. I used it fifty years later on one of my grandsons who, at the time, was temporarily in my care. It worked on him the same way. It isn't cruel, doesn't hurt them a bit, and gets their attention big time.

More on Spanking

Is all "violence" created equal? Are we really unable to make distinctions amongst different contexts and uses of force? That is the question this reader poses:

I wonder ... Suppose that a child, say, hits his sister, and the parent responds by spanking him. If the parent is convicted under this law and ordered to report to prison, and the parent refuses to surrender to authorities, would the police use physical force? If not, then why should anyone obey the law? If they will, then we are being told that physical force as a punishment is immoral ... unless it is used as a punishment for someone who used physical force ... even if that person used physical force to punish someone for using physical force.

Spanking Ban?

Readers are starting to react to my townhall column today on the proposal to ban spanking in CA.

Out of Control (and Clueless) Nanny State

A childless legislator here in California (where else?) has proposed a legislative ban on spanking. Sally Lieber, Democrat (naturally) from Mountain View, which is in Northern California (why am I not surprised?) believes this is a proper function of state government.

The bill, which is still being drafted, will be written broadly, she added, prohibiting ``any striking of a child, any corporal punishment, smacking, hitting, punching, any of that.'' Lieber said it would be a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail or a fine up to $1,000, although a legal expert advising her on the proposal said first-time offenders would probably only have to attend parenting classes.

The San Jose Mercury News reports that child rearing experts generally do not agree with a ban on spanking. The "two-swat spank" has been extensively studied. Two swats on a covered bottom do not constitute child abuse, and in fact, can be an important adjunct to reasoning in disciplining a child. The Murky News (as the locals call it. Actually, it isn't a bad paper, as MSM outlets go) interviews one of the leading scholars of corporal punishment, Dr. Robert Larzelere.

Experts in child psychology disagree over whether spanking is a legitimate or effective way for parents to discipline their children. Professor Robert Larzelere, who has studied child discipline for 30 years, said his research shows spanking is fine, as long as it's used sparingly and doesn't escalate to abuse.

``If it's used in a limited way,'' the Oklahoma State University professor said, ``it can be more effective than almost any other type of punishment.'' He added that children 18 months old or younger shouldn't be spanked at all, because they can't understand why it's happening.

As for Lieber's proposal, the professor said: ``I think this proposal is not just a step too far, it's a leap too far. At least from a scientific perspective there really isn't any research to support the idea that this would make things better for children.''

I happen to have an article by Dr. Larzelere and some co-authors in my filing cabinet. It is relatively old, 1998, but still interesting, because it is a comparison of a variety of discplinary strategies: reasoning, and two types of punishment, non-corporal punishment, such as time-out, and non-abusive corporal punishment. Here is his summary:

Parents should use the least aversive disciplinary tactic that is likely to be effective in gaining compliance (i.e. reasoning). When that tactic does not receive appropriate compliance, then parents should back up the initial tactic with a slightly more aversive tactic (e.g. non-corporal punishment such as time-out). Only for continued defiant noncompliance should a parent resort to nonabusive corporal punishment to back up the noncorporal punishment.... (Citing another author) Roberts has shown that a back-up such as a two-swat spank is necessary to make time-out effective with the most non-compliant preschoolers.

(Journal of Marriage and Family, 60, No. 2 (May 1998) 388-403. Note to self: this study looked at children 25 to 38 months of age.)

In other words, if you are dealing with a sweet, even-tempered child who wants to please, you can reason with them and they will comply. But there are some little stinkers who need something a little firmer. When Dr. Larzelere wrote the above article, his affiliation was listed as "Boys Town." Presumably, he observed some troubled kids during his time there.
I too, have observed some troubled kids. There are indeed kids who will not comply with adult instructions, no matter how nicely you talk to them. (Parents who talk too much have been studied too. The experts call them "natterers.") The presumption that spanking is always and everywhere a form of child abuse or violence assumes that whatever harm the child endures in the spanking is more serious than the harm he endures by being allowed to continue in his defiance. This is the core assumption that has to be challenged.
In point of fact, preschool aged children need to comply with adult instructions. They do not need to learn to negotiate, or to find ways to evade authority. Children need limits and structure. The most disturbed kids need limits most of all. You can't heal the kids without setting limits.
As foster parents, we were prohibited absolutely from any corporal punishment. We coped. But there are plenty of kids who would have been much better off with the ocasional "two-swat spank" than they were with the systematic learning that they could defy adult authority with impunity.
Assemblywoman Lieber seems to think that the current standards of child abuse impose insufficient limits on parental behavior. The truth of the matter is that social workers are already, in effect, placing limits on parental behavior. I feel sure that people are inhibited about swatting their kids by the thought that they could be reported by a stranger or a vindictive neighbor.
So here is the essence of Sally Lieber's proposal. Otherwise competent parents will be presumed abusive if they swat their children. The parents will be put in prison for a year and the kids will be put in foster care. The parents of tempermentally difficult children will be the most likely to run afoul of this system. Those difficult kids will be given to foster parents, who will have more constraints on their disciplinary tactics, and more supervision by the state, but who have less direct interest in the well-being of the child. These difficult kids will be less likely, not more likely, to have appropriate boundary setting and limit setting in the absence of a) their parents' ability to swat them once in a while and b) the presence of the parents at all.
This benefits kids, how? This is a cost-effective use of state resources, how? This sends what kind of message to the parents of California?