Spanking?

    Our daughter is just over two years old now, and is beginning to exhibit more free thinking and certainty in her behavior. 99% of the time, it's the cutest thing you've ever seen, literally. But every so often, a harsh tone, remark or hostile gesture escapes her, and I'm left momentarily brain dead. Surely this calls for discipline, I tell myself. And so far, I think I've managed to strike the right balance of sternness, displeasure and optimism(so she believes her behavior can be improved!). But this is the easy stuff, right? Ask your own parents, and they'll probably tell you that although kids can be "difficult" in their two's, the harder parenting will happen later in childhood and into adolescence. I grew up in a physical household. When I, or my brothers really stepped out of line, we felt it. I don't mean that our parents trapped us into corners and beat us senseless, but I know what it's like to get smacked up side the head, as I'm sure lots of us do. Now I'm a parent, and wondering whether or not there's ever a time when physically disciplining your kids is OK. I'm leaning towards no at this point. Here are two reasons why:
    First of all, it's my belief that any of the physical discipline I received as a kid was the result of a parent who was "temporarily insane". By that I mean, I don't think the punishment was reasoned through. Rather, it was a highly emotional, reflexive event that unfortunately never sought to address the "problem" that caused their reaction in the first place. Now does that mean that every moment in a child's behavioral development needs to be carefully tested and thought through? No, sometimes you just need to tell a kid to knock it the hell off, and the problem is solved. But it was my wife(she does NOT believe in spanking), who actually explained how, if done properly, spanking might be effective. It all depends on how it is done. Is the spanking done rarely, safely and in a controlled way? Is it clear to the child that Mommy or Daddy is well in control at the time, and that he or she is being spanked, not because Mommy or Daddy is mad, but because he or she did something very bad? After all, this is ultimately about behavioral modification, right? I suppose if that point is unclear to a parent, then they really ought to rethink their concepts of parenting and discipline.
    Secondly, studies like this don't make me believe that spanking is ultimately beneficial for our kids either. From researcher Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire. "This research shows that avoiding spanking and correcting misbehavior in other ways can help that happen."

Spanking can get kids to behave in a hurry, but new research suggests it can do more harm than good to their noggins. The study, involving hundreds of U.S. children, showed the more a child was spanked, the lower his or her IQ compared with others.

Straus and his colleague Mallie Paschall of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Maryland studied nationally representative samples of two age groups: 806 children ages 2 to 4, and 704 ages 5 to 9. The researchers tested the kids' IQs initially and then four years later.

Both groups of kids got smarter after four years. But the 2- to 4-year-olds who were spanked scored 5 points lower on the IQ test than those not spanked. For children ages 5 to 9, the spanked ones scored on average 2.8 points lower than their unspanked counterparts.

The results, he said, were statistically significant. And they held even after accounting for parental education, income, cognitive stimulation by parents and other factors that could affect children's mental abilities.

So it's one thing to swear off spanking, but are we ready to do the calm, difficult work required to help our children grow up happy and healthy? I have to believe the answer is yes. But my sense is that's it's equally important to keep our own happiness and sanity in check as well. A happy and healthy parent likely leads to a happy and healthy child. That doesn't sound ridiculous, does it?

 

-B