R: Child Discipline and Cultural Controversies

["Oddone Virginio" <oddovir@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Cassandra Woolfolk & all the other participants to the discussion.

Your posting confirms to me what I did not dare to write down in my
previous one: that "spanking" means very different things to different
cultures and subcultures, societies and sections of societies. What you did
describe fits very well what I read in american novels of great american
writers, as well in less famous; but I wasn't sure it was any more really
existing, so I was afraid to be somehow "culturally biased" or worse. In
Italy, the "spanking" you describe would be regarded by everybody, at every
social level, as outright "child abuse", and it has been so since at least
well before World War II. Even "hitting families" of the old times ignored
the ritual of the child having to go to take the disciplining instrument
and bring it to dad - and what instruments!. In our society "spanking"
means simply to slap the kid on the buttocks, or - at the most severe - on
the face, always a few times; a minor form of slapping, but for more grown
up, is that of a slap on the the back part of the head (by "slap" I do mean
hitting with the palm of the bare and open hand). My father punished me
twice in all my life; once, because - at the age of 10 - I had forged his
signature, in order to hide I was taking bad notes at school for being too
noisy or too late, the other time because I said nasty words to my mother:
but it was a few slaps in the face, and the tremendous humiliation, and
that was it (by the way, I'm born in 1941, so you may calculate the epoch).
More severe punishments might happen, but they would be felt as "abusive"
and disapproved, both in the community and in the kin.

It is for this reason that to "criminalize" spanking would be deeply
resented here in Italy, as well as in all other european countries and - as
far as I know - elsewhere in Europe. This fact poses also a very serious
problem: that of the "cultural bias" in all scientific discussions about
child abuse and neglect, not only in terms of just knowing how - for
instance - a Central African mother behaves (in a meeting here in Turin, a
few years ago one such mother sternly defended her disciplinary systems -
among other things, placing the undisciplined son in the bathtub, with
water in it, for a few hours) or parents from the mountains of Piemonte
(Italy), but also in terms of the unspoken, implicit systems of norms and
beliefs that each researchers harbors inside himself/herself as a member of
his/her own society, culture, community. I once read a quotation from
Locke, sounding more or less as: "Human beings do believe that they are
saying the same things, just because they are uttering the same sounds". My
worry is that it might be depicting too well what we are just doing, in the
child abuse field.

With sincere friendship to all.

Virginio Oddone.

----------
> Da: Cassandra Woolfolk <cwoolfol@staff.uiuc.edu>
> A: Child Maltreatment Researchers  
<CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu>
> Oggetto: Child Discipline and Cultural Controversies
> Data: gioved“ 14 gennaio 1999 17.05
> 
> Dear Sharon Carnahan:
> 
> I am currently working as a Regional Training Coordinator with the
Education
> Partnership in Illinois.  I am employed by the University of Illinois
(U-C)
> School of Social Work. I am also an African-American social worker with a
> private practice (25 years in mental health). 
> 
> I have given several talks to child welfare workers on cultural
differences
> in the past few months.  One aspect of CP in some African-American
families
> is the use of what I call "ritual spankings".  For instance:  1)The child
is
> warned about their behavior; 2) The child is sent to get the
> switch/paddle/belt that they will be spanked with; 3) The child receives
a
> lecture about their misbehavior (My ex-husband was raised in the South. 
His
> lecture included how he was letting down the entire race, his mother and
> grandmother); 4) The child is then spanked until they cry.  When talking
to
> Child Protection Investigators, I suggested that they might want to
inquire
> about the "process" of discipline.  It may be possible to determine
whether
> the spanking involved a "ritual" or was impulsive.  Many families make a
> distinction between discipline and abuse.  You might ask your audience if
> their families had such a ritual.
> 
> Also, there are some African-American families who have concern about
less
> corporal forms of punishment (especially time-out).  One saying I grew up
> hearing is that "White people train their dogs but let their children run
> wild."  For many African-American parents, time-out is equivalent to
raising
> your child like white folks do.  A very high value is placed on showing
> respect for one's parents.  Encouraging a child to express their
feelings,
> be given choices, etc., is "too white" for some parents.  When counseling
> parents I have suggested that they have not been able to demonstrate that
> they are able to make the distinction between discipline and abuse (thus
> their involvement with the child welfare system).  If they are acting
> impulsively, leaving bruises etc., they have crossed the line between
> spanking and physical abuse.  
> 
> The Illinois Inspector General's office distributed an article "Seven
Deadly
> Sins of Childhood:  Advising Parents About Difficult Developmental Phases
by
> Barton Schmitt (Child Abuse and Neglect. 1987, vol 11., pp 421-432).  He
> offers a table on "Restrictions on physical punishment (if eliminating it
is
> impossible)".  
> 
> I hope this is helpful.
> 
> Cassandra B. Woolfolk, LCSW
> Regional Training Coordinator, Education Partnership
> School of Social Work
> 1207 West Oregon
> Urbana, IL  61801
> email cwoolfol@uiuc.edu
>