Do you spank your children? Well you’re in good company. Over 90% of all parents around the world do – and yet it has been declared illegal in many countries. It is recommended many times in the Bible, and yet it has thoroughly divided opinions among social scientists and psychologists. Many parents will admit to having misgivings about it, and yet it seems to work fine. So what’s the problem?
But let’s first agree what we’re talking about. Spanking is certainly intended to be painful – a little – but should never involve any form of physical or other injury, and is meant to benefit the child. There are many other names for it and techniques vary, although it is usually given on the buttocks. And it does seem to be a natural way of teaching small children. After all, children have many painful experiences at the beginning of life, such as touching hot stoves. These painful lessons do not seem to do children any great harm and teach them things they needs to know in order to survive and be safe in society.
Many people however, suggest that if we want a less violent world, then spanking should be banned. Some believe that it leads to child abuse. It has no longer legal in Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Norway, Sweden, Zambia and Zimbabwe and bans are currently being debated in many other countries.
Experts however tend to be undecided. A survey in 1997-8 found that 50% of American paediatricians believe that they should try to eliminate spanking as a form of discipline, although 30% disagreed and 20% were unsure. About one-half of pediatricians (48%) think there is a link between corporal punishment and child abuse, 21% think there is no link and 31% are undecided. Many feel distinctly uneasy about condemning something which so many people do – in almost every country around the world.
Some however, argue that spanking is harmful because the child is being subjected to pain against which they are defenseless. Others claim that spanking a child is abusive and contributes to adult problems. These allegations have arisen from studies that don’t distinguish spanking from such outrageous punishments as kicking and punching. They usually also include corporal punishment of adolescents, rather than focusing on younger children, where spanking is most effective.
Murray Straus, Professor of Sociology and co-director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire, US claims that at least 80 percent of all studies show that spanking harms children. But psychologists Diana Baumrind and Elizabeth Owens at the University of California, Berkeley, US surveyed more than 100 families. When they excluded the small proportion of parents who punish often and intensely, they found no evidence of behavioral or cognitive problems in children who received occasional spankings.
It can be argued that spanking might teach a child that hitting or being violent is appropriate behavior. Wendy Walsh, a member of the Department of Sociology at the University of New Hampshire, US, claims that using corporal punishment leads to greater incidences of child aggression.
But researchers at Iowa State University, US, studied 332 families to examine how both corporal punishment and the quality of parenting affected later aggressiveness, delinquency, and psychological well-being. They found strong associations between the quality of parenting and none with corporal punishment. Indeed, childhood aggression has been more closely linked to maternal permissiveness and negative criticism than to physical discipline.
It’s unrealistic to expect that children won’t hit other children if only their parents would stop spanking them. Most tiny children, long before they have ever been spanked, naturally attempt to hit their companions when conflict or frustration arises. Whether they continue largely depends on how the parent reacts. If effectively disciplined the child will hit less often. If not, it will probably persist and even escalate.
Dr. Diana Baumrind of the Institute for Human Development at the University of California, Berkeley, US, conducted a ten year study of families with children aged 3-9 years. She found that parents who used a balance of firm control (including spanking) and positive encouragement experienced the best results with their children. Authoritarian parents using excessive punishment and little encouragement were less successful, as were permissive types using little punishment and no spanking. In the hands of loving parents, spanking the bottom of a defiant toddler is a strong incentive to improve behaviour and a good deterrent to disobedience.
Interestingly, economists suggest that spanking is associated with income – along the lines of: if you’re well off, you can cut your child’s allowance; if you’re poor, they probably don’t have one. Spanking however works equally well for both. This suggests that poorer parents, with fewer alternatives available, should spank their kids more – and according to Professor Bruce Weinberg of Ohio State University, US, they do – even across races and other cultural variables.
African parents for example, punish their children more than others: indeed, it would be hard to find an African or Afro-Caribbean family that doesn’t spank their children. It is socially accepted and commonplace. There are other cultural factors. Boys are punished more than girls. Single mothers spank a little less than other parents, as do older and better-educated parents. Bigger families spank less, but Weinberg’s study finds that the poor spank more even after you’ve accounted for all of these effects.
One last group of critics argue that it is the spanking of the buttocks that is wrong – because they are such a private and sexual area. The buttocks have strong sexual connotations, even though they are not actually sex organs. This is why the baring of buttocks in public is considered indecent in most cultures. Because they are so close to the genitals and linked to sexual nerve centres, slapping them can trigger involuntary sensations of sexual pleasure. Even children, it is argued, are capable of experiencing such erotic feelings, which can interfere with a child’s normal sexual and psychological development.
There is no direct evidence that I am aware of that supports these ideas – but on the other hand, it is true that many adults do enjoy spanking as a part of sex…
Some like to give a mild spanking to their partner’s bottom during lovemaking. Both giver and receiver seem to like the feelings, sight and sounds in much the same way that some couples gently bite, scratch or pinch while making love. Others like spanking in the more traditional way, for real or imaginary transgressions. Around the world, a popular female fantasy is that of confessing to some misdemeanour in order to be spanked prior to sex. Some like to dress up for the part – usually in a ‘schoolgirl uniform’ – hence the amusement caused by Brenda Fassie’s costume at one of her gigs. Madonna has also said many times that she likes to be spanked – she has also denied it – and has even released a song about it…
Some girls, they like candy, and others, they like to grind,
I’ll settle for the back of your hand somewhere on my behind.
Treat me like I’m a bad girl, even when I’m being good to you,
I don’t want you to thank me, you can just spank me. Mmm…
Although it is currently a near taboo in the media, even Meg Ryan asked if she was going to get a spanking in a recent movie. Many romance novels, especially those written in the 1970s, include spanking scenes. Movies from the 1940s and 1950s often included them, as did television programs of the 1950s, ’60s and even ’70s, but the changing role of women gradually made the idea of a man spanking a woman, even in stylized context of the media, seem improper. Women spanking men also became socially taboo in the media, but there is little doubt that both continue behind closed doors.
Most lovers only want over-the-knee hand spankings for the anticipation, closeness, intimacy and loss of control they imply. Many women in particular subconsciously want to be ‘punished’ for liking the sex that follows, but for others it is the sensations alone that enhance their sexual experience and give them much stronger orgasms. Interestingly, most adults who like being spanked – especially women – say they were not spanked as a child. And in every case, we are talking about situations in which both of the partners are fully consenting to the activity and there is no question of abuse.
So, the jury is still out, and you will have to make your own mind up whether to spank your children. It does seem to be a complicated subject though, doesn’t it? Few, I guess would sympathize with those social scientists who worry about the whole thing (most of them in the US, you will have noticed!), and who seem determined to try to change the behaviour of the whole world. But I do confess to a little discomfort about the possibility that children might actually like it sexually, even if subconsciously. It may sound far fetched, but if you don’t believe me, you might like to try talking to your partner about it. After they’ve got over the surprise, you might have an interesting experience or two…
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