Spare the Rod: Corporal Punishment is Child Abuse
“What is done to children, they will do to society.” Karl A. Menninger
When you’re born with original sin and a soul bound for Hell it’s an evangelical parent’s eternally fatal responsibility to beat the will from you.
This one isn’t entirely on the Evangelicals; Corporal punishment transcends cultures and religions and generations. The Christians repackaged it through, gave it a nice biblical bow with old Spare the rod; spoil the child.”
I’m of the 80’s- the generation that sat squirming on shag carpet in front of the radio listening to the Focus on the Family program’s Dr. James Dobson tell our parents to hit us harder!
Check out this thread of adults who were abused by parents who followed this horrible, violent advice
The Evangelicals were pushing back against new child psychology that could have spared us. Even now my father tries to discourage my daughter from trusting academia and using it with her children.
Even though studies reliably show and experts agree that corporal punishment often has direct negative effects on children that will impact them for a lifetime, apparently hoards of Christian parents would rather not put the work.
And why should they? The Bible, in alllll it’s infinite, infallible wisdom, fails to mention parenting strategies beyond brutal beating. (Oh and tying your child to an animal sacrifice altar or handing your child over for sexual assault )
The Bible and its god condone enough violence to make any reader raise a couple eyebrows. What can you really expect from a storm/war god invented by ignorant men though?
Such literature lacks any understanding of human psychology and subjects our children to ancient methods of abuse.
If you’re going to quote scripture, you can pluck some better cherries than that. Proverbs 13:24? I’ll counter with Christ in Luke 17:2
“It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.”
Citing scripture to justify our actions is a slippery slope when you can pluck verses to suit your mood or agenda. Shakespeare probably said it best:
“The Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.”
Christian parents aren’t actively seeking lazy ways to parent. But distrust of psychology and embrace of biblical values make it inevitable.
Keeping your emotions in check around a child who lacks the awareness to do the same can be exhausting. But administering punishment for feelings isn’t effective discipline- it just teaches kids an unhealthy relationship with their feelings.
Development of healthy relationships with ourselves and others starts with having a safe place to process emotions. A parent can’t address anger with violence or frustration with fear, if they hope to help their child develop properly.
Parents need to consider a child’s developing skills, and human emotions. This creates a trusting bond with a child instead of a toxic fear dynamic.
In young children, still learning the difference between right and wrong, corporal punishment will cause a state of extreme distress and confusion which makes it difficult to ponder their behaviour with clarity. In older children physical punishment is likely to provoke resentment and further misbehaviour.
If a child is too young to be reasoned with, they are too young to understand why they are being hit. And if they are old enough to be reasoned with and understand other punishments, then use those methods!
Psychologist H. Stephen Glen:
“Corporal punishment is the least effective method [of discipline]. Punishment reinforces a failure identity. It reinforces rebellion, resistance, revenge and resentment.”
READ📚
Beating The Devil Out of Them : Corporal Punishment in American Children by Murray A. Straus
Just as smoking was accepted a generation ago, corporal punishment is still okay in polite society. However, like smoking, hitting emerges as a destructive anti-social act with serious costs to public health.”
–James Garbarino, Cornell University
Corporal punishment can cause the following:
Increased physical aggression: Being two to six times more likely to be physically aggressive.
Higher rates of delinquency: Increased likelihood of becoming juvenile delinquents.
Adult violence: Greater tendency to use physical violence against their spouses as adults.
Sadomasochistic tendencies: Potential for developing sadomasochistic tendencies.
Mental health issues: A higher risk of depression, anxiety, and personality problems.
Poor moral internalization and increased antisocial behavior.
Damaged parent-child relationships
It is interesting to note that “spare the rod and spoil the child” Solomon’s beating of his own son was ineffective and may have contributed to his infamous brutality as a dictator.
“I got hit and I wasn’t negatively affected” is the most ironically inaccurate statement I have ever heard.
Often abused children grow up defending their abusers. To do otherwise is to admit that as children, they never deserved the pain inflicted upon them and in turn address emotions over being hit by loved ones who were supposed to keep them safe from harm, so instead they defend and continue the method on their own children.
The anger that children are not allowed to express is repressed, saved for later. The abuse has more immediate effects too.
Dawn Walker, executive director of the Canadian Institute of Child Health:
“We know that children who are under the threat of violence or aggression develop a fight-or-flight response system that has an impact on creativity and imagination, both of which could influence their IQ…”
Andrew Grogan-Kaylor, University of Michigan:
“Even minimal amounts of spanking can lead to an increased likelihood in antisocial behavior by children.”
While not explaining your reasons for a beating results in terror, explaining that even a little violence is ever an acceptable form of human interaction is confusing and damaging as well. And can you really teach a disrespectful child a lesson while treating them with so much disrespect?
A spanked child will not be sitting there in tears thinking about the error of her ways after a beating. She’s humiliated and betrayed, building up resentment that cannot be resolved at the time but may lead to serious behavioral issues in the future.
Corporal punishment often over-responds to innocent child behavior. In many cases of alleged disobedience the child is just responding in the only way she can, and should not be expected to demonstrate the self-control of a mature adult. She’s hungry, tired, hot. She can’t meet her own needs or always communicate them.
Distracted, self absorbed parents punish children for responding in a natural way to having important needs neglected, making punishment ineffective in the long run, as well as unjust.
From Irvin Wolkoff’s 1999 “Spanked child can become self-loathing adult,” article:
“The message a toddler gets from a slap or spanking is that a parent or other loved and trusted adult is prepared to induce pain and even do physical harm to force unquestioning obedience. That’s terrifying to a little kid…However well-intentioned, a slap registers as the shattering of the whole deal between parent and child. Young children are left awash in feelings of fear, shame, rage, hostility, self-destructiveness and betrayal that they can’t yet resolve or manage.”
Hitting your child is the ultimate betrayal. Spanking does for a child’s development what wife-beating does for a marriage. You should not hurt the ones you love. How is it that I actually have to say this?
“I only use corporal punishment as a last resort” reasoning teaches children that it is acceptable to use violence as a last resort to getting their way or to solving a difficult problem. This teaches that violence is the solution to frustrating situations.
Murray Straus, an influential researcher on violence at the University of New Hampshire’s Family Research Lab, writes in his book Beating the Devil out of Them, that corporal punishment increases rates of depression and suicide. Corporal punishment fosters criminality and delinquency. Dr. Ralph Welsh, who has given psychological exams to over 2,000 delinquents has said:
“…it is now apparent that the recidivist male delinquent who was never struck with a belt, board, extension cord, fist, or an equivalent is virtually nonexistent. Even after 10 years, the full impact of this discovery is still difficult to comprehend.”
There is no excuse for hurting children. Consider the child psychology touched on here and the surmounting evidence against corporal punishment of children collected upon study of former victims of child abuse perpetuated in the name of punishment.
This cycle of violence needs to be broken. It’s ineffective and its consequences are detrimental to the individual and to society. It’s not punishing and it’s not parenting. It’s lazy and it’s child abuse.
Spare the rod.