by S.E. Ingraham

Created on: October 18, 2009

You did what you did then,now you know better, you do better Maya Angelou

Spanking teaches a child several things, none of them good. It teaches a child that if you are bigger, you get to hit. It teaches a child, if you can't think of any other way to make someone listen, you can hit. It teaches a child if you are angry enough, you can hit.

What spanking doesn't teach a child is: respect. Fear maybe, but respect? No.

Spanking also doesn't teach a child about inner discipline, or discipline of any kind actually. Spanking is punishment and punishment and discipline are different. In a better world, what we would wish for our children is that they learn the gift of discipline, hopefully inner discipline.

There is a German Proverb that says, A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.

A child who is spanked into submission may obey the parent, but do they learn anything more than blind obedience? And is that what we want for our children? To learn what to think, not how to think?

Punishment robs children of learning their own sense of self-discipline and when we rob children of this faculty we take away their ability to learn to act with integrity, compassion, wisdom and mercy.

Discipline, on the other hand, is a teaching mechanism. Discipline gives life to learning. It is restorative and it invites reconciliation; its goal is to teach, to guide and to help children develop self-discipline. And it cannot happen if the parent is spanking.

Discipline is not a permissive type of parenting but neither is it authoritarian. It does four things that the act of punishment cannot do:

1. Shows children what they've done wrong

2. Gives them ownership of their problem

3. Helps them find ways of solving the problem

4. Leaves their dignity intact

Children do learn what they live. Spankers most often come from homes where they were spanked, sometimes worse, they come from homes where they were abused.

Somewhat surprisingly, often the opposite is true. Or perhaps, knowing what we know, it's not so surprising. Often it's a parent who was abused or spanked once too often who has determined to break the cycle and raise their children differently, who brings their family up without hitting.

What about the parent who occasionally spanks? There has been much debate about this topic of late and understandably, much confusion.

Every parent recognizes the heart-stopping fear when their toddler dashes into the street and just narrowly misses being run over by a car. Possibly, the knee-jerk reaction to that situation, might be to grab that child and give them a swift smack on the rear-end. And who would blame you? No one.

Just as possibly, if you were trying to retrain yourself not to hit, ever, your reaction might be to swoop that kid into your arms and hug them to you so tightly, they'd feel your fear, then tell them how much they had frightened you and why, and that you loved them dearly.

In the end, the child will probably not remember one reaction over the other, but you? You will. And do you think you will be happy that after your kid almost got hit by a car, you hit them, just for good measure?

There is nothing to be learned from spanking.

Much of the information presented here comes from ideas formulated by educator and author, Barbara Colorosa in her books Kids Are Worth It and How to Win at Parenting without Beating your Kids.

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