Spanking

It is common to go into the store, church, or movie theatre and see children. Children are

everywhere and we see how they act. We see how parents react to their children’s behavior and

we judge them for it either consciously or unconsciously. We see how they choose to discipline,

and we think to ourselves “Our children will not act that way.” Or we think “That is not what I

would do.” We see parents use so many different techniques and one of those techniques is

spanking. We do not see this outside so often anymore, but we do hear about it. People talk on

Facebook about it and when parents get together it comes up in conversation. To people who are

not trained in child psychology they do not see anything wrong with it if they are not bruising

their child or when it is not “done in anger” and to teach their child a lesson. Some people see

spanking as a necessary evil to help their child’s behavior. This is not what experts say though.

The article Race as a Moderator of Association Between Spanking and Child Outcomes

by Elizabeth T. Gershoff and Andrew Grogan-Kaylor talks about this. Gershoff and Grogan-

Kaylor conducted studies about race and physical punishment. They did many different studies

trying to figure out if culture affected discipline techniques and how those techniques would

affect the child. In some of the studies it just focused on spanking and this is what it said about

that. “…these reported an association between spanking and a detrimental child outcome.

Importantly, none of the study-level effect sizes indicated that spanking was associated with

beneficial outcomes…” (Gershoff & Grogan-Kaylor, 2016, P. 7). As stated in the article not only

was spanking not helping these children but it was causing them harm in one way or another.

Spanking had the opposite effect than what the parents wanted to do.

In another article called Spanking and Children’s Externalizing Behavior Across the First

Decade of life by Michael J. MacKenzie, Eric Nicklas, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, and Jane
Waldfogel talk about how spanking effected children in general. They studied a study done by

the Families and Child Well Being (FFCW). This study followed families for nine years of the

child’s life and saw how spanking effected these children’s behaviors. “The results of this study

indicate that there are reciprocal associations between spanking and externalizing behavior and

that these processes extend across the first decade.” (MacKenzie, Nicklas, Brooks-Gunn, &

Waldfogel, 2015, p.9). This article also shows that spanking has the opposite effect of what

parents want when they implement it.

Based off of everything I have read in these articles and in class, spanking is never good

for a child. It can cause them children to reciprocate what is done to them. This in turn causes

them to be spanked more. It is a vicious loop of physical punishment and behavior we perceive

as bad. It also has more lasting effects on a child growing into adulthood. Those who have been

spanked as children sometimes end up being more physically violent towards their friends,

coworkers and family.

In conclusion, based off everything I have learned this semester, I have had my own

paradigm shift on spanking. I used to think that it was okay to spank children if it was not too

much or often. Learning how it can affect children’s minds and personalities has really been eye

opening. Spanking can cause children to associate violence with love. If their parent who is

supposed to love and guide them to do what is right spanks them it is only logical in a child’s

mind that violence and hitting equals love. This in turn can lead children to be violent with those

that they love most. As they grow older it will only get more intense. Spanking is not a discipline

technique; it is a manipulative technique to get children to become compliant pets.

 Reference page

Gershoff, E., Grogan-Kaylor, A. (2016). Race as a moderator of associations between spanking

and child outcomes. Family Relations, 65, 7. Doi: 01976664

MacKenzie M., Niklas E., Brooks-Gunn J., Waldfogel J. (2015). Spanking and children’s

externalizing behavior across the first decade of life: evidence for transactional processes.

Journal of Youth & Adolescence, 44, 9. Doi: 10.1007/s10964-014-0114-y