I feel it is important to make it very clear to each and every stakeholder that the spanking debate within the scientific and academic communities is dead, and has been for several years. The most substantial indicator of this development is evidenced by the fact that virtually every professional organization in the US and Canada that is concerned with the care and treatment of children has taken a public stance against the practice of child care. spanking.
Based on the overwhelming body of research conducted over the past 50 years or more that links spanking to a number of risk factors, the professional consensus against the practice has grown to global proportions … even as spanking 52 countries have legislated total bans on spanking. … including countries like Sweden, Finland, Austria, Norway, Croatia, Denmark, Hungary, Israel, Cyprus, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Germany, Latvia, Iceland, Romania, Greece, New Zealand, Austria, Venezuela, Spain, Portugal, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, France and Ukraine … with Italy, South Africa, Scotland, Canada and Ireland apparently in the process of doing the same. It should also be noted that all the industrialized countries of the world, except the USA, have instituted total bans on corporal punishment in schools. The evidence is, and the evidence has been found against the practice of spanking in a convincing and conclusive manner.
Just as one can find supportive views towards promoting spanking (typically) on websites sponsored by fundamentalist Christian sects, one can also find supportive views promoting homophobia, racism, misogyny and other ‘hate group’ propaganda. ‘. Due to the fact that the actual agendas of these sites are often deceptively disguised with organizational titles like ‘Family Council’, ‘People’s Choice’, ‘Rights and Freedoms’, etc., people are forced to exercise a Very judicious discernment of information is available on the Internet. Some netizens have had to learn the hard way that the Internet abounds with persuasive presentations of “facts and figures” that can demonstrate that they represent nothing more than religious, political or philosophical attempts to spread interested misinformation.
Having spent over 40 years reviewing / evaluating the research on this topic of spanking children, I can state with a high degree of confidence that there has never been a peer-reviewed study that has been able to establish the efficacy of spanking as a means of long-term behavior modification; as an effective teaching modality; as effective punishment; or as a means of instilling self-discipline. Nor have research findings been published in peer-reviewed professional journals that serve to refute previous research.
This earlier research found that spanking is associated with the risk of undesirable emotional consequences; risk of physical injury; a risk of counterproductive behavioral outcomes; a risk of dependence on external controls; and a proclivity toward authority-directed behavior. Furthermore, there has never been any research data found to find that spanking does not carry any risk to the quality of the parent-child relationship (and I must add that conservative and spanking-friendly editorial reviews of previous research findings do not constitute a real investigation, as it sometimes happens). claims to be the case).
However, there are some scourgers who will find reason to dismiss, ignore, or dismiss the findings of field research made in experimental studies related to the Social Sciences. Well, it is especially to these people that I would like to refer to the alarming new research findings, representing the most severe consequences of corporal punishment ever discovered … while I do so in the form of documented scientific evidence *.
These insights have come from brain research studies that have provided CAT SCAN images showing an abnormal lack of brain development (within the part of the brain responsible for emotional functioning) in children who have been spanked as a measure. punitive. For the sake of sample homogeneity, the researchers chose subjects for their study who had been categorized as ‘abused’ children. Common sense tells us that this does not eliminate the possibility of a lesser degree of brain damage occurring in spanked children who are subjected to a lesser degree of non-injurious violence.
In other words, it would be ridiculous to assume that a child must first suffer bruises, cuts, or welts (or other injuries) before brain damage occurs as a result of physical punishment. Rather, it is much more logical to deduce that acts of physical aggression towards young children can interrupt or prevent the optimal conditions necessary to facilitate a normal process of healthy brain development.
As far as I’m concerned, this new area of research (apparently not yet freely available on the internet) represents the most compelling and undeniable reason that has been discovered to persuade parents to stop (or never start) hitting their children. as a punitive measure. And I hope any pro-spanker reading this feels the same. It is hard to imagine a parent who would be willing to treat their child in a way that could carry even a remote risk of causing a measure of brain damage to their child.
But, despite having said all that, we really shouldn’t need more research to end the practice of beating children than we need research to end the practice of beating handcuffs. As a society, there was no need for research results to convince us of the harmful effects associated with the practice of physically punishing wives.
Instead, when society reached the point of no longer being willing to grant social tolerance to the tradition of husbands physically disciplining their wives, our decision to do so was based on our social progress toward the higher morality of greater humanity. . Perhaps our next step forward in advancing progress should come through the decision to begin to recognize that children also deserve those same protections against being punitively beaten.
We no longer see any adult member of our society remaining outside the jurisdiction of protective laws once enjoyed only by the most privileged and ‘deserving’ (i.e., white men who made the laws), regardless of race, gender, religion or ethnic group. or sexual orientation. None of our adult citizens remains legally unprotected from being violated through harassment, threats, defamation, discrimination or from being a victim of violence in any degree or form.
So given our heritage of bestowing greater humanity on those of lower social status by welcoming them as our equals in the eyes of the law (in terms of violent treatment), it would be so out of place for us to host members as well. the youngest and weakest in our society by allowing them to join those of us who already share the safety and convenience of safety that is provided under the umbrella of legal protections against violence?
Bringing our little ones into the fold doesn’t really seem all that magnanimous when you consider that we’ve already been willing to share the haven of our assault law umbrella with even the most vicious and seasoned adult criminals. After all, children are the last segment of our shared human collective that still remains a target for being subjected to acts of physical aggression.
We show a strange sense of priorities when we don’t allow the prison guard to break an oar and start pounding on the disobedient buttocks of a sociopathic death row inmate who kills in his rush, but we find ourselves helpless. defenseless young children as deserving of such treatment.
The fact is that we define corporal punishment of prisoners as “cruel and unusual punishment”, “brutality of the guard” or “aggravated battery”. And if physical punishment were repeated as a routine punitive measure, such treatment of prisoners would fall within the definition of “torture.”
Why would a murderous inmate be less subject to physical discipline than a defenseless 3-year-old?
Logically, morally, humanly and scientifically, the spanking debate is dead … except for those who would object to further social progress.
As we evolve as a society, we must keep in mind that historically there was a time when it was acceptable to legally possess other people; a time when the mentally ill were generally considered to be possessed by evil spirits; a time when men legally shot each other in officiated duels; a time when public hangings were attended as a family outing complete with a picnic basket; a time when public flogging was considered an acceptable punishment; a time when it was a gentleman’s agreement that husbands should not hit their wives with a switch that was “bigger than the thumb” (later known as “the rule of the thumb”); and there was a time when there were no laws against parents severely beating their children (killing children was unacceptable, of course, but occasional accidental mutilation as a result of disciplinary action was tolerated).
Obviously, we no longer allow these punishments. The time has come for us to increase our level of social sophistication by coming to general agreement that any degree of physical punishment used against children is as socially unacceptable and disgusting as the violent behaviors of the past that we have chosen to leave behind.
