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How to Discipline Children Better Without Spanking
Discipline is much more than punishment; it involves teaching and learning.
As children across the country headed back to school, some students in Missouri returned to find corporal punishment, with parental approval, reinstated in their district. They joined students in 19 other states where corporal punishment is still legal in schools. At home, most American parents — an estimated 52% — agree or strongly agree that “it is sometimes necessary to discipline a child with a good, hard spanking” Parents hold this opinion despite overwhelming scientific evidence that spanking is linked to mental, emotional, and behavioral problems. In a well-known and highly regarded study of over 1,000 twins, Elizabeth Gershoff of the University of Texas at Austin found that spanking was linked to lying, stealing, fighting, vandalism, and other delinquent behaviors. Gershoff’s findings are not new. For decades, nearly every research study on corporal punishment has affirmed that spanking is linked to negative outcomes in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Why then, despite substantial scientific proof that spanking is harmful, do parents still engage in corporal punishment and give schools permission to do the same?
