To Spank or Not to Spank?
On two of our shows this week, we have what I think, is an intelligent and thought-provoking debate about an age-old question: To spank or not to spank. Big question, and one that the answer to can have a profound and lasting impact on your child. I have seen surveys that tend to be split, with about half of parents believing if you spare the rod, you spoil the child, and the other half saying no way does it make sense to hit your kid.
Not one to waffle around on issues, I won’t hesitate to weigh in with my opinion: I believe spanking genuinely confuses children. I believe they think to themselves something like, ”OK, let me get this right. You are supposed to love me, nurture me and protect me from harm, and now you are standing there, five times my size, and hitting me and inflicting physical pain? Hmmm … I don’t get it.”
Will spanking suppress behavior in the short term? Yes. Does it teach a lesson that can be internalized and used later in the form of self-discipline? I don’t think so, and even if it does, it’s highly inefficient compared to other options. And is it really wise to teach children that hitting is OK?
I got spanked once, and I am still mad about it! HA! In the sixth grade, I snuck off to swim in a pond about 10 miles from our house in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. No supervision and lucky someone didn’t drown! When asked about it, I started to lie and deny doing it. Even though I was young, and based on my choices at the time, pretty stupid, I quickly realized, mid-lie, that I was standing there with bloodshot eyes and a good case of swimmer’s ear. It wouldn’t have taken MacGyver to figure out what I’d been doing, so I just ‘fessed up — not because it was the right thing, but because I was busted, and I knew it.
My father spanked me with a belt for sneaking off and swimming without supervision in an uncharted pond. Five minutes later, he came in and gave me a dollar to reward my decision to tell the truth. Now, a dollar to a poor kid circa 1961 was a lot of money, but let me tell you, I stood there and ripped that dollar bill into a million pieces so tiny you couldn’t even almost tell what it used to be! I “got” the stupidity of what I had done and didn’t need to be hit to solidify that knowledge. It wasn’t the physical pain, because honestly, it was a pretty wimpy and half-hearted whuppin’. It was the indignity of it and the sense of betrayal I felt. If anything, it made me feel righteous, defiant and rebellious (please hear chants of “ATTICA! ATTICA!” building in the background. HA!) I felt the relationship I thought we had was now, in my opinion, violated, which to my 12-year-old brain meant I owed him nothing going forward. It was every man for himself! (Sooo, I have the bias of personal experience, but I confessed it, so don’t hit me!)
On this week’s shows, however, I have some guests who strongly disagree with my opinions, as I bet many of you do. They insist that an occasional swat across the behind or even a good spanking is not anything close to a physical beating, and that it does indeed teach respect. Unfortunately, it often doesn’t stop with the swat or controlled spanking and can go too far.
So what do you think? Do you think you can get results with physical punishment? Does fear work, or does it backfire?
I’d like to hear all of your stories. Have you ever spanked your child? Do you think a teacher or school administrator has the right to paddle your child for misbehaving? What about a babysitter? And what methods of discipline would you use instead of spanking?
Tags: Children, discipline, punishment, spanking
Dr. Phil:
My two children who are now adults ages 25 and 27, were not spanked except as a last resort. The punishment went like this: 3 strikes and you’re out. First strike: My husband or I would talk to the child and try to point out what they had done wrong. Then something that they loved was taken away for a period of time. Second strike: If the child did the same thing again, something that they wanted to do was taken away. Third strike: If the child, ignoring Strike one and Strike two, once again did the same thing, they were spanked, but just hard enough to hurt their pride. Believe me, Dr. Phil, my children were never abused, and we tried to have them come away with their pride and respect for us intact.
I was spanked, hit, attacked by my parents sometimes both of them were hitting me at the same time. My grades in school were horrible, and everytime when a test result came back, I got hit. When my parents hit me like that. I could not even think. I was numb. I just simply learned that the two people out of this whole world that are most important to me hurted me and frightened me all the time, and to me there was no reason for it. I just did not do well in school. Instead of helping me with school work, they hitted me. From around 8 years old on, I tried to distant myself from my parents. I was glad that my father die, and am most comfortable when my mother is not in my sight. I had no relatonship with them and still does not have a normal relationship with my mom. But I still feel angry from those hitting. My grades in school had never gotten any better. I think hitting a child is a good way of raising a child to be an angry adult. I am for one.
I have two childred 27 girl and 20 boy. I don’t believe in spanking. I believe that people who spank their child as just lazy. It is easier to spank and get it over with. If you put a child in time out this sometimes means getting up 2 or 3 times to put them back. What these people don’t understand that it will work it just sometimes takes longer. Or as Dr. Phil says find there currency. I have a 5 year old grandson with Down’s. His currency is movies. If you tell him he will have a time out and no movie he usually gets with the program. My son was never grounded. He did at 16 come home at 1:30 am. He ask me what time he should be home, my responds was, before 1:30. He never did it again and if he wasn’t home by 11:00 he gave me a call. He now 20 and he doesn’t come home he leaves me a message on my phone. “Won’t be home see you tommorow, I am at (so & so house if you need me call use my cell). There are just different ways to deal with children remember they are not all the same and therefore cannot be treated the same know your child and then work with them as they grow up. You would never hit a person you work with who didn’t do exactly what you wanted you would be fired and land up in jail. Why does anyone think that assaulted a child if any diffferent. Dee
Dr. Phil, I teach a Parenting Skills elective to teenagers. What can I say to convince them hitting is not a good idea, especially when doing so would make them feel disloyal to their own parents?
Dear Dr. Phil,
I appreciate your perspective on spanking. I tend to think in terms of trusting our children to understand the difference between right and wrong. Most kids will understand (like you did) when they’ve done something wrong. I might have brief conversation with the child about what they think happened and what they wish to do about it. The idea is to put it in the child’s court so that they internalize the lesson and understand for themselves what the limits and boundaries are.
We get to choose what behaviors we model for our kids. We can set an example where people talk about issues or some other option. I’ve noticed that learning how to talk about things makes kids and adults happier and more balanced than other approaches. My guess would be that people just feel better when they actually resolve things in a way where everyone benefits.
I have a 7yr old daughter who has been driving me crazy since she’s been on her summer break for 2 months. Sadly..I am looking forward to her going back to school next Tues, and it really makes me sad that we did not get to enjoy our summer together that much. She does not listen to me, and will call me stupid, or tell me to shut up. It seems like I just ground her all the time, I don’t really spank, but will swat her butt occasionally, and she laughs! Yes.. she does have a dad, and believe me she listens to him and is a whole different little angel around him. He doesn’t have to spank her now, although he did once or twice when she was little, and that must have worked. She’s strives to get his approval but cares less for mine. Again I feel taking things away does not really help. Any suggestions? I don’t want a teenager controlling me.
Spanking can be used as a last option especially when your child or children blow you off and feel they can just talk/laugh their way out of it. The severity of a spanking is determined by the child, each child has a different spanking threshold and that threshold can be determined easily by the parent to be effective for that specific child. Remember, the difference between spanking and an actual beating can be a fine line but a good parent knows the difference. In general, today the children/teens just do not respect adults. I always believed ever since the TV show Beverly Hills 90210 was shown it clearly indicated the parents have little to no role in their childrens lives and the children do as they please, this is when it really got worse. An entire generation of children have adopted that role as being acceptable. Most of the Generation before us and before them were spanked, the most admired generation of our time and they will be the first to tell you that a good whuppin made the difference and they knew why.
I don’t belive in beating your children, but I do believe that spanking is ok. Spanking does not have to be all the time. Just look at the kids today……they are very disrespectful, rude, and just down right mean!! I was afraid of getting in trouble and I can’t ever remember my mom spanking me. I give my kids all the love and attention that I possibly can and they are not afraid of me because I have spanked them. I to this day put my 11 and 13 yr old in the corner if they lie, talk back or just won’t stop fighting. Spanking isn’t bad, BEATING YOUR CHILDREN IS!!!! People need to learn the difference and maybe the kids these days would be better behaved!
CONNIE:
Have you tried taking things away from her as punishment? Everytime she calls you stupid or tells you to shut up take something she loves away until she can respect you. My kids have to earn their “loved items” back a little at a time. That has worked for my kids.
I work in the public school system. I see the behavior that comes from children ages 10-14. The discipline that is used at our school is ineffective-except to a handful of kids- I see the same children come in week after week, sometimes day after day and they get a detention or a lunch detention (meaning that they come to the office to eat alone). How effective is that!!
When i went to school, if students would have done 1/2 the stuff they do now, they would have been paddled and usually the inappropriate behavior would stop! I know that alot of the problem is that when a student takes the detention slip home to be signed, some parents never sign it or they call to stand up for their kids so they get out of it! parents rights have been taken away.
I know alot of the problems of today would not be a problem if adults would be allowed to go “old school” on these kids!! I was spanked as a child, not beaten, but spanked. I knew if i did something what would happen, so it stopped me from doing alot.
People need to see the future generations and see what bad behaviors they have….it will only get worse with every generation!! Look at how we grew up (i am 40) and how much violence and inappropriate behavior was dispayed-our parents must have done something right!! Learn from the past.
Corporal punishment should be back in school….and then let the researchers do their work to see how much violence, teen pregnancy, etc there is.
Yes. I believe in corporal punishment. The bible says, “Spare the rod. Spoil the child Rear a child in the way they should go and they shall never part from it.”
Both punishment and spanking was apart of home discipline when I was growing up. No, I did not like getting spanked as a child, but it sure made me think twice when it came to choosing right or wrong. I knew the consequence of making the wrong choice and stayed out of a lot of trouble. I used to tell my friends, “I don’t have peer pressure. I have daddy pressure.” As an adult, I have great appreciation for how I was raised and know that my parents way of parenting and strictness is why I am who and what I am today. There was never doubt in my mind if my parents loved me. I knew they loved me and that their discipline was an expression of love. I wanted for nothing and had the best of everything. I guess you can say it worked for me, so it should be good enough for my kids. I can say the spankings decreased as I got older (I was punished more as a teenager). But, I had remembrances of what a warm behind felt like as a child and I did what I was told. I wasn’t perfect, but the major mistakes that kids make -drugs, underage drinking, sneaking out of the house, being in places I knew I wasn’t to be, being blatantly disrespectful, and just basically given in to peer pressure- when they have no discipline/direction from their parents, I did not make.
With that said, not all children need to be spanked. Some kids respond well to “time outs” or negative/positive reinforcemen. Others do not. Some need to be spanked. Some behaviors are time out worthy and some are spanking worthy.
Funny thing is that society frowns upon parents who have unruly kids, but punish the parents who keep their kids in line with spanking. If spanking is what keeps my kids out of trouble, out of jail, then that is what I will use. Actually, I use a combination of the two and as my children have gotten older, and they know what is expected out of them, I no longer have to spank.
In my opinion, there is a grave difference between spanking and abuse.
I was spanked as a child, my daughter was spanked, and she spanked her
two kids. All the spankings were done as a last resort and done mainly to
get the child’s attention when nothing else did. It did not confuse me or
my daughter or my grandkids. All of us have grown up to be good, loving
parents and I felt that it did give me an ability to have self discipline as
an adult. I believe the line between spanking and abuse has been eliminated
by the people who are extremists in their views. I spanked with an open
hand on a clothed butt. It seems that now people view all spanking as
abuse. No, it isn’t. When you beat a child with a belt, paddle, etc, that
is beating, not spanking and I consider that abuse. There is a definite
difference between the two. When I was in school (1950’s) we were
disciplined for wrongdoing and we knew we would get it at home too, as
our parents supported the school and teachers. Imagine that! We learned
to respect our elders and eachother. I noticed the difference when I
visited my daughter’s class. Very few of the kids were listening to the
teacher. Rather they were talking to eachother, lying all over the desks,
or sleeping! The teacher did nothing to correct the situation. I feel we
reap what we sow, and we have several generations of kids today who
will try to be as disrespectful as they can, because they can. These are
the leaders of tomorrow, and they will pass on their values to their kids too.
When kids know they can get away with something because the teachers
can’t discipline them or they threaten to call the police if there parents
try to spank them, they are learning that bad behavior pays off. Try
others ways first, but if the child doesn’t take you seriously, then a
spanking, not beating, is in order.
I am a pediatric mental health nurse and I have seen the problems that spanking can cause. I do not using spanking even though I grew up with spanking. I have a three, four, and nine year old. My husband does not share my opinion and it is a frequent area for arguing. My husnabd says the reason my child do not listen to me as well as they do him is because he spanks and I do not. I prefer talking about the behaviors and taking away things.
My husband and I have three children. We do not spank our children who are now age 10 and two teenagers. I am not against spanking, to some degree. Meaning if a parent wants to spank and does so without anger and harm to the child then fine. I just don’t spank mine. Not because we decided not to, but because I have never needed to. No, I don’t have golden children that never do any wrong. I started out when they were young at the timeout and taking away things they liked. When they became old enough to do chores I made them work for there items back. They so far have never done anything major that has required losing an item for more than a weekend. I send a note to the school each year telling the school that they are not to use spanking on my children. I live in a rural area in the ozarks where many kids are spanked, so the staff at the school see me as “One of those parents” and view me as a parent spoiling my children.
I was spanked as a child by both parents. I recall one or two spankings that I still feel should not have happened. Not, because they were beatings, but because I was not at fault. (I had many siblings). I can tell you I know I was spanked often and my parents faught, but because they were few and there was so many days that were full of joy in our home I have a hard time recalling the bad and ugly.
No, I don’t believe parents need to spank children. Children can get the message and feel the shame of what they have done without hitting and belittleing.
To spank or not to spank, that is the question >>>
The only time I spank is if my child is doing something that could eventually harm her! I think you should never spank out of anger but out of love and saftey of your child. If my daughter has her fingers in the outlet (dangerous) i will spank her to associate “fingers in plug spank in the Butt”, and hopefully she wont try to do it when Im not around. We dont want to confuse our children and teach them to be angry and lose our temper like parents do when they spank! We need to spend time teaching and showing good manners, by being good role models. My father never spanked and I love him because of that, I know he always has my back. Now my mother spanked me as a teen when she cought me experimenting with drugs! And i Always thought twice about doing it because i was afraid. But she was protecting me from harmfull things.
i am a mother of 4 children. my children consist of the ages of 11 6 2 and 2. i was beat as a child from the age of 5 to 8 years old. my 11 year old son is out of control. i have tried spanking him grounding him really anything you can think of. he has also been to juvnile court for unruliness. so what are you suppose to do when you run out of options.
as for the teacher or schoo; administration spanking my child….i have no problem with that. i was spanked in school as a child. that’s what is wrong with kids these days the school system has put in the childrens’ head that if your parent hits you then call the police and report it. to me there is a different from beating your kid and correcting your kid. while i was growing up i never talked to my parents or grand parents like kids do these days. because if i did i would get a spankning for it. so therefore i have now problem with spanking.
Based on the comments on this blog, spanking is obviously controversial because adults have had their own personal experience with spanking and it was either an effective discipline tool for them or it was humiliating and made them angry. I’m wondering if the effectiveness of spanking has to do with the parent/child relationship and what is going on in that relationship. Is the adult spanking out of anger and frustration, the need for power and control or is it truly done in love and to correct behaviour? I also wonder if the effectiveness of spanking also has to do with the personality and the developing self-esteem of the child. I was sensitive as a kid and my mother said she barely had to raise her voice and I changed my behaviour while my brother had a thicker skin and a more defiant streak in his personality. I was never spanked, but I can imagine that if I was, even though it would be out of love and correction, I may not have seen it that way.
It’s apparent to me that the effectiveness of spanking is in the eye of the “one spanked”. So, as parents, is it possible that we are taking a gamble when we spank? We won’t know until our kids are grown up what “lessons” we truly taught with spanking. Are we also taking a gamble on our relationship with our children and how our children see us when we spank them? Children do need to be disciplined in a consistent, timely and structured manner and typically kids respond to other forms of discpline besides spanking so I’d say give the other options a fair try before taking the gamble.
Do kids today behave the way they do because they aren’t spanked at home or school? OR is it because there is none or little discipline in the home environment? Or is also because positive/negative reinforcements or punishments are not carried out correctly?
I know as a parent and from working with children in my career how frustrating behavior management/modification can be. There have been times when my emotions really tempt me and tell me a swat will fix it.
But When we step back and look at what spanking is, we see someone striking a smaller person. Children model our behavior. I think spanking models aggressive behavior as a way to resolve conflict. It may also teach them that it’s okay for bigger people to hit littler people when they are or aren’t doing something you don’t want or want them to do. As adults we don’t spank or hit our own peers when they disagree or perform behaviors we don’t agree with. Spanking is meant to hurt to be affective isn’t it? So the fine line isn’t if it hurts or not, it’s if it leaves marks? Even if spanking doesn’t leave marks, it still hurts and that pain is what teaches the child the aggressive behavior.
I’ve heard it said that spanking will make children respect us more and know that the parents are the authority. It may stop the behavior temporarily to spank, but children end up doing or not doing things out of FEAR rather than because they want to do GOOD. Growing up I was extremely afraid of my dad when he would yell. And that’s not even spanking. It was hard to work up to talking to him again, even over long periods of time. They also might initially stop the behavior when spanked, but then not learn the lesson and just avoid doing whatever it is while that person is not around. It may even cause the child to become even more upset and rebel even more. That is something I would do when I was yelled at. I spanked my son once on the hand. It didn’t do anything to teach him, just made him cry. I’ve never spanked since then and the techniques that I’ve learned from various resources have established authority and also taught the natural consequences of the situation much more successfully. I enjoy watching SuperNanny’s show. She’s never used shouting or spanking and has successfully taught parents appropriate techniques for each individual situation. Not only do I not agree with spanking, but it’s just not necessary when there are so many other more successful ways to achieve appropriate behavior. We need to learn to carry out the techniques properly to minimize frustrations and parents resorting to spanking. There are many resources for learning. Not saying it’s easy but I think it will bring about more positive results.
I also think it’s important that we learn to regret our mistakes but without having to be humiliated. I think spanking is humiliating. I think we can learn to make correct decisions without being humiliated.
I think one big reason children rebel and disrespect people is because they feel they are not being understood. For example, my 3 yr old son was refusing to brush his teeth or put toothpaste on his toothbrush. He was screaming that he didn’t want to and didn’t want toothpaste. So I thought to myself, “why am I trying to get him to do this? Oh yeah, to be healthy!” and “What does he want to be doing right now?” So I said something along the lines of, “I’m know you probably would rather be playing with your toys right now b/c they are a lot of fun. But brushing teeth keeps our teeth from getting sick and getting cavities”. That made sense to him and he gladly hopped on his stool, applied toothpaste and brushed his teeth b/c he wanted to do good and not because he was afraid of timeout. Granted, this exact phrase will not work the same with every child but each parent can find some way of having the child feel understood and this can limit how much we have to use some sort of punishment.
I read the Bible myself, but I don’t think the “rod” has to be a literal rod to be effective discipline.