Physical punishment of children is a human-rights violation

It seems absurd that there is still debate over the barbaric abuse of parental authority that is corporal punishment.

According to researchers at the University of Chicago, 77 percent of men and 65 percent of women believe it is sometimes necessary to discipline a child with “a good, hard spanking.” That this crass, repugnant and medieval word choice was still approved by an average of nearly three-quarters of parents in the United States is disturbing, but I shudder to think of what the results might have been had the proposition been worded with one of the euphemisms frequently employed to make violence more palatable.

Setting aside the inherent wrongness of corporal punishment, decades of research prove that such punishment (not including child abuse) is not only ineffective, but harmful to a child’s cognitive development and psychological health. A long-term study by researchers from the Columbia University School of Social Work focused on 2,000 families in 20 cities across the United States. Parents were interviewed right after their children were born and then at ages 1, 3, 5 and 9. Children who were spanked at ages 3 and 5 had higher levels of rule-breaking and displayed aggressive behavior at age 9.

The results also showed that children who were spanked by their fathers at age 5 were more likely to score lower on language-comprehension and vocabulary tests. The study carefully controlled for other potential influencers, including prior levels of troubled behavior, earlier development and other risk factors. 

A 2013 study authored by Emily Douglas, associate professor of social work at Bridgewater State University, and Rose Anne Medeiros, a quantitative methodologist at Rice University, found that spanking is no more effective at correcting short-term misbehavior than alternative forms of discipline such as time-outs, withholding privileges or simply explaining why the child’s behavior is wrong. The study offered further evidence to support that childhood spanking leads to increased aggression and slower mental development and continued on to report significant links between childhood spanking and criminal offenses, antisocial behavior, domestic violence, lower academic achievement and unhealthy parent-child relationships. 

But let’s take a moment to talk about the “I turned out fine” crowd — the human cockroaches who out themselves as the stragglers of social progress in every morality debate. If you’ve ever dreamt of time travel, these folks create an eerily accurate replica of the Dark Ages. They’re the ones who are (suspiciously) adamant about the cause of needlessly terrorizing children. They’ll accept vague anecdotes over decades of scientific research. Though the requirements necessary for “turning out fine” are subjective and predictably self-serving, I’m skeptical about the “fineness” of a person who is entirely undisturbed by physically harming a child. Perhaps a second opinion is necessary.

Murray Straus, founder and co-director of the Family Research Lab and professor emeritus of sociology at the University of New Hampshire, collected more than four decades of research on the subject in his book “The Primordial Violence,” noting the various side effects seen in children who have been disciplined by force. He points out, “More than 100 studies have detailed these side effects of spanking with more than 90 percent agreement among them. There is probably no other aspect of parenting and child behavior where the results are so consistent.”

As a result of this overwhelming evidence, physical punishment is outlawed in more than 20 nations around the world. The United Nations called for worldwide prohibition of spanking, yet the practice is still legal in all 50 U.S. states. An appalling 19 states still allow corporal punishment in schools, which leads to the subjection of thousands of students to this archaic disciplinary tactic every year. It’s no surprise that the states with the highest amount of human rights violations are the same ones that claim moral superiority. (Proverbs 13:24: “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.”)

Corporal punishment of children is a public-health issue. It’s not a matter of parenting preference, but of the right of children to live free of physical attacks that are justified under the guise of “discipline.” It took until the turn of the 20th century for U.S. law to validate a woman’s right to not be physically punished by her husband. Is it really going to take another century to recognize the gross injustice of violence against children, too?

Write to Natalie at  natalie.russell8@gmail.com.