Edpsy 399 OL - Spring 2000

Tom Anderson, Instructor

Leonard Fretzin

Forum 3 - Lesson 3

Date: Thurs April 19 2001

Subject: Lesson 3 q2

Corporal Punishment

The American Academy of Pediatrics (Corporal Punishment in Schools - 1998) lists 27 states in which corporal punishment is banned in schools. These states are Alaska, California, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Since Illinois is among these states, corporal punishment is not allowed in my school district. And although I also received my education in Illinois, as a child I do not remember it ever being used in the public schools, even though it may have been legal during the 1950's.

Of the remaining states, the Office for Civil Rights l998 Elementary and Secondary School Civil Rights Compliance Report list the top ten corporal punishers for the 1997-98 School Year as follows

Rank State % of pupils punished Number of pupil punished

1 Mississippi 10.1% 49,859

2 Arkansas 9.2% 40,811

3 Alabama 6.3% 45,610

4 Tennessee 4.0% 36,477

5 Oklahoma 3.0% 18,581

6 Louisiana 2.7% 19,986

7 Texas 2.07% 81,373

8 Georgia 2.13% 27,759

9 Missouri 1.1% 9,717

10 New Mexico 0.9% 2,935

The Religious Tolerance Organization (2001) quotes Psychologist H. Stephen Glenn "Corporal punishment is the least effective method [of discipline]. Punishment reinforces a failure identity. It reinforces rebellion, resistance, revenge and resentment. And, what people who spank children will learn is that it teaches more about you than it does about them that the whole goal is to crush the child. It's not dignified, and it's not respectful."

It can lead to abuse: Because a spanking works for a while, the parent often repeats the spanking whenever the child misbehaves. Corporal punishment may then become a

standard response to any misbehavior. This can lead to increasingly frequent and harsher spanking, which can exceed the "reasonable force" threshold and become abuse.

According to the Institute for the Prevention of Child Abuse, "85% of all cases of physical abuse result from some form of over-discipline through the use of corporal

punishment". Each year about 44 Canadian children are known to have been killed by family members; 35 of them by parents. The figures for the United States are probably about 10 times higher.

Spanking lowers a child's IQ: A study at the University of New Hampshire, released in July,1998 found that spanking children slows down their intellectual development. A study of 960 children showed that those who were rarely or never spanked had an average IQ of 102 (above average), whereas the frequently spanked children had an IQ of 98 (below average).

Irvin Wolkoff, (The Toronto Star, Nov 26, 1999) writes that spanking creates fear in the child: "The message a toddler gets from a slap or spanking is that a parent or other loved and trusted adult is prepared to induce pain and even do physical harm to force unquestioning obedience. That's terrifying to a little kid...However well-intentioned, a

slap registers as the shattering of the whole deal between parent and child. Young children are left awash in feelings of fear, shame, rage, hostility, self-destructiveness and betrayal that they can't yet resolve or manage."

Jane Gadd, (The Globe and Mail,Toronto ON, July 30, 1998) relates that the Family Research Laboratory of the University of New Hampshire conducted a large study

involving over 3,000 mothers of 3 to 5 year old children during the late 1980's. The women were interviewed in 1986, 1988 and 1990. The found that 63% of the mothers had spanked their child at least once during the previous week. Among those that spanked, they hit their children a little over 3 times per week, on average. They found that the children which were spanked the most as 3 to 5 year olds exhibited higher levels of anti-social behavior when observed 2 and 4 years later. This included higher levels of hitting siblings, hitting other children in school, defying parents and ignoring parental rules. Dr. Murray Straus, the Co-director of the Laboratory noted how ironic it is that the behaviors for which parents spank children are liable to get worse as a result of the spanking.

The Family Research Laboratory of the University of New Hampshire also released a study, which showed that the more often a child is spanked, the lower they score in IQ tests four years later. Researcher Dr. Murray Straus at the World Congress of described their paper Sociology on Aug 1, 1998 in Montreal, Quebec. They examined 960 American children who were between one and four years old between 1986 and 1990. The researchers do not attribute the lower IQ tests directly to physical injuries sustained during the spanking. Rather, they believe that parents who do not spank are forced to use more reasoning and explaining while disciplining the child. "Some parents think this is a waste of time, but research shows that such verbal parent-child interactions enhance the child's cognitive ability." Thirteen percent of the parents studied reported spanking their children seven or more times a week; the average was 3.6 times. Twenty-seven percent reported using no physical punishment. Those children who were spanked frequently averaged 98 on their IQ tests. This is a below average IQ rating. Those who were rarely or never spanked scored 102. This is an above-average rating. (Individuals with an IQ in the range of 85 to 115 are frequently considered to be of normal intelligence).

Dr. Harriet McMillan (Canadian Medical Association Journal for Oct. 5, 1999) led a six-person team that studied the possible association between childhood spanking and subsequent behavior problems in adulthood. They based their study on data collected as part of a 1990 population health survey by the Ontario Ministry of Health of 10,000 adults in the province. Five thousand of the subjects had been asked questions about spanking during childhood. Unlike many previous studies, the researchers deleted from the sample group anyone who recalled being physically or sexually abused. This left adults who had only been spanked and/or slapped during childhood. Incidences of

adult disorders were:

The above evidence points to the deleterious results of corporal punishment.

I would like to address two problems in the evidence of the efficacy of punishment in the animal literature as an operant control of behavior. First, the comparison between animal species and humans is prone to error; and Secondly, the operant experimental environment and chronology cannot be made identical between animal and human species without the perpetrator being taken off in handcuffs to the International Court in the Hague.

The human species is the only one that I know of that has historically used all sorts of painful and even horrific punishments in the attempt to bring individuals in line with the requirements of human society.

Every social animal practices tolerance of its fellow kind. Lions of the pride and wolves of the pack do not tear each other apart with their claws and fangs. Ants of the nest, termites, and bees of the hive do not sting or bite each other with their mandibles. Whales of a pod and dolphins do not beat each other with their fins. "The old crow loves his young and the ape his cubs." (Thomas More, Utopia)

When it comes to children, who have diminished rights under law in all countries, but increased protection, at least in theory, the instinct to punish misbehavior has a long and lurid past. Literature is full of accounts of punishment, which I suspect are often autobiographical. Anyone familiar with such popular works as Tom Sawyer or David Copperfield may remember the graphical scenes of corporal punishment. There are many other references in books and film.

In my childhood I never attended a school that used corporal punishment. I think that all the children in a school quickly learn of its use, and it becomes the current subject of rumors and stories. Perhaps this is the reason that I cannot see such methods as necessary. Others, who have been brought up in a corporal punishment environment, sometimes think that these methods are useful.

Teachers cannot be blamed for occasionally wanting to whack one of their 'nasty little monsters', but as a teacher in Chicago, I'm glad that physical punishment is illegal. It is a can of worms with all kinds of legal, behavioral, emotional, and moral problems. I don't want the freedom to use it, and I don't want to be required to use it.

Let's put away corporal punishment, and the dream of returning to it, once and for all.

Anderson, Tom - Commentary on Punishment

Charles, C.M., Senter, Gail W., Barr, Karen B. - Building Classroom Discipline

ISBN: 0801330041; Publisher: Addison-Wesley Longman, Incorporated 1998

Gadd, Jane "Spanked children suffer intellectually," The Globe and Mail,Toronto ON, 1998-JUL-30

McMillan, Harriet - Article (title unknown) in the Canadian Medical Association Journal for Oct. 5, 1999

More, Thomas - Utopia; Appleton-Century-Crofts, Meredith Corporation,

New York, 1949

Office for Civil Rights l998 Elementary and Secondary School Civil Rights Compliance Report

Sprick, R. - Discipline in the secondary classroom; West Nyack, NY: The Center for

Wolkoff, Irvin "Spanked child can become self-loathing adult," The Toronto Star, 1999-NOV-26, Page F4.