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The battle continues to rage....meet the experts who say a spanking may not be the worse thing you can do to a child!
In the previous article discussing corporal punishment, views from Dr. Murray Straus, professor at University of California at Berkeley and author of Beating The Devil Out Of Them: Corporal Punishment In American Families, we recounted some of his views in accordance with banning corporal punishment (spanking) from family life. In today’s segment, we’ll investigate proponents of corporal punishment for yet another world-view on this highly volatile topic! Dr. James Dobson, the high profile minister and founder of Focus On The Family, tells in his book, Complete Marriage and Family Home Reference Guide (Tyndale Publishers, Inc.), why he believes spanking may be all right under some circumstances. In answer to a question posed in the book: Is there an age when you begin to spank? Dr. Dobson answered as follows: "There is no excuse for spanking babies or children younger than 15 to 18 months of age. Midway through the second year (18 mos), children become capable of understanding instruction. They can then very gently be held responsible for how they behave. Suppose a child is reaching for an electric socket: You say, “No!” but he just looks at you and continues reaching toward it. I’d encourage you to speak firmly so that he knows he is pushing past the limits. If he persists, slap his fingers just enough to sting. A small amount of pain goes a long way at that age and begins to introduce children to realities of the physical world and the importance of listening to what you say. Through the next 18 months, you gradually establish yourself as the benevolent boss who means what you say and says what you mean. Contrary to what you have read in popular literature, this firm but loving approach to child rearing will not harm a toddler or make him violent. To the contrary, it is most likely to produce a healthy, confident child." Diana Baumind recants much of Straus’ assertions as suspect, because he uses flawed scientific evidence spurred on by his deep and passionate personal morals. Although personal morals are not a bad thing when figured in any human equation, it has no place in a debate discussing the fall-out on the world’s children. Readers of these scientific conclusions must be able to depend upon the results without bias, when attempting to do the proper thing in regards to legislation and parenting questions. Baumrind concludes her comments in a viniversity paper submitted for submission to the Canadian Children's Rights Council with the following: “…I have been funded to recode our (longitudinal )data to examine CP and other disciplinary strategies within a larger socialization contest. My tentative hypothesis is that appropriately used (especially within an authoritative context) disciplinary spanking is harmless relative to alternative forms of punishment. Once our analyses are complete, I will be better able to formulate an empirically based conclusion on what outcomes are associated with mild disciplinary spanking relative to other disciplinary tactics in our particular population.”
The copyright of the article Spanking: Pros in Early Childhood is owned by Connie Newbauer. Permission to republish Spanking: Pros in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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