I have a friend and colleague who adjuncts at Ohio State University in the summers. The past few summers he’s invited me to lead one of his sessions (usually on how Social Media and Web 2.0 tools can change the game when it comes to education). I always say yes – not just because I love the subject but because this friend is an incredibly bright, moral, and engaging person. The car ride from Cincinnati to Columbus is fun conversation.
Anyway, after the session he treated me to a famous BBQ joint on High Street (yes, Ohio actually has famous BBQ) where we continued our great dialogues. One past summer we had an incredibly tense social moment while eating our brisket.
Two tables next to us was a father, a mother, and 2 year old toddler. The toddler was in full terrible-two mode, channeling four kinds of bratishness that was clearly angering his father. So the father started yelling at the toddler. And smacking his hand. And spanking his behind (through a high chair). Often.
My friend and I were frozen in that scary, peculiar, shaming gray area of inaction. Did we say something? Get the management? At what point was enough enough?
At a table next to us were two men clearly as appalled as we were. Like us, they were staring at the father with raised eyes. Unlike us, they were sitting in a manner (close, often touching) that suggested they were gay. While I can’t be for sure, I can only assume that it was this fact that tipped the father into unloading on them instead of my friend and me.
The father: “What the [cuss word, cuss word, cuss word] are you staring at you [derogatory slur]?”
Gentleman (and a very admirable tone of voice): “I’m staring at you hitting your son. We’d like you to stop.”
This quickly turned ugly. The father continued to swear, threaten to “beat up you and your boyfriend”, and claim that it was none of their business as to how he disciplined his son. Management intervened. And the two gentlemen ended up leaving (very obviously disgusted) while the father returned to his table and started to pack up his family.
Here was the kicker. While the father’s gathered his family up middle aged lady walked to him and placed her arm on his back.
“It was none of their business,” she said. “We all know kids need a good smack when they misbehave.”
We all know? I suspect that if I had polled the room at the moment a majority of us would have labeled the father an ass, a jerk, and a complete bully (to children and adults). Still, there were clearly others in the restraunt who thought the father was well within his place. To me, this scene is a pretty good example of the shift and tension we as a society have with disciplining our children.
Why Spank?
I have seen parents spank their children out of anger. There is no discipline involved. Rather, the logic goes “I am angry with you, therefore I will cause you pain. You deserve this pain.” This is a sort of vengeance discipline and I rarely find people willing to defend it (because it is blatantly wrong).
The other reason parents spank their children is because they think that spanking stops (or changes) bad behavior (and the root of the old proverb “spare the rod, spoil the child”). While spanking is not necessarily desirable, it is valuable because it prevents a destructive act (or character).
This sort of logic does not hold up to close scrutiny.
Corporal punishment does not change long term behavior.
In some respects, this is a fairly straight-forward experiment that’s been performed a number of times. A child keeps behaving in a detrimental way (hitting the dog, screaming during dinner, swearing, etc) and the question becomes what recourse is the most effective way to change the behavior?
What studies of shown, over and over, is that spanking does not change long term behavior. Oh sure, it does stop the behavior in the immediate term (usually because the child is crying), but it does not have much of an affect on changing the behavior over an extended period of time.
What does change behavior?
You begin by deciding what you want the child to do, the positive opposite of whatever behavior you want to stop. The best way to get rid of unwanted behavior is to train a desirable one to replace it. So turn “I want him to stop having tantrums” into “I want him to stay calm and not to raise his voice when I say no to him.”
In short, define the behavior you want to see, then model (and have your child model) that behavior. Praise that behavior often.
Which begs the question, what sort of modeling occurs when a parent spanks a child?
The moral case against spanking
This argument is also fairly clear. If it is wrong for adults to hit each other (and that wrongness is rooted in the moral understanding of the Golden Rule, do onto other, etc.), then why is okay for adults to hit children? For that matter, if we teach children not to hit each other, what confused messages are they receiving with a swat on their behind? The adult is saying “I’m hitting you because you should NOT be hitting others.”
In my mind, this just doesn’t hold up to reason.
If hitting is wrong, then it should not be done.
Fortunately, times are changing
The continual trend in just about every country is that spanking is on the decline. This reflects, I believe, a growth in empathy and understanding (read Steven Pinker’s most excellent book “Our Better Angels” which does an excellent job at demonstrating the steep declines of violence in our species) as well as recognition of the previously mentioned arguments (behavioral and moral).
There is, of course, the strong argument of tradition (as in, it worked for me when I was a child) among parents who use spanking as a discipline.
But overall, I believe my generation is having more conversations on the merits of spanking. And the more we discuss, I believe the more likely it is that attitudes will change.