By Sasha Moedt (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: September 26, 2012
Remember one of the worst things you’ve ever done as a child – and gotten caught doing. Did your parents hit you?
It sounds odd to say aloud. Imagine, the ones you most trust and depend on, especially as a child, hitting you!
I believe children experience corporal punishment differently. This is because, in my mind, there are two types of spanking, and the difference between them is huge.
For me, the worst thing I can remember was getting into the medicinal cupboard and popping Tums and vitamin C chewables like candy.
When my Mum caught me standing on the stool with a mouthful of citrus-flavoured vitamin C, she told me to get down and spit it out, in her angry-mum way. I deposited a mushy orange gob into the sink. She told me to come here. I trudged over. She lectured me, and spanked me.
It wasn’t a hard spank, and it was more the symbolism of the act that mattered. I was being punished. I was told to go to my room.
But I can imagine another way of it happening. Imagine, instead of an angry but calm parent, a parent who loses control in their anger; a parent that lashes out and spanks without warning. If my mother had yanked me down from that stool, and spanked me in anger, it would have been different. It would have been frightening.
A child whose parents lash out in physical violence would surely lose that solid foundation of safety parents provide. They shouldn’t be scared of their own mother or father.
A study published in a Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) in early September has suggested that spanking should be made illegal.
In Canada, section 43 of the Criminal Code allows parents to hit a child to punish them. And, according to CMAJ, 50 per cent of parents still hit their toddlers.
The author, Dr. John Fletcher, moves past the ‘is it morally right or wrong’ question, and asks: “is the physical punishment of children effective?”
The quick answer is no.
“The physical punishment of children is associated with increased levels of child aggression and is no better at eliciting compliance than other methods,” Fletcher writes. He continues to say that physical punishment is also linked to various behavioral issues later in life, including depression and anxiety.
Going back to the mouthful of vitamin C, I hardly remembered the spanking. The spanking isn’t what taught me the lesson, it was my mum’s lecture, and my quiet time in my bedroom. I didn’t need it – no child does.
If you think about it, you’d think that a good smack should teach a child right and wrong without a doubt, right?
But there’s always more to it. What if you’re wrong? Parents make mistakes. What if the child’s excuse was true? What if, 10 years later, you realize that a boy putting on make-up is okay? Or your daughter was scared of the dark, and that’s why she smashed the lamp – to get your attention, not wanting to admit she was still afraid? And you—the parent, their guardian, their protector—come into the room and hit him or her. There is no creature so sensitive to injustice like the child.
Dr. Fletcher writes that “While section 43 stands, it is a constant excuse for parents to cling to an ineffective method of child discipline when better approaches are available.”
There are better methods. You could probably complete a BA in raising children with all the research and studies done on the matter. Parenting books and classes are extremely popular right now. Why do we still fall back on hitting our children? We shouldn’t rely on mimicking our own parent’s techniques, because they aren’t always right.
Fletcher writes that parenting programs should be offered widely, across Canada. “Parenting programs have been successful at teaching positive parenting techniques and improving behavior of children. Given that a large proportion of the population needs to be taught, education will need to reach beyond just families with overt problems.”
There are too many ways to go wrong clinging to a method that has been proven ineffective. Parents don’t want to hit their children.
But they also don’t want to admit to themselves that they are and were wrong, and openly realize that they hurt their child.
Corporeal punishment is ineffective as a form of parenting. It hurts children in the short and long run. It damages significant child-parent relationships. We need to move past it.
It’s both the parents and the law that needs to change. It’s time to stop making excuses for corporal punishment.
