Spanking is Not Abuse

 


 We live in a time when the world is over populated by people with multiple degrees behind their names who have access to tools which can amplify their personal ideologies around the world. I am not necessarily complaining, because though I do not have any degrees, I can also amplify my own ideologies around the world, but because I don't have the degrees, there is a large swath of the population that will grant my opinions no weight or merit. If you are reading this, I appreciate the value that you place on my thoughts, and I will not take that for granted. For my entire life, value has been placed on a post-secondary education, which has elevated the respect granted to the likes of teachers, professors, scientists, doctors and lawyers far above where they should really be. As such, the views of people in these professions are more readily sought, though in my opinion are seldom worth their own weight.

Such is the case with "child psychologists". For literally millennia, parents have been raising their kids to become mature and responsible adults while using corporal punishment as a prime weapon, of either punishment or deterrence. Corporal punishment, as a whole, is the involvement of physical pain in the correction of undesirable traits or actions. This is not only used against children, but also against adults, especially in Asian civilizations. There is a reason why there is less crime and open degeneracy in these cultures. For example, I believe it is in Singapore where a caught thief can expect to have his hand amputated in an effort to dissuade him from stealing again. I think that lashes with a rod are also used to a significant extent in Asia.

Believe it or not, there is a Biblical basis for this, however it is used in a erred manner; Matthew 5:30 states, "If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell." Prior to this the eye is mentioned in the same context. This is not necessarily an instruction in meting out punishment, but it is an indication of the lengths to which we should be willing to go in order to avoid the fires of eternal damnation, which is what Jesus is talking about in the context of these verses, in which He also broadens the definitions of sins such as murder and lust.

But back to how child psychologists have undermined the act of parenting in the last 30 years or so, supposedly in the pursuit of protecting children. There has always been the stain of abusive parents in the world. There are those who should never be granted the opportunity to become parents at all, but since we cannot and should not ever grant the powers that be authority to decide such things, this is also something that will always exist among us as long as we inhabit this fallen world. In the span of my lifetime though, we have seen the academics and politicians attempt to indoctrinate, legislate and prosecute the use of corporal punishment out of our society, especially as it pertains to children. I believe that the root of this effort is the desire to remove the influence of Christianity from society, so these professionals are attempting to undermine the teachings of the Bible, claiming that corporal punishment, at least towards children, is abusive. But we are not only instructed in the ways to discipline our children, but we are also warned in Scripture what happens when the use of corporal punishment is withheld.

Solomon shares his wisdom with us in the book of Proverbs. In chapter 13 and verse 24 we hear him tell us "He who withholds his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently." We also see many other times throughout Proverbs and other parts of the Bible that to withhold discipline from your child is the least loving thing that you can do, and that a wise man receives the discipline due to him. Following is a short listing of some of these other verses:

Proverbs 23:13-14 Do not hold back discipline from the child, Although you strike him with the rod,  he will not die. 14 You shall strike him with the rod And rescue his soul from Sheol.
Proverbs 22:6  Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it. 
Proverbs 22:15   Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of discipline will remove it far from him.
Proverbs 29:15 The rod and reproof give wisdom, But a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother. 
Ephesians 6:4  Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Proverbs 19:18   Discipline your son while there is hope, And do not desire his death.
Proverbs 29:17 Correct your son, and he will give you comfort; He will also delight your soul.
Hebrews 12:6-7  For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

This list is not exhaustive, but it is illuminating. God's order requires the absence of chaos, and chaos is bred in a lack of discipline. When we see our children acting in ways that are not conducive to growth towards becoming a responsible adult, it is our absolute duty as parents to step in to curb those actions through discipline.

Now, not all discipline requires the use of corporal punishment. In fact, if done right, corporal punishment should rarely be used. Discipline should be a journey of training rather than a destination of punishment. The threat of corporal punishment should be the main deterrent to undesired behaviours, but it must be a tool in the toolbox that your child is both aware of and is convinced that you will use if necessary. Most behavioural issues can be dealt with using other forms of punishment; but if these forms of punishment are not effective, then you need to be able and willing to resort to corporal punishment.

"Time outs" are the bane of my existence. I have never seen a value in them, mostly because the children that I saw for whom time outs were the main form of punishment were brats. I don't believe that my children were ever put into a time out when they were younger. If the only consequence to bad behaviour is that the child sits in the corner for ten minutes by himself, there might as well be no consequence. That child will quickly withdraw into his or her imagination and by the time they are released from their punishment, they may not even remember what they did that got them there. So the likelihood of re-offending is very high. I would tend to lean towards a form of discipline that will be more memorable.

For example, there is the classic washing a child's mouth out with soap when there has been a verbal offence. This happened to me once as a child, and I still remember it. You can use this when a child says a bad word, calls someone a bad name or even if they sass off to a parent or another adult. This punishment causes no harm at all but leaves a lasting impression. Be generous with the soap and get creative in how you "scrub" the offending mouth clean. When the child is quite young, you can also tell them that you are do this in an attempt to wash the offence out of their mouth so it will never show up again. When a parent needs to react immediately but there is no soap readily available, a quick smack on the mouth is effective too. This is NOT a full swing, full handed slap across the face! This is merely the fingers of the hand landing on the lips of the offending child, and if the child is very young, using just two fingers is sufficient. This does not cause pain, but it does shock the child. This is also effective if the child sticks out their tongue in a sign of disrespect.

Another example is slapping a child's hand. If the child is too young to understand most verbal corrections, or simply has not yet learned the consequences of disobeying Mom or Dad, and they are reaching towards something they shouldn't touch or maybe stealing a toy from another child, then a quick, single slap of their hand with your finger tips is likely just what they need. This is not intended to leave a red mark on them, but the noise and the shock will work wonders. Accompany this with the word "No" and you will teach them that if they listen to the word "No", then they will not have to deal with the hand slap.

I actually had to take these types of corporal punishments in a different direction with one of  my children; they were just really slow to learn. My wife and I were getting frustrated with this child's apparent either inability to learn from the small corrections or their simple inability to control themselves. This child would often push especially their younger sibling down, or take toys away, or otherwise bully them. I remember one time when this child pushed their younger sibling down AGAIN, right in front of me. Well, I had had enough. I placed myself in front of them and shoved them in the same way that they had done; and down they went. Let the crying ensue; I already had one child crying, why not make it two if I was going to get somewhere. It turns out that was exactly the type of discipline that that child needed, in many different circumstances and repeated many times. We found that the best way to get through to that child that we wanted them to stop what they were doing to other children was to subject them to exactly what they had done. This is a form of corporal punishment. This even worked when the child bit another child. I bit my child one time, leaving light teeth marks on their arm; but they never bit another child again. There were even a couple of times when this child decided unilaterally to tie up our dog, who only got tied up during the day if they had done something wrong. The first couple of times the child got a verbal correction; the next and last time they did this, I tied up the child! I won't lie, it was kind of funny for my wife and I, but boy did it work! Sometimes you just have to get creative. You know your kids better than anybody else; use that knowledge to your benefit.

We do need to spend some time on the classic use of corporal punishment though. There are times when a spanking is required. When is child is pre-verbal, a quick swat on the bum or the fleshy part of the leg is just the ticket to curb some of their actions, as I have mentioned in a previous article. This is not to inflict pain and it definitely should not leave a mark, but again you are going for the shock effect of the feel and the sound of the sway itself. In most children this will illicit crying, and that is absolutely fine. Of course, ideally, this should only occur after having told the child "No" at least once, depending on the severity of the offence or the danger to the child that the action poses, such as grabbing onto something that could injure the child. You know that the child may not understand you, but you are training them to recognize the word and the ramifications for ignoring it. After a few dozen times or so (realistically), your child should be starting to figure out that ignoring that little word has some real world consequences, and they will start better listening to your verbal corrections.

As children get older, their personalities really begin to come out. Sometimes they are largely compliant with only the occasional mistake being made, and other times the child may be downright defiant, requiring a lot of correction. Either way, most kids will require legitimate corporal punishment in the form of a spanking at least once in their lifetime; this is mostly so that they know that you are able and willing to act in this way. Once they know this, they have a metric by which to gauge their own actions verses the consequences they can expect. My kids were all different. My oldest got maybe three or four spankings, my middle child probably got between six and ten spankings and my youngest likely got only two or three; for the youngest, simply the threat of a spanking was typically enough to stop them in their tracks.

I think the end of Proverbs 13:24 above is important to look at. It says, "But he who loves him [his son] disciplines him diligently." I like the definition of diligence that I found on Wordnik, which is as follows; "Interested and persevering application; devoted and painstaking effort to accomplish what is undertaken." This indicates that, in the matter of disciplining our children, a dedicated, long-lasting and consistent effort is put in, in order to accomplish the goal to the best of our abilities through much effort. What a fantastic way to look at the blessing and responsibility that we as parents hold in the disciplining, and even discipling (read that carefully) of our children. With this in mind, when the time comes where a spanking is the only option left to you, I do have some guidelines that I would like to offer to you:

1)  You had better be sure that the punishment is deserved. If there is any doubt about the guilt of your child, I have found it better to subject them to a lesser punishment with an explanation that they are receiving the lesser penalty because you are not absolutely sure of the extent of their guilt, but sure enough that something had happened that requires punishment; but that if the time should come that they are caught in the same actions and guilt is assured, then the spanking will follow.

2)  Never, ever discipline a child when you are angry. When you are actively angry with your child, you may not exercise the discipline that you need as you are administering the punishment. You may spank your child too hard or too many times. If you are angry when you are disciplining your child, it is unbelievably easy to cross that very fine line between discipline and abuse.

3)  Before you discipline your child, you need to make sure that they understand what their offence was and why their correction had to escalate to corporal punishment. If you cannot justify it to them in a way that they can understand, then you should not be able to justify it to yourself either. They also need to understand that this is not your first attempt at correction, and if this is a recurring issue, that they can expect this outcome for future offences. At this point, they may plead with you not to punish them, that they will not do whatever they were doing again, but once you have committed to this form of punishment, barring something coming to light that actually changes the situation, you need to follow through. But be aware of the potential for the child to lie to you in an attempt to avoid the discipline. This requires discernment on your part. Sometimes the talk before the discipline can draw your attention to circumstances not previously known to you which may alter your plans for discipline, and you need to be open to this if the discipline is not actually warranted, but do not be dissuaded by tears and pleas. Discipline withheld is discipline lost.

4)  Using your bare hand is not ideal or recommended. Again, this is in the case of an actual spanking for a deliberately disobedient child, not just a swat for a very young child. In the case of the latter, a bare hand is ideal so you can better control the intensity of the swat. When you have to spank a child, you are planning to administer some pain, so you will be striking your child with some force, and I believe that in some children, there can be a trauma response created to your hand if that is the instrument of the discipline. Using another object such as a leather belt or strap or a wooden spoon or paddle can help the child disassociate the punishment from what should be your otherwise gentle hand. I also never spanked their bare bottom; that is demeaning to them and removes a fail-safe barrier for you. Clothing retains their dignity in their discipline and also offers a small cushion from the punishment as you gauge the intensity of the punishment. The goal is that your child understands that this is not the normal treatment that they can expect from you, but that you have had to resort to this method in your efforts to correct them when they have failed to respond to other, previously used methods. THIS IS NOT A GO TO! This is the last step of a journey, not the starting point. This should be done when all other more gentle methods have been previously used and have failed; with maybe a few exceptions, which I will touch on shortly.

5)  Limit the spanking to only what is required for proper correction; this will be different with every child and you will have to figure this out for each child and even for each offence. Just as the threat of spanking was almost always enough for my youngest child to listen, when I did have to resort to it, it took very little effort to get the message across. And just as more spankings were required with my middle child, it also took more effort to achieve the desired outcome when I did have to spank. Your goal is to lovingly correct them, not to scare them or abuse them.

6)  After the discipline has been meted out, you need to spend some time with your child. The discipline should always be done away from the prying eyes of other children and adults. As strange as this may sound, the act of disciplining your child is an intimate occasion and will be very embarrassing to your child if it is done in a pubic setting. Plus this allows you to spend important time with your child after the punishment is administered. You should never discipline them and then just walk out as if nothing had happened, or even worse, as if you just needed to vent your anger and displeasure with your child through the discipline. Your child should always know that you do not want to spank them, but that you felt that this was the best way to correct their behaviour. They need to understand that you are doing this out of your love for them, and your desire that they grow up to be a person that you are proud to have as your child. Discipline must always be administered in love and your child must know that it always is. Spending that time with your child after the discipline is done can be some of the strongest healing times that you may ever experience; don't short circuit that opportunity with your child. Sit with them, don't stand, hold them, talk to them and let your own tears flow with theirs if that is how you are feeling, while they compose themselves before they leave the privacy of the room - but don't be fake with them, they will always know. By spending that time with them you will build bonds that you won't be able to build in any other way. Some children will respond in anger which will require a different approach which may include not allowing them to leave you while they are angry with you, but I was blessed with not having to deal with that myself. Hopefully that will be your experience too.

7)  Discipline is best administered at the moment of the offence or at the time that the report of the offence is received. If there is a scenario in which discipline is required but you are unable to follow through on it at that very moment, you can tell your child that their behaviour will be dealt with later, but then make sure that you follow through with it. Again, discipline withheld is discipline lost. Sometimes the time frame from offence to opportunity for discipline is so long that you may forget until later. Then you must make the determination about whether there is still value in administering corporal punishment or perhaps you should just talk with your child, tell them that you had forgotten about their due punishment for a while and that it was no longer fair to them to administer that punishment. There will be offences in which it is still fair; that will be up to you to determine, but if you determine otherwise, your child will learn that you are fair in your judgments and they will respect you and your judgments all the more.

I will not place the following under a guideline in regards to how to administer corporal punishment, but there are some things which are serious enough that a spanking is to be expected in at least almost all cases of these offences. These are the offences that are the exceptions to the gentle discipline options in the case of repeat offences, but not in the case of a first offence. Some of these offences include lying, stealing and severe bullying or abuse of others, but these can be expanded according to the things that you may deal with. 

Honesty is the foundation on which our civilization was built. There was a time when it was expected that a lawyer or a politician was going to lie sometimes, (though it was not accepted as appropriate) but they were generally considered to be honourable and honest most of the time. That time is dead. Unfortunately we now expect that our current batch of politicians, in particular, are lying every time they open their mouth, and hearing truth cross their lips is like eating sweet honey or finding a rare jewel. This should not be the case and it should not be accepted by society. We are in an era when people are liable to lie about just about anything if it makes them look better or gets them out of a jam. My kids know that I expect honesty from them, as they should expect it from me as well; they have been trained in this from their youth. Every kid will have some secrets, but we need to be able to trust our kids to tell us the really important stuff while we respect their privacy in the less important areas. If my kids were caught in a lie, the punishment was a spanking. Period. Honesty is too important a value to let a lying tongue go unpunished.

The same goes for stealing, whether that is stealing from a family member, a loved one or a business or other organization. Stealing is a crime that deserves quick and firm punishment. I have never feared leaving my wallet or other valuables where my children could access them. This a peace of mind that is so valuable in a home. I want my kids to be known to be trustworthy is all things, which is why stealing is definitely a crime that is punishable by spanking. To this day, I trust my children with all that I have, with no fear that they will abuse that trust.

Then we have severe bullying or the abuse of others. I am specifying severe bullying because I believe that there is a place in society for mild bullying to offer gentle corrections to the members of society. I may need to go into this theory in more depth in another article, but that won't happen in this one. Severe bullying is the type wherein physical injury is inflicted or property is damaged. In the case of property damage, restitution is required, but corporal punishment will also be administered. The same is the case for outright abuse of another person. Acting in violence in defence of oneself or another person are exceptions to this, especially for any boy, but being abusive for entertainment or as an act of cruelty is never acceptable and the punishment will make that evident.

It is important for parents to be enabled in their ability and responsibility to discipline their own children, but it also requires parental discernment and an intimate knowledge of your child for you to know how and when to discipline them. This requires effort and a relationship with your child from their infancy all the way to adulthood. It is a long term investment that will pay dividends. If your kids are older already, it's not too late to start, you'll just have a harder road than would have been necessary otherwise. 

It is not the responsibility of society and our justice system to discipline our kids. In general, if it gets that far, then you have failed as a parent. Most kids just want to feel loved and appreciated. Withholding discipline is not the way to provide that to them. It even works with kids that aren't yours. Other people's kids will respect a parent that enforces order more than they will a parent that allows chaos; I have experienced this first hand. Discipline shows a child that you care about them, even if they don't understand that the root of that loving discipline is God and the Bible.

As always, if you have any comments or thoughts about this article, please let me know in the comments section below. Don't be afraid of the Google sign-in, it is not necessary in order to leave a comment.

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