Shawn thank you for your thoughts on this. I think it’s an important conversation to be having. This study was a meta-analysis of research papers for the last 50 years. Elizabeth Gershoff was the lead author of the study, but it was a study of the last 50 years of the work of many other researchers. What this means is that these findings aren’t based on her direct work, but on the work of others. For the purposes of the study, spanking was clearly defined as ‘open-handed hit on the bottom of extremities’. Are you suggesting that this constitutes abuse? I’m not sure what you mean by ‘instinctual spanking’, but hopefully it is not more than this.

Also contrary to your suggestion, Gershoff is very clear about the association. As you will read in the article, 50 years of research has found that the more children are spanked,

the more defiant they are;
the more they show antisocial behaviour;
the more aggressive they are;
the more mental health problems they have;
the more cognitive difficulties they have.

I’m not sure how the association could be clearer. And this is from ‘open-handed hit on the bottom of extremities’ – which I assume is what you mean by ‘instinctual spanking’. At any rate, it is clearly not a ‘beating’.

In response to your argument that spanking is instinctual, even if that was the case, that doesn’t make it ok. When behaviour is driven by the fight or flight response, as when people are under threat, it may instinctive to want to fight and be aggressive, but that doesn’t make it appropriate or acceptable. Also, just because a behaviour is instinctive, doesn’t mean it is effective. The very nature of instinctive responses are that they are done without deliberate thought or consideration. Having the self-control to tame and manage our instinctive responses (such as aggression) is part of living well. The point is that just because something is instinctive, doesn’t mean it’s appropriate, effective or acceptable.

Discipline is meant to teach, not to hurt. If a child tells breaks something accidentally and tells you about it, there is probably no lesson to be learned that could effectively be taught by consequences. In fact, rewarding truth telling by not having consequences is probably far more effective in nurturing the values that will drive healthy behaviour. On the other hand, if a child breaks something because they throw it in a rage, then there are lessons to be learned – self-control, respect etc. Taking toys away then makes sense – playing with toys is a privilege – if you aren’t going to respect your things, they get taken away. Or, on a broader level when you disrespect you things/lie/hurt other people, you lose privileges.The consequences are related to learning the value (disrespect), not the act (breaking the toy). The consequences are related to the loss of priveleges. Even as adults, we lose priveleges when we do the wrong thing (e.g. when we speed, we lose money through fines). Freedom from harm, shame, or to have our physical selves assaulted by another isn’t a privilege, it’s a right.

There may be many people who may agree with you that spanking in instances of life or death is important, but there is no evidence that suggests that ‘not spanking’ would fail to teach the lesson. In this case, it worked for your sister, but there is nothing to say she wouldn’t have learned the lesson if she wasn’t spanked. There are plenty of children who have been taught not to run onto the road, and who have never been spanked. Clearly, spanking isn’t the only way to learn the lesson. It can also be taught by conversation. I’m quite sure that there would be people who have been spanked who have also done risky things.

I understand that you believe spanking can be beneficial to a child, but 50 years of research says otherwise.

HS,

I understand that this article was written a while ago, but I am just reading it now so here are my thoughts. You only cite Elizabeth Gershoff as a source, so I looked up her research. She used a multitude of published psychology papers to create a synthesis report supporting her conclusion that corporal punishment is dangerous. The problem with her research is that it is based soley on other’s work which includes abuse and does not sufficiently separate abuse from instinctual spanking. Nor does she go into any detail regarding the nature of the association she cites, ie; Does a spanked child retaliate with bad behaviour or is a misbehaved child more likely to be spanked? Again, when abuse is taken fully out of the equation, her research becomes more questionable.

Personally I believe that spanking is a parental instinct and spanking alone can be beneficial to the development of a child. Again, a spank not a beating. Many of the correlations provided as “messages you give your children when spanking” could just as easily be gleaned from other non-physical punishments. If I take my childs toy away, I am able to do so because I am bigger and stronger.

As an example of what I mean I will give you a story. When I was younger my family was walking to the grocery store across the street from our home. My little sister had walked ahead of my mother, my father, and me, and began crossing the street while skipping. My mother and father called out to her to stop as she had been told many times not to go ahead. She was too caught up in what she was doing and kept skipping along. A car was coming. My father, who had never spanked her, ran and grabbed her out of the street while simultaniously giving her one smack to the bottom. She was shocked and cried, but to this day she looks for traffic before crossing a street. Now anecdotes prove nothing, but it can give you a sense of my belief. I think the effect would have been different had he grabbed her and made her stand in a corner later. She wouldn’t remember so well not to do that, and someone might not always be able to grab her.

The natural way to learn this lesson, however, would be to get hit by a car. Seeing as how I have been hit by a car before, I’d rather take a spanking.

Thank you Karen for the helpful kind words. I will follow closely to your suggestion. What made things okay for him I think was when my wife and I made it seem little less heavy by sharing our stories of being beat by his grandma and grandpa when growing up, like it wasn’t such a big traumatic event. I don’t know if the message is a right one, but it seemed to put him at ease and he seemed to put it behind him. This is a great article and it’s been really helpful for relatively new parents to read as well as the discussion from it.

Bobby it sounds as though you have gained much wisdom from this experience. You sound like wonderful, committed parents raising a spirited little man. It can be so frustrating, and difficult to know what to do next when your kids don’t seem to be showing any respect. Remember that building humans takes times. Keep letting him feel where the boundaries are. Try taking away privileges for a certain amount of time (screen time? favourite toys?). Before you give them back, make sure he has learned something and understands what he has done wrong. Do this gently so it feels safe for him to explore it with you. It’s also an opportunity to teach him empathy, ‘How might you feel if you were speaking to me about something important and I acted like I didn’t care?’. Let this conversation be when things are calm. There’s no point having it when he is upset or angry because the part of the brain that can process this information is sent temporarily ‘offline’ during high emotion. Ask him to say back to you what he has learned about his behaviour. This will help to reinforce it. Also ask what he might say to someone else his age who was doing the same thing. He might not have the right answers and that’s okay. It’s about layering the learnings so they stick.

The last hit broke him down and he started wailing and my heart just sank. What prompted this was he was being very defiant and giving me lip (he’s a talker) saying he’s not going to listen to me and that I’m a joke to him, all the while rolling his eyes and had this indignant arrogant look on his face. I know there must be other ways to deal with this but it scared me to think he has no fear or respect towards anyone or anything. The thought that a kid with this type of attitude already at 5 years old might get him into serious trouble later on.

With him not listening at all to his teacher, and already picked out as the trouble maker in kindergarten to the point his teacher called me to complain about him prompted me to do something drastic.

Before I spanked him I explained to him he’s going to get a spanking for the first time and afterwards, I hugged him and told him that I needed to do that to show him that he needs to learn to respect, in my convoluted way. I know I had just made a mistake because I felt wrong, and he has been a little distant and not his usual carefree self.

I made a promise to him and myself I will never hit him again. I need to never do that again and show him with love to learn respect. I’m just glad my wife was there to console him.

Louise one of the most exciting things we’ve discovered in the last decade or so is that brains can change. They can heal and get stronger and they’ll do that throughout our lifetime. We used to think that brains tend to stay the same, but now we know that’s just not true. Your son’s brain is changing all the time, and the love and gentle guidance you show him, and the connection you have with him will be more powerful than any spanking. Your relationship with him sounds so loving, close and supportive, and exactly what he needs to thrive. You sound like you’re doing a wonderful job.

It’s been almost a year now since I stopped. He’s no longer hitting at school and he’s calmer. He and I are very connected and close.

I feel like I messed him up though bc 90% of brain development happens until age 5. I wish I had stopped earlier. I didn’t know what to do.

He still hits his sister, so I think that’s my fault. If I hadn’t of hit him, maybe he wouldn’t hit his sister now.

I worry very much that I messed up his brain 🙁

difference to beating ,abusing and spanking. I and my siblings were spanked in rare major infractions. We are all alright. I visit fellow humans not spanked or loved in a disciplined manner in prison, at the mission or drug rehab. A little education to the seat of education could of changed the course of life for many,my kids also got spanked and they are better for it they tell me. . Loving discipline is different from caning, beatings etc.

I understand what you are saying, and you’re right – there are many things that can leave children vulnerable to problems later in. The problem with spanking a child who is too young to reason, is that he or she isn’t capable of understanding the reason for the spanking. That’s when it can send really confusing messages. One of the big problems with spanking is that it doesn’t teach the child why their behaviour is wrong. It also doesn’t teach important skills and values such as empathy or respect. In fact, it pushes against these. Children want to do the right thing. They don’t do the wrong thing to be naughty or bad, or to annoy their parents but because they’re curious and they don’t understand why something isn’t okay. Sometimes they don’t know how to express themselves or how to do the right thing. As parents and carers, our job is to gently navigate them through this and teach them what they need to know. Kids will also push against the boundaries to feel the edges of those, and even that is an important part of their growth and learning, but they don’t need to be spanked to learn where the boundaries are. This is where conversation and connection is so important. The more we can direct them towards the right thing, and teach them why certain behaviours are important and why others aren’t okay, the more they will move in that direction. This takes time, but like any of us in any new job, we will stay more open to learning and doing the right thing if we are taught and guided in the right direction, rather than shamed for getting it wrong.

As a child grows to be able to understand and reason, spanking becomes unnecessary. When spanking is applied as an emotional explosion or abuse, it is sure harmful to children.

While spanking becomes to be seen as concerning and to be less , parental emotional distance and abuse to children seems to become more in the modern times where people/parents become more self-seeking and self-centered and divorced. Bigger problems there to cause the children to suffer later in their lives.