Spanking: A Necessary Evil?

Spanking: A Necessary Evil?

Brandy Hoffman

English 100

Professor Davis

July 19, 2015

Spanking: A Necessary Evil?

        Today 29 countries have banned spanking in homes and schools, and the U.S. is still not one of them. For many decades, the question of whether parents should spank their children has been discussed time and time again. Many people don’t agree with the same definition of spanking; if you ask ten different parents you will get ten different answers. The American Academy of Pediatrics describe spanking as “striking a child with an open hand on the buttocks or extremities with the intention of modifying behavior without causing physical injury” (O’Callaghan, 2010, p. 1). However, we can all agree that spanking entails hitting of some kind. The definition of abuse is treating someone or some animal with repeated cruelty or violence.  Therefore spanking is an unnecessary form of abuse. There are many different reasons why parents resort to spanking, one of the most common is his or her childhood experience. Spanking has been one of the most popular forms of discipline for many years, but is it really all that beneficial? Thankfully, there has been extensive research that can now shed some light on this question. This essay argues that parents should not spank their children because the increased risk of physiological, cognitive, and long-term damage.

Because spanking is a physical punishment, most of the time there are severe physiological repercussions on the child’s behalf. One of the most common problems about spanking children is that it does not teach them what they did wrong or what they should have done instead. According to the Child Development journal, “psychoanalytic theory and attachment theory posit that spanking may lead to increased internalizing behavior problems for children” (Maguire-Jack, Gromoshe, and Berger, 2012). This occurs when children are disciplined by spanking and not any other form of discipline. Most of the time the children are not told what they are being punished for; therefore they may experience depression symptoms. Psychoanalytic theory contends that spanking causes feelings of hostility which can develop into feelings of abandonment, if such feelings are repressed (Maguire-Jack, Gromoshe, and Berger, 2012). When children are spanked at a very young age, they do not have the ability to comprehend why they are being spanked; therefore they develop feelings of abandonment.

Attachment theory proposes that ‘‘internal working models’’ of the parent–child relationship, which are constructed from a child’s actual experience with the parent, are used to develop expectations about self and others: ‘‘self’’ as worthy or unworthy of care and protection and ‘‘others’’ as available or unavailable to provide care and protection. These internal working models are used in appraising and guiding behavior in new situations. (Maguire-Jack, Gromoshe, and Berger, 2012, p. 1961)

Spanking lacks the ability to make children have any positive reasons to behave well, thus they feel unimportant. If the pattern continues, the child may develop depression or anxiety. Therefore, making the child understand what he or she did wrong is one of the most crucial ingredients in effective discipline. When a child knows what they did wrong, they will understand and know not to do it again in the future. However, with spanking the child is left with no understanding at all, just that they are being physically punished for some act. What spanking does teach children is how to lie, “I didn’t do it,” and how to avoid getting caught. Of course the child does not want to be spanked so as a result he or she will lie to try and get away with it. Consequently, this leads to children’s inability to listen and comply.

        Not only does spanking cause physiological damage but it also causes cognitive damage. There has been numerous studies done that have found a correlation between spanking and cognitive damage. One 2009 study performed by the Developmental Biopsychiatry Research Program found that, “Exposing children to harsh corporal punishment may have detrimental effects on trajectories of brain development” (Tomoda, Suzuki, Rabi, Sheu, Polcari, & Teicher, 2009). Research has found that children who are regularly spanked have less grey matter in certain areas of the prefrontal cortex. Grey matter in your brain is used to better evaluate rewards and consequences. When grey matter is lost, your brain loses the ability to have self-control. Ironically, the more children are spanked for lack self-control, the less they will have. Another study conducted by researchers at Princeton and Columbia University found that children who were spanked frequently by their fathers at age 5 went on to have lower vocabulary scores at age 9 ( MacKenzie, Nicklas, Waldfogel, and There, 2013). There are also correlations between how much grey matter in certain brain regions and children’s ability to score high on an IQ test (Kovac, 2014).  Spanking puts stress upon children because they can never expect when they are going to be punished. We see that when children are put under stress their ability to perform well during cognitive tasks declines. When a child is spanked, his or her limbic system goes into panic mode. The limbic system is what governs emotions and also where learning and understanding come into play. In a state of panic and sense of hopelessness, the child’s mind can learn nothing and the prefrontal cortex shuts down. Thus, the child responds with nothing but reactive, vacant behavior. By disciplining using corporal punishment, parents are clearly just using fear to punish their child. Spanking has nothing to do with teaching and helping children understand right and wrong. To be hurt by a person who loves you can be a very confusing lesson for a child to understand.