Spanking, Schooling

A few more thoughtful letters about spanking children, and about homeschooling fill the Family Talk mailbox this week. It is suggested that we look to our own childhood and examine how we felt when spanked. As for education, each family is unique in its needs.

SPANKING IS DIFFICULT ISSUE

John Rosemond's article on spanking was a thoughtful, sensitive discussion of a most difficult issue. Like most questions about human behavior, each of us must make personal choices without all the facts and with few absolute guidelines.

As a pediatrician, a father and a grandfather, you would correctly predict that I am asked my opinions about spanking almost daily. I agree that spanking is truly lousy as a form of discipline and it's about equally poor as a tool for behavior management. Spanking can be easily overdone by a frustrated adult so that it becomes unquestionably abusive to the child.

I suggest to parents that they recall their own feelings as a child being spanked, or reflect on the effects they observed on other children around them who were spanked alot. The child in all of us saw things quite clearly back then and the recollected picture often isn't a pretty one, but it can be poignantly instructive.

Our childhood experiences, good and bad, provide the main model for our own parenting. Parents who were themselves spanked too much and harshly disciplined must realize that they are at risk of losing control in disciplining their children, and must absolutely eliminate spanking from their behavior.

Do I believe in spanking? No, I don't believe people should hurt one another. Big people shouldn't hit little people. People with authority shouldn't physically hurt others under their control. We can't afford to keep setting that example for our children. Just look at the violence surrounding us every day in schools, in the news, on TV and in movies - and right in our American homes. The lesson is obvious.

Do I believe spanking is child abuse? No, but it can certainly lead directly to the abuse. An occasional well-timed hand slap to the bottom (a la Rosemond's description) isn't child abuse. But parents beware! The potential for harm is right at the spanker's fingertips.

To much spanking DOES have some predictable results, something none of us want: An angry, resentful child. It' a child who has learned from his models, from the adults most influential in his young life, the lesson that it is OK to strike out and hurt other people. It's the child who is often the hurtful bully with other children and eventually becomes the parent who spanks and harms his/her own children. - Robert C. Hauck, M.D. FAAP, Seattle

WHAT DOES SPANKING TEACH?

Many of those reading John Rosemond's words about spanking only in anger miss his point. If one spanks, but not in anger, what emotion should accompany the spanking? Love? Prolonged contemplation and calm? Misgivings and guilt? Spanking associated with those emotions is indeed perverted. I certainly wouldn't want my child associating hitting with love. Neither do I think anger toward the child should be given the chance to fester as the adult waits to spank. Nor do I see spankings given with regret very effective.

Yes, my three have received their share of spankings, mainly of the quick, in anger types Rosemond advises. I have also found both the need and effectiveness of spankings dramatically fall off at about age 6. The same goes for time-outs. If the children are not under an acceptable code of self-control by then, hard times will follow for parents and children alike.

I know far too many gentle, controlled adults who were spanked as children to believe such spankings led to war and violence. Anger in oneself, fear of the world, craving for power are more to blame. Those are not learned from the single, strike-in-anger spankings Rosemond tells about. They are learned from "controlled" beatings, emotional abuse in the home and school, withholding of parental love, denial of freedom and respect, etc. - Julie Scandora, Seattle

SPANKING NO PUNISHMENT

Nobody is a perfect parent and I think it would be a mistake to condemn well-meaning parents who occasionally spank their children. But it is commonly understood among professionals that spanking is ineffective as a punishment. It is successful only for stopping immediate behavior, but it does not prevent a child from repeating the behavior when he/she is unsupervised.

Spanking only polices behavior.

Parenting is about helping children grow into happy, well-adjusted, productive members of society. Verbal discipline, explaining the natural consequences of misbehavior, contracting and rewarding positive behaviors are effective methods of discipline which turns misbehavior into opportunities to teach children our values.

Spanking is ineffective for the following reasons:

It gives the child no incentive to behave in the parents' absence.

It is a poor model. Spanking a child who spits says to the child, "Next time you are angry, don't spit, hit instead."

It fails to teach the child why his/her behavior is unacceptable.

It fails to teach the child a more acceptable behavior. - Tessie Langford, Seattle

TRADITIONAL SCHOOLS LACK A LOT

Many adults, teachers and parents alike, are threatened by the idea of homeschooling. If parents can educate their child as well as, if not better than, teachers, what does this say about the need for teachers and their credentials?

Parents can feel threatened because successful homeschooling makes it clear that a child need not be subject to the boredom, trivia and humiliation that is so often part of traditional schooling. More, it need not have been necessary for the parents to have endured such as a child. Worse, it means parents have no excuse for transferring responsibility for the education of their child to the educational establishment.

We tried traditional schooling and found it wanting. How many of those against homeschooling have found the courage to give it a try? Unfortunately, mere assumptions are usually the basis for the negative comments.

The reality is that for us, homeschooling means:

-- having long, uninterrupted periods for work/play (it's all the same for us) rather than segmented periods for specific topics;

-- being around adults and children of various ages rather than just peers and a teacher during the school day;

-- being part of the daily, nonhectic flow of life rather than segregated from it;

-- taking advantage of opportunities (a beautiful day, surprise visit by a friend, special event) as they arise rather than being held to a schedule;

-- pursuing one's interests rather than abiding by the administration's curriculum;

-- having meaning and sense rule one's day rather than irrelevance and arbitrariness;

-- learning and doing for the joy of it rather than for the grade;

-- knowing that there is no need for TV when one's day is so full.

We are happy to join the ranks of others who have been homeschooled, including: George Washington, Maria Montessori, Winston Churchill, Mark Twain, Margaret Mead, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, the Alcotts. - Julie Moss Scandora, Seattle