The argument on whether to smack or not to smack a child has been a long and hotly debated discussion. While some believe that only smacking can enforce certain rules upon a child, others believe smacking is unnecessary violence toward a child and constitutes child abuse. Some people believe that the choice to smack or not to smack a child should be left up to the each individual parent's discretion.
Should children be smacked in the name of discipline? Should the choice to smack be left up to a parent? Or should we outlaw smacking altogether?
Any parent reading the mounting evidence against smacking and the ill-effects of smacking on the developing brain of a child will find it a cause for alarm. So alarming, in fact, that it is critical that all parents be aware of the consequences of smacking before they inflict not only physical but emotional harm upon their child and irreparably damage their relationship with their child.
Why is smacking so damaging to a child?
Because smacking causes stress in a child that is no different to the stress a child experiences when being bullied or suffering from child abuse. Brain scans show structural and biochemical changes that affect social behaviour.
Cell death in the anterior cingulate gyrus affects a child's ability to moderate fear and to empathise. Changes in the brain's pathways affect a child's ability to manage stress and being more prone to being impulsive, aggressive and/or anxious. Long term changes to the adrenaline systems in the brain affect the ability to think clearly. Impairment in the brain stem has been linked to ADHD, depression and impaired attention. It also leads to more aggression and irritability.
Other changes to the brain have also been observed:
Decrease in size of the corpus callosum causing manic shifts in mood states reduced amygdala and hippocampus resulting in depression, irritability and hostility; and poor memory function effects to the GABA system making a child feel unsafe and constantly living in a state of alarm
Violent methods of discipline have also been linked to children with anti-social behaviour and increased prevalence of psychiatric disorders, while non-violent methods of discipline is linked to higher cognitive function.
A common argument for the smacking camp is one that runs something along the lines of, "I was spanked as a child and I turned out okay."
A couple of other arguments stem from this point. Firstly, what is okay? Could it be that if we weren't smacked we might have more deeper and meaningful friendships? Better relationships? Lasting marriages? Feel less depressed? Perform better at work? Have a better outlook and attitude towards life?
Secondly, children who have been hit by misguided well-intentioned parents are later able to reach a well-adjusted adulthood because of the love, nurturance and appropriate limit-setting not because of the physical violence they received.
Jordan Riak cites an excellent example that articulates the fallacy of this belief rather aptly (incidentally, each and every one of these examples applies to my own childhood, too):
"Let's test the I-turned-out-okay argument by examining a few real-life examples from my own childhood. See if they apply to you.
1. There were ashtrays in every room of our house. My parents smoked, as did most adult visitors to our home. The aroma of cigarette, cigar and pipe smoke was always present. Nobody minded. In fact, not one day passed in my early life when I was not exposed to tobacco smoke. I was even exposed in the womb because my mother smoked when she was pregnant with me. And I turned out okay.
2. The first family car I remember was a 1937 Chevrolet sedan. It had no seat belts. When we traveled, I was merely plunked down on the back seat with the expectation that gravity would keep me there. It did. And I turned out okay.
3. All the places in which I lived as a child were painted with lead-based paint. And I turned out okay.
4. I used a bicycle throughout my childhood and teen years, but never wore any kind of protective headgear. And I turned out okay.
Was my family wise or just lucky? Today, we don't do those things anymore. We don't take such risks, and we don't expose our children to such risks not if we know the facts."
Quite possibly, one of the uncomfortable notions about being anti-smacking is that many of us were smacked at some stage when we were children. The idea that our parents did something wrong towards us can be an uncomfortable truth to face. However, it is important to be aware that our parents did what they felt was right at the time because they lacked the knowledge and awareness of the possible ill-effects of their actions.
All the examples listed above are other ways our parents did "wrong" against us but they were all accepted practices in their day. Our parents can claim the right to ignorance because a lot of the evidence we now have were not available to them. However, in this age of information, can we claim to be doing the right thing by our children while knowing what the research has revealed?
Here are a few more examples of practices that were accepted during our parents' time which are now unacceptable because "we know better":
In the past dentists never wore gloves when treating patients. Today, would you allow a dentist to put his (or her) hands into your mouth now without gloves on?
During our parents' generation, it was a recommended practice of the day to wean children and offer them formula instead of breastfeeding. Today we know so much more about the benefits of breastfeeding that no medical practitioner in his (or her) right mind would insist that formula feeding is preferable for mother and baby over breastfeeding.
The Effectiveness of Smacking
One might argue that smacking is effective in conveying the message across to a child that he (or she) did wrong and that nothing else will communicate the lesson quite as well. Longitudinal studies, however, have shown the converse to be true. In fact, schools that had the highest rates of corporal punishment also had "the lowest graduation rates, the highest rates of teen pregnancy, the highest incarceration rates and the highest murder rates".
A survey on "The Influence of Corporal Punishment on Crime" (Adah Maurer, Ph.D. and James S. Wallerstein, 1987) found that 100% of the violent inmates at San Quentin State prison experienced extreme physical punishment growing up, while most professionals either did not experience physical punishment or only mild to moderate physical punishment growing up. The survey found a distinct correlation between physical punishment and a child's success in later life.
You will find that adults who were hit as kids, while believing that it did them "no harm" can seldom articulate any way in which it helped them. When you were smacked as a child for bad behaviour, after which you behaved yourself, ask yourself - why did you behave? Was it because you knew it was wrong, because you were afraid of getting smacked again, or because you didn't want to disappoint your parents? Without proper discipline on why certain behaviours are wrong, smacking alone will not teach a child why they should behave. Sometimes smacking causes so much distress in a child than any lesson that was communicated gets lost in translation.
Exactly what are the lessons learned from being hit? Often it leads to bullying and the acceptance that it is okay to hit others, especially if you are bigger than them (since smacking is always the case of a "bigger" adult hitting a "smaller" child). What happened to the moral of the story? Your child might behave in front of you but how will you know what goes on behind your back? Discipline should be about raising morally-aware children with a social conscience, and not creating fear-inspired behaviours in children that don't last once they are out of sight.
There are Other Ways to Discipline
There is a common misconception, especially among those who believe in smacking, that if a parent chooses not to discipline a child by smacking then that parent is choosing not to discipline the child at all. Perhaps such thoughts are limited only to those near-sighted enough to believe that the only way to discipline a child is through violence.
There are other ways to discipline a child. They are generally more time consuming and require more effort on the part of the parent. It is easier to yell at your child and smack him (or her) for misbehaving than it is to utilise other methods of discipline to correct your child's bad behaviour. Smacking and yelling doesn't require much thought and the action alone will help you let off some steam from the anger buttons your child has just pushed.
Unlike our parents' day, there are now plenty of resources available to parents who truly wish to practice non-violent methods of discipline. And unlike our parents' day, we can no longer claim the excuse of ignorance as a reason why we continue to practice such barbaric methods of disciplining children.
Resources:
1. Plain Talk About Spanking - http://nospank.net/pt2009.htm
2. Spanking by Parents and Subsequent Antisocial Behavior of Children - http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/ja/spankms.htm
3. Corporal Punishment by Mothers and Cognitive Development of Children: A Longitudinal Study - http://nospank.net/straus3.htm
4. Slapping and spanking in childhood and its association with lifetime prevalence of psychiatric disorders - http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?arti d=1230651&blobtype=pdf
5. The Influence of Corporal Punishment on Crime - http://nospank.net/maurer1.htm
6. The Science of Parenting by Margot Sunderland