John Manning
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 Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 8:54 pm Post subject: Spanking often coincides with more serious child abuse |
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Spanking often coincides with more serious child abuse, study finds
By MANDY LOCKE
McClatchy Newspapers, August 18, 2008
http://www.theolympian.com/523/story/549480.html
Parents tempted to treat Junior's misbehavior with a lashing from a tree
limb out back or dad's leather belt are being urged to think again.
A study released Tuesday by doctors at the University of North
Carolina-Chapel Hill finds that parents who spank their children with an
object - such as a belt, switch or paddle - are nine times more likely
to abuse their child through more severe means. Also, parents are much
more likely to beat, burn or shake their children if they spank
frequently, according to the study which is being published by the
American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
"Parents get angry when they're spanking and it's not working," said
Adam Zolotor, lead author of the study and a pediatrician at the
UNC-CH's Department of Family Health. "If a child gets spanked so often,
they just don't care anymore and will misbehave anyway."
It's the latest finding in a growing body of research suggesting parents
should use their voice, not their hands or household tools, to keep
children in line. This study rests on anonymous admissions of 1,435
mothers of children from North and South Carolina randomly selected to
share details of the discipline they and other caregivers use in the
privacy of their own home.
Rates of abuse, the researchers found, are alarmingly high, even in a
survey dependent on parents owning up to behavior that could cost them
the right to raise their children. Twelve percent of mothers who
reported spanking a child's bottom with an object also admitted engaging
in behavior researchers classified as physical abuse. Also, 12 percent
of those who spanked 50 or more times in the last year admitted abuse
such as beating, burning, shaking or hitting the child with an object
about their body.
Spanking has been a mainstay in American parents' discipline regimen for
generations. Most national studies show that more than half of parents
have spanked or slapped their child in the past year. In the UNC-CH
study, Zolotor and his colleagues found that nearly half of those
Carolina parents with a child between the ages of 7 and 9 whipped their
child's behind with an object in the past year.
Corporal punishment has been on the minds of North Carolinians this
summer. In June, Triangle residents watched Johnston County mother Lynn
Paddock admit she lashed out at her brood of adopted children with a
plastic plumbing supply line; Paddock borrowed the parenting advice from
an evangelical Christian minister who teaches parents how to rear
submissive children.
A Johnston County jury sent Paddock to prison for the rest of her life
for suffocating her youngest son, 4-year-old Sean.
Over the last year, child advocates have appealed, without success, to
legislators to outlaw corporal punishment in public schools. Some
districts, such as Johnston County, have recently voted to abandon the
practice.
"People want to change behavior immediately, and they think spanking is
the way to go," said Tom Vitaglione, a child advocate from Raleigh-based
Action for Children who has pushed for the statewide ban on spanking in
schools. "Down the line, though, (these children) do far worse. That
relationship of trust is broken."
At least 56 school districts still allow administrators to spank or
paddle children. Efforts to ban that practice entirely have met fierce
opposition.
John Rustin, vice-president of Family Policy Council, a non-partisan
research group in Raleigh that focuses on family issues, opposed the ban
and thinks there's still a place for spanking in North Carolina's homes
and schools.
"Spanking can be administered in a loving manner to help children
understand what's right and wrong," said Rustin. "But, it's not just
something that ought to be done with little thought."
Some Christians heed the Bible's admonition that parents who spare the
rod will spoil their children. Several ministers have written books or
taught seminars instructing parents how to employ the rod, preaching
that a parents' hand ought to be preserved for loving and nurturing, not
discipline.
Michael Pearl, the Tennessee pastor Paddock turned to for a discipline
advice, suggests in his books that parents whip babies under one with "a
footlong willow branch shaved of its knots" and for older children
"plastic plumbing pipe, a 3-foot shrub cutting or a belt."
Beth Taylor, a mother of two boys, said she finally gave up on spanking
years ago when her oldest son began acting worse after she turned to a
belt to punish him. It was the only tactic she knew, Taylor said.
Growing up, her father had whipped her and her sisters with a strap.
"It made him lash out at me," said Taylor, who lives in McDowell County
in Western North Carolina. "It broke my heart. I worried about him
hating me."
Frustrated, she took a parenting class to figure out what was going
wrong. There, Taylor said, she learned her spanking provoked her son.
Now, to get her oldest son to behave, Taylor disconnects his cell phone.
For her youngest, 7, she takes away his video game machine.
"Nothing gets their attention faster," said Taylor. |
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Just James
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 10:16 pm Post subject: Re: Spanking often coincides with more serious child abuse |
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John Manning wrote:
| Quote: |
Spanking often coincides with more serious child abuse, study finds
By MANDY LOCKE
McClatchy Newspapers, August 18, 2008
http://www.theolympian.com/523/story/549480.html
|
<snip>
| Quote: | Frustrated, she took a parenting class to figure out what was going
wrong. There, Taylor said, she learned her spanking provoked her son.
Now, to get her oldest son to behave, Taylor disconnects his cell phone.
For her youngest, 7, she takes away his video game machine.
"Nothing gets their attention faster," said Taylor.
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I'm ashamed to admit I resort to this nonsense on rare occasion or even
yell. I would beat the shit out of anyone who did that to my child an
yet there I go. I've never used an object or hit more than one swat,
but it fixes nothing and makes me feel worse. We don't have many
options though. In our house there are no video games or regular TV.
Putting them in their room is ineffective since they can just walk out.
Too bad kids don't come with a manual :-)
--
Just James
"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the
first and only object of good government." ~ Thomas Jefferson |
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