When is Spanking Child Abuse?
Imagine Sally is a mother who goes shopping with her son. When she seeshim touching the food on the isles, she slaps him on the face. Lisa, on the other hand, counts to ten before actually hitting her daughter for doing something wrong. Now imagine Jeff is a father who sees his son deliberately “keying” a car in a parking lot. Jeff grabs his son and pushes, causing his son to fall and break his arm. All three of the parents wanted to discipline their children to teach them right from wrong. However, I believe that all three parents have stepped over the line of what most states would consider an acceptable use of corporal punishment. I believe that all three cases should constitute child abuse.
To answer this question of when spanking or other forms of corporal punishment matches the term child abuse, I will use a comprehensive definition from Black’s Law Dictionary:
Child abuse refers to non-accidental harm that is inflicted on children by their parents or other adults. Child abuse is any form of cruelty to a child’s physical, moral or mental well being. In cases of physical abuse, children can be slapped, hit, pushed, or burned. Bruises, wounds, broken bones, are also other common injuries. Children also develop psychological problems too; their feeling of security and well being have been changed.
Spanking your child should be considered child abuse because it is “non-accidental harm inflected on children by their parents or other adults.” Spanking, even when it is mild, causes harm to a child’s “moral or mental well being.” Even worse, an angry parent can take a spanking too far as in the case of Jeff above. I have seen so many incidents where children are hit and bruised. It causes serious social problems, which often have a lasting negative impact on a child’s development and “feeling of security”.
Abuse can be inflicted on anyone, not necessarily just a child, but in order for it to be called “child abuse,” it must be done to a child. A child is at common law one that has not attained the age of fourteen years. Jeff, Sally, and Lisa have all fit the criteria of adults causing non-accidental harm to their children, either physically or mentally.
Parents can cause pain to their children both physically and emotionally. Emotional abuse is the attempt on the part of an adult to terrorize or humiliate a child. For example, using name calling like “fatty” or “dumb-ass” would humiliate and terrorize a child. Slapping a child on the hand for something minor is inflicting physical harm or pain upon a child by an adult. Dr. Frederick C. Green, professor emeritus of pediatrics at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences says, “Culturally, when we chastise a child, whether done in the name of teaching that child or satisfying our own aggression, it’s child abuse.” This goes to show the non-accidental harm a parent can cause upon a child.
When Jeff pushed his son causing him to break his arm, he caused injury. This needed the call of some kind of medical attention and left a permanent emotional scar. Lisa and Sally both fit the criteria of spanking their children to be child abuse. Both of them spanked their child non-accidentally and caused some kind of pain, either physically or emotionally. But, not all spanking is the same. Lisa gave her daughter ten seconds before spanking her and Sally just hit her son within a few seconds of his misbehaving.
No science has been able to prove that spanking is necessary to raise an emotionally healthy child. If it did, then by all means parents should spank their children. Some may argue spanking gives discipline to help mold character or that spanking is an age-old tradition to get through to their kids.
Spankings is not only cruel, but it causes harm to a child’s “moral…well-being” (Black’s Law Dictionary). Spankings also generate revenge toward the parent, and all children may learn is how to be deceitful, to avoid a spanking. Or, they might just consider hitting an acceptable way to express anger and think it is permissible to hit others.Children tend to focus on the beating and not on the reasons for it. Dr. Derek S. Hopson, a clinical psychologist says, “It’s important that parents are seen as fair, caring and sensitive and not always as a disciplinarian.” When a parent spanks, the parent no longer becomes a “fair, caring and sensitive” role model for the child. All the child sees is someone who uses physical violence to get their way.
Spanking is not bad in all situations because slapping a child’s hand or backside may help to prevent them from touching a hot stove or sticking an object into an electrical socket. In these cases, a slap or physical reaction is a way of protecting a child. The problem occurs when spanking becomes a regular form of discipline. Unless a child is in danger, I think parents should use alternative ways of discipline. For instance, rather than spank, parents could take away privileges such as not allowing them to watch their favorite TV show or deducting money from their allowances. Bargaining strategies for a desired behavior, talking, isolating them for short periods of time-out, would also be good alternative ways to discipline a child.
I don’t believe child development requires the need of physical or emotional abuse. Children tend to focus on the beating and not on the reasons for it. Spanking is an ineffective form of discipline. I speak for most when I say that a good parent is someone who loves kids.