Fall 1996

Corporal Punishment of Children:

When Family Issues Become Public Concerns

"I was beaten and it didn't hurt me"

As a parent educator, parents often tell me about that one time when they were children that their parent smacked, hit or spankedthem for violating some family rule. They usually continue to explain how effective this had been because the rule was never violated again. What I say to such a person is that their parentscould have been equally effective had they not resorted to violence; that I wished they had not because such a nice person as the one in front of me deserved better.

These adults typically do not feel any animosity towards their parents. Even while many of them will choose not to spank their own children, they are not prepared to say that they wish their own parents had never been violent towards them. Loyalty towards one's early primary caregivers runs deeply. I also come across many parents who were repeatedly beaten or verbally degraded by their parents and who are now struggling not to coerce or humiliate their own children.

Unfortunately, on the other hand, many children with aggressive and delinquent behaviours present for treatment at children's mental health centres with parents who believe that hitting, spanking, smacking, and verbally degrading their children are alljust part of parenting. This is often how the parents themselves were raised.

At Earlscourt Child and Family Centre, a family-focused children'smental health centre for conduct disordered children and their families in Metropolitan Toronto, we work with parents to eliminate their violent parenting techniques and replace them withnon-violent methods, such as time out, work chores, and privilegeremoval. Although aspects of parenting are instinctual and rootedin our sociobiology, much of parenting is learned behaviour that can be unlearned.

Parent/child conflicts

Parents who use corporal punishment with their children tend to see parent/child conflicts as power struggles--threats to parental authority that must not be allowed. They value negative reinforcement in the form of a mild punishment, such as a slap onthe hand when a toddler places her hand near an electrical plug, instead of simply re-directing the child or using plug covers.

Often advocates for corporally punishing children claim that the "appropriately" delivered spanking is "better" than yelling and verbally degrading, as if yelling was the only alternative. Both are equally objectionable.

But what is the difference between a mild slap on the hand and a firm "NO"? Probably none. Both get the child's attention and alertthe child of the imminent danger of the plug. There is no evidencethat a mild spanking delivered infrequently and under specific conditions has ill effects. (Those interested in learning how to best deliver mild and infrequent spankings to their children are referred to John Rosemond's book, To Spank or Not to Spank: A Parents' Handbook. He does suggest, by the way, that only a parent do it.)

Research does suggest, however, that those who spank tend to spanka lot and that the severity of such physical assaults tends to escalate. Repeated corporal punishment places children at risk asadults for a range of problems, from sadomasochistic fantasies toviolent intimate relationships.

Authoritarian vs. laissez-faire parenting

Parents who use corporal punishment seem to see children as needing to be submissive to their control. They characterize parents who do not corporally punish their children as "do-nothing" parents who let their children run all over them.

However, not to support corporal punishment of children is not tosupport doing nothing. Relative to their age and developmental level, children need various degrees of structure, support, rules, and routines. They need to be praised for their good deeds, and appropriately and non-violently punished for their bad ones. Parents who are afraid to discipline their children or who are victimized by their children should seek help.

Ambivalence towards children

Our society is ambivalent towards children. Throughout history, children have not often been considered precious for their own sake. Even today, infanticide, child malnutrition, child slavery and child labour abound in third world countries. Contemporary Canadian society waffles on the question of whether children are the property of their parents or citizens of the state who require special protection due to their developmental vulnerability. Are parents or the state ultimately responsible for children?

Parent educators who recommend spanking tend also to recommend a limited role for the state in the growth and development of children. That responsibility rests, they would claim, with the children's parents. They also tend to seek minimal state interference in how parents discipline their children. A parent's rights movement in the United States now threatens almost a century of progress towards children's rights and child abuse laws. In contrast, those opposed to the corporal punishment of children tend to view the state as legitimately involved in protecting children by promoting non-violent parenting techniques, passing strong child abuse laws, and supporting those raising children through a range of government-funded programs.

In Canada, children are the only citizens who do not enjoy security of person--a human right that women and convicted prisoners have come to enjoy. Section 43 of the Criminal Code, which dates back to the late 19^th century, allows "reasonable force" in the discipline of children. This section has been used successfully in the defense of adults charged with assaulting children, leaving them with broken bones,welts and bruises. It exemplifies our society's ambivalence towards children. Unfortunately, this ambivalence negatively affects Canada's future. As political theorist John O'Neil has stated: "Whenever anyone of us, regardless of age, sex, or race is at risk we are all at risk."

Corporal punishment and utopianism

Aggression, by and large, appears to be a learned behaviour. Consequently, it can be unlearned. Parents who were beaten or degraded by their own parents can learn not to beat or degrade their children. Interestingly, the trend is in this direction, not the opposite. One seldom hears of parents who were not hit, smacked or beaten as children deciding to raise their children using corporal punishment. The pull is clearly in the other direction.

Calls to raise children in one fashion or another are not new. Clearly, advocates from both sides of the debate place an importance on how children are raised and are prepared to lobby governments to enact laws that promote their view of raising children for good reasons.

There is evidence from Scandinavia that governments can change public attitudes towards corporal punishment through legislation and public education. Indeed, the state must have an interest in how all of its citizens are protected under the law and ensure that its child citizens have a chance to grow into honourable and productive adults. The state's responsibility for children should go far beyond being a safety net for neglected and abused children.In Canada, the education of children remains a privilege instead of a right and Canada's child poverty rate continues to increase. As a state, Canada is ambivalent towards children and this ambivalence is reflected in the diverse and opposing views Canadian parents have towards the corporal punishment of children.

Child welfare professionals are caught in the middle of this ambivalence, as exemplified in the contradictory mandate of child welfare legislation to both help parents and prosecute them. The concept of child abuse is a fairly recent one--articulated less than 50 years ago. However, if children were as protected under law as other citizens, there would be no place for the concept ofchild abuse. What is called child abuse today could be assault tomorrow. The future of child welfare lies in the de-strangulation of its mandate.

Parent educators who promote non-violent, non-degrading parenting approaches have a different hope for the world than those who promote spanking, even in its mildest forms. Their hope is for a civil society where the special needs of its child citizens are met, where intimate relationships are based on mutual respect, and where communities feel safe and are indeed safe.

_{Kenneth Goldberg, MSW, CSW, is a parent educator and executive director of Earlscourt Child and Family Centre, 46 St. Clair Gardens, Toronto, Ontario M6E 3V4, tel. (416) 654-8981. He is also a member of the National Committee to Repeal Section 43.}

REFERENCES

_{Beatty, Cynthia (1996) "Parents rights versus children's: a fair contest?" Children's Voice 5.3:10-11.}

O'Neill, John (1994) The Missing Child in Liberal Theory. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Rosemond, John (1994) To Spank or Not to Spank: A Parents' Handbook. Kansas City: Andrews and McMeel.

Straus, Murray A. (1994) Beating the Devil Out of Them: Corporal Punishment in American Families. New York: Lexington Books.

Canada's Children...

This document is from Canada's Children... Promising Approaches to Issues of Child and Youth Violence, published by the Child Welfare League of Canada. Fall 1996.

Posted by the Child Welfare League of Canada, June 1997.

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