Educated Parenting

What Is Corporal Punishment and Should It Ever Be Used In Raising Children?

The corporal or physical punishment of children refers to a wide range of actions intended to cause physical pain.  These include such acts as:

pinching,

shaking,

slapping,

punching, and

with or without the use of objects like belts, cords or brushes,

spanking,

hitting, and

beating children.

Each act can be mild or severe, depending on its force and duration.

All such acts constitute violence directed toward children because violence is defined as an "act carried out with the intention of causing physical pain or injury to another person" (Straus, M., Beating the Devil Out of Them: Corporal Punishment in American Families and Its Effects on Children).

Before answering whether these forms of violence should ever be used in raising children, let's look at how many parents are already using them and with which age children.

National surveys show that with 4 and 5 year olds, over 90 percent of parents from all backgrounds and cultural groups admit using one or more forms of corporal punishment, and this percent has remained the same for the last twenty years.

The percentage of parents of school-age children who admit to using corporal punishment hovers around 60 percent and this represents a large reduction from ten years ago.  So the use of corporal punishment with these children looks like it is on the decline.  With infants and toddlers, about 35 percent of parents indicate using corporal punishment.

In terms of whether any parent should use these forms of violence, the answer is

The Parenting Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

There is so much to be grateful for as we celebrate Martin Luther King Day, including the legacy of non-violent parenting that he exemplified in his relationships with his children.

For Dr. King, non-violence was more than a means for addressing society's problems.  It was also a value that guided his parenting.

As his son Dexter Scott King shared in his book, Growing Up King, "He didn't spank us...Daddy might sit us down and explain things.  'This is why you should'nt do that, son.'  He would deal more on a mental level, try to get us to understand why things were."

Dexter further shared, "He was very much a talker, he would talk about subjects with us, was intimate in his feelings, in terms of our being able to understand the subject and his feelings.  You felt like his equal, almost like he was bringing you up in his world to his level, not like he was coming down to you.  He was soothing to listen to, authoritative you knew, because he was Daddy, but also deliberate, precise, when he spoke, you listened."

We at the Center for the Improvement of Child Caring also listened.