NDACAN Logo

National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect -Title Banner
Re: Child Discipline & Cultural Controversies
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Child Discipline & Cultural Controversies



At 06:12 PM 1/12/99 -0500, Murray A. Straus wrote:
>Jim Hord's requirement of having to have been a parent to do research on
>spanking and other culturally acceptable forms of corporal punishment (CP)
>such as slapping a child's hand, suggests to me that he finds CP
>acceptable. I make this inference because one can count on at least two
>thirds of parents believing that spanking is sometimes necessary.
>
>The requirement of having been a parent, would rule out some of the
>pioneers in child development who were retiring at the time I joined the
>Human Development and Family Relations department at Cornell who were not
>married, much less have children. It would also rule out my research on
>homicide because I have never murdered anyone.
>
>There are deep value commitments tied in with spanking so I think it is
>important for those who write to this list to make their views clear, as I
>have done in many papers and on this list.


Hello,

I don't post here much, but find the need to comment on this subject. I did raise a child; was a single parent from the time he was age 11-18. Until he was 16, I raised him in a fundamentalist religion which did encourage (almost required, via peer pressure) spanking. In addition my son has Asperger's. When he was around 4, I made the decision to quit spanking. The main reason was that those who promote this practice frequently spout 'as long as it's not done in anger' it's a good parenting practice. In my experience, I realized I could not hit another creature without some measure of anger. It seemed rather hypocritical, to me, to use this method, excuse myself with the 'not in anger' rhetoric, then hit my son. I could not do it with no anger. Besides, he had no real concept of cause and consequence and it did not good. It was just a power struggle, with me the winner because I was bigger. It taught him nothing.

I know this is anecdotal. Does anyone know of research that explores the idea of justifying spanking as long as it's done 'without anger'?

Thank you,

Cathy S. Harris
MSW program
School of Social Work, University of Iowa

[ Home | About NDACAN | Datasets | User Support | Contribute Data | Summer Research Institute ]
[ CMRL List Serve | Bibliography | Measures Index | Useful Links | Search ]

Copyright © 1996-2012 National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect