Living with Children
6/24/08

John Rosemond

Copyright 2008, John K. Rosemond

Thankfully, the media paid next to no attention to the fact that last April 30 was End Spanking Day as proclaimed by a group calling itself End Physical Punishment of Children, or EPOCH. My former graduate school advisor and continuing mentor forwarded to me an email from one of EPOCH’s members . As you will see, facts don’t matter to these folks. They don’t like the idea of spanking children; therefore, spanking is bad. They could be dismissed as just another bunch of people with too much time on their hands if it weren’t for the fact that EPOCH has had minor success in their attempts to persuade activist judges and state legislators—most recently, one in California—to make unconstitutional rulings from the bench and introduce bills that would outlaw parental spanking in the USA. It obviously matters not to the zealots at EPOCH that child abuse actually increased in Sweden after the passage of laws banning parental spanking.

It rarely fails that when I open the floor for questions at a speaking engagement, someone will ask if I believe in spanking. My response is always that whereas I do not believe in it in the sense of promoting it, I do feel there are times when a spanking is the optimal response to certain misbehaviors. Over the years, I’ve written several columns in which I’ve said essentially the same thing, and those columns never fail to provoke near hysteria among the usual suspects. They accuse me of “promoting child abuse” and other absurdities.

Unfortunately for us all, the cultural debate over whether to spank or not to spank has devolved into a shouting match between extremists. On the right, we have folks who believe that God insists that parents spank. Having done considerable research into the various uses of the word “rod” in the Bible and consulted with Old Testament scholars, I can say with confidence that when used in the context of the discipline of children, “rod” is clearly a metaphor. It does not exclude spankings, nor does it prescribe them. Saying that, however, apparently convinces some folks that I’m an agent of Satan.

On the left, we have people who believe that a swat to a child’s rear teaches that hitting is okay and is child abuse of the most egregious kind. The fact is, research done by people who have no ideological axe to grind clearly supports the view that occasional spankings cause no psychological harm. One long-term study of parenting outcomes, regarded as one of the best in the field, found that children who are occasionally spanked score significantly higher on measures of well-being and adjustment than children who have never been spanked. (Please note the emphasis on the word “occasional.”) The research also finds that spankings work best with young children, and lose their effect after age 5.

And so, with that introduction, the rest of the story: The parents of a 22-month-old child recently wrote to tell me that after eight months of frustration over his habit of biting, they had solved it in two weeks by, yes, spanking him. Up to that point, they had justified his biting by saying “He doesn’t bite hard, he never breaks the skin, and he hugs after he bites as if to say he’s sorry.” They finally came to the realization that if he knows it’s wrong to bite, then he’s old enough to control it. So they began spanking his bare bottom when he bit. He had three spankings in one day and then one or two the next week. “End of problem,” his mother wrote.

Sometimes, fire is best fought with fire.