Parents and experts alike often hold different opinions on whether spanking is an appropriate way to control a child who is misbehaving. Depending on what state you live in, the law assumes that spanking a child to correct the childs behavior is not against the law as long as the force used is reasonable.
Every school teacher, parent or person standing in the place of a parent is justified in using force by way of correction toward a pupil or child, as the case may be, who is under his care, if the force does not exceed what is reasonable under the circumstances.
Now, that being said .... Hitting children teaches them to become hitters themselves. In many cases of so-called "bad behavior", the child is simply responding in the only way he can, given his age and experience. Punishment distracts the child from learning how to resolve conflict in an effective and humane way.
Punishment interferes with the bond between adult and child, as it is not human nature to feel loving toward someone who hurts us. There are positive ways of relating to children. Punishment may appear to produce "good behavior" in the early years, but always at a high price, paid by parents and by society as a whole, as the child enters adolescence and early adulthood. Even relatively moderate spanking can be physically dangerous. Blows to the lower end of the spinal column send shock waves along the length of the spine, and may injure the child. The prevalence of lower back pain among adults in our society may well have its origins in childhood punishment. Some children have become paralyzed through nerve damage from spanking, and some have died after mild paddlings, due to undiagnosed medical complications.
Physical punishment gives the dangerous and unfair message that "might makes right", that it is permissible to hurt someone else, provided they are smaller and less powerful than you are.
The child then concludes that it is permissible to mistreat younger or smaller children. When he becomes an adult, he can feel little compassion for those less fortunate than he is, and fears those who are more powerful. This will hinder the establishment of meaningful relationships so essential to an emotionally fulfilling life. Because children learn through adult modeling, physical punishment gives the message that hitting is an appropriate way to express feelings and to solve problems. If a child does not observe an adult solving problems in a creative and humane way, it can be difficult for him to learn to do this himself.
Gentle instruction, supported by a strong foundation of love and respect, is the only truly effective way to bring about commendable behavior based on strong inner values, instead of superficially "good" behavior based only on fear.
