We need a national conversation on spanking

The Adrian Peterson controversy has placed corporal punishment in the news again.

America desperately needs to have a national dialogue about this practice. Instead, we get a national monologue. The media tells just one side of the story: corporal punishment = child abuse.

On the anti-spanking side we have highly educated columnists, child development experts and PhDs of all stripes. On the pro-spanking side we have Charles Barkley.

For years the experts have been telling us that spanking is bad for kids. They point to various studies that associate spanking with a host of negative outcomes for children.

Many parents are skeptical of these studies. Most people my age were spanked and we turned out fine. We were paddled in school and even by neighbors. We didn’t become monsters. In fact, many adults are thankful their parents spanked them. And if spanking is so bad, then how did our grandparents (who were severely whipped with razor straps) become “The Greatest Generation”?

Parents also question these studies because they fail to make a meaningful distinction between a few swats with a hand vs. a bloodletting with an electric cord. Too often child abuse is swept into the category of “spanking.”

Furthermore, parents are reluctant to give up spanking because they’ve seen first hand how effective a well-timed paddling can be. And we’ve all cringed while watching new-age parents trying to reason with an erupting toddler.

So here’s the problem: some 90% of parents still spank their kids – yet they are given absolutely no instruction on what constitutes a healthy spanking, because the experts tell us there’s no such thing.

Out of this information vacuum come situations like Adrian Peterson’s. No one told Adrian that you don’t have to beat a child bloody and stuff his mouth with leaves to get your point across. Peterson clearly crossed the line – probably because no one had ever defined the line for him.

Child rearing experts are making the same error prohibitionists made in the 1910s. They want an outright ban on spanking. But their righteous crusade will not eliminate corporal punishment – it will simply drive spanking underground – making any sort of instruction or consensus impossible. Academics will continue to conflate spankings with beatings, and the media will gleefully report every time a celebrity parent uses too much force.

So let’s start the conversation. I’ll go first.

My wife and I spanked our kids, but we set rules before the kids were born:

• We only spanked for willful disobedience. We never spanked for mistakes or accidents.
• We limited ourselves to three swats to the clothed bottom. We didn’t pull down pants. Our kids knew that after three swats it was over.
• We used our hands or an object such as a belt or wooden spoon. We never allowed these to contact bare skin.
• We never spanked hard enough to leave a mark.
• We used spanking only as a last resort. Ninety percent of the time the threat of a spanking was all that was needed to settle our kids down.
• Every spanking ended with a hug.
• We stopped spanking at age 10.

Spanking worked like magic. It was like an emotional reset button – especially for our son. He’d go from cranky to calm in no time. Spanking solved the problem in minutes – whereas time outs and withdrawals of privileges seemed to drag the conflict out, sometimes for hours.

Spankings even worked at school. I can remember a couple of boys back in my high school who were serial troublemakers. They were regularly taken out in the hallway and paddled. They came back to class more settled and less disruptive. I don’t know how these guys turned out (I’ve lost track of them) but I don’t think they were ruined by this experience.

Generations of teachers and parents have recognized spanking as a valuable disciplinary tool. Why is it now being condemned by the intelligentsia?

Money. Parenting experts realize that 80% of their book and magazine buyers are women. Women are generally less comfortable with spanking than men are. So these experts tell mothers what they want want to hear: you can have happy, well-adjusted children without the unpleasantness of spanking.

The growing movement to ban all forms of corporal punishment is a reflection of our feminizing society. Men have traditionally been the spankers (wait ‘til your FATHER gets home). Men are generally more physical and less verbal when it comes to interacting with their kids. Verbal discipline is in – physical discipline is out. This further marginalizes men and plays into the popular narrative that fathers are unnecessary or even harmful to children. Women’s ways are good – men’s ways are toxic.

Parents will always spank their children. I believe it’s the most effective form of discipline — if administered properly. But we need to define proper – or we’ll end up with more situations like Adrian Peterson’s.

However, I fear this conversation will never happen – because the prohibitionists control the debate. We live in an age of zero tolerance – in which a second grader can be suspended from school for chewing his pop tart into the shape of a gun. We prefer all-out bans because these are so much easier to enforce (and they cover us if we’re ever sued).

So what do you think? Should spanking be outlawed – or discussed? Will men have an easier or harder time disciplining their kids without spanking? Would boys benefit or be harmed if spanking were eliminated?

And here’s the hot potato: should churches teach the proper way to spank? Comments are open, or join the conversation on our Facebook page.