Re: Child Disscipline & Cultural Controversies

["Murray A. Straus" <mas2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Sharon Carnahan:

Having been booed and shouted down by African American members of one group
I addressed,   I do not envy what you are attempting to do.   In fact, that
experience led me to revive a pledge to myself that I had made years earlier
when I was taken to task for publishing data showing more spouse assaults in
African American families.   This was to leave addressing African American
audiences to African American's.    There are a significant number who are
opposed to corporal punishment (CP),  for example,  the Harvard psychiatrist
Alvin Pousant.

Kirby Alvy (who is Euro-American) in collaboration with African American
colleagues,  has developed a program which I think he calls Successful Black
Parenting.    One of the ways it attempts to counter the "this is part of
black culture"  argument is by asserting that the emphasis on CP among
African Americans is a result of the violence to which they were subjected
during slavery.

My own research has found the same harmful side effects for CP among African
Americans and Hispanic Americans as for Euro-Americans.   However, there are
some studies which show a smaller effect, and at least one which shows a
positive effect.   My speculation is that those findings occur because CP is
so institutionalized among African American parents that absence of it an
indicator of parental non-involvement, perhaps even neglect.   In this
connection,  it is important to remember that the most damaging form of
maltreatment (even though the least researched) is neglect.

If you would like a copy of my papers showing the same effect for African
Americans as for Euro Americans,  send me an e mail and ask for papers CP10,
CP24, and CP51.

The empirical chapters in my 1994 book BEATING THE DEVIL OUT OF THEM:
CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IN AMERICAN FAMILIES controlled for ethnic group,  but
in hindsight,  I realize that the correct statistical procedure should have
been testing for interaction effects.   That is what I did in papers CP24
and CP51 and found no significant interaction with ethnic group.   The
concluding chapter to this book includes a section on "Cultural Rights and
Family Privacy"  in which I briefly examine this issue.    It is now out of
print, but I have copies and will be glad to send one to you or other
readers of this letter (be sure to include your mailing address in the e
mail).

To the best of my knowledge NCPCA has never passed a no-CP resolution.   In
the last few years, however, they have edged up to it by publishing an
excellent pamphlet that advises parents to not spank.   That is progress,
but the lack of a formal policy statement that the depth of commitment to CP
in our culture is so great that even the NCPCA is afraid to come right out
and say that children should never be spanked.   The same applies to the
American Psychological Association.   In fact, I resigned as chair of the
Division 37 task force on CP when the recommendations of the task force were
voted down.

On the positive side,  last spring or summer,  after years of wrangling,
the American Academy of Pediatrics finally came out with guidelines that
advised against spanking.   it was published in Pediatrics and may still be
on their web site.   There are also other signs that things are changing,
and quite rapidly considering how deeply embedded that spanking is
"sometimes necessary" is in American culture.  I have used national surveys
to plot this since 1968.  At that time, 94% of the US population believed
that "a good hard spanking is sometimes necessary."   It is hard to think of
any other aspect of parenting (except providing food etc) that 94% of the
population agree on.   In my most recent survey done in 1995,  it was down
to 65%.   That is still two thirds,  but considering the cultural
embededness  of CP and the life-style and value systems it is linked to
that is a very large  decrease in  only a few decades.   That brings me back
to African Americans.   I think the problem will take care of itself
because,  when the majority of American parents stop hitting their children,
so will African American parents.  But,  in the meantime African American
children will continue to experience a greater exposure to this aspect of
violence in their socialization experience.


Murray A. Straus, Professor of Sociology
& Co-Director,  Family Research Laboratory
University of New Hampshire,  Durham, NH 03824
Phone:  603 862-2594   Fax:  603 862-1122
E-mail  MAS2@CHRISTA.UNH.EDU

See the Family Research Laboratory web site http://www.unh.edu/frl
for bibliography of books and papers by members of the lab,  conference
announcements,  and information about the lab faculty and research program.
-----Original Message-----
From: Sharon Carnahan <Carnahan@Rollins.Edu>
To: Child Maltreatment Researchers
<CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu>
Date: Tuesday, January 12, 1999 12:29 PM
Subject: Child Discipline & Cultural Controversies


>I am giving a workshop this Friday on child discipline, something I have
>taught about many times.  This time, though, the audience is a group of
>family support workers.  They are mostly African American, as are their
>clients;  in addition, many are conservative Christians raised on the
>"spare the rod" lore.  Many believe that spanking is an acceptable form
>of discipline, although that is against the policy of NCPCA.  I've just
>learned that this argument (about spanking) has torpedoed previous
>trainings with this group on this subject, as workers demand to know if
>the speaker has ever spanked a child, why they can't teach parents about
>spanking,  and that the speaker does not understand the rigors of
>raising a compliant child in a terrible environment.  I want to bring
>these issues out in the open, not just wash over them, and to help the
>group reach consensus on a policy they will wholeheartedly support.
>
>How have others handled this issue?  I am considering a workshop in which
>we spend 1/2 the time developing a list of unacceptable ways of
>disciplining, before we move on to alternatives.
>
>I am also looking for written position statements on discipline from
>professional groups.
>
>Thanks!
>
>Sharon Carnahan, Ph.D.
>Associate Prof of Psychology
>Rollins College Box 2760
>1000 Holt Avenue
>Winter Park, FL  32789-4499