Should Christians Spank Their Children?

[phkrause]

While spanking is a form of discipline – the repercussions can be felt physically and emotionally. It’s important to show your child unconditional love because they need to know that their behavior doesn’t make them a bad child.
Read more at http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Articles/Should-Christians-Spank-Their-Children.aspx#R3L5fq8Rh8JEjvSx.99

[Woody]

I think spanking has it's place.

I got spanked and turned out pretty good.

What it teaches is .... there are consequences to one's actions.

Both good and bad people have to deal with consequences.

 

Having disciple in the family .... does not mean there is no love.

Quite the contrary.

If there is no love .... there will be no discipline.

[Ted]

Yes.

[Gerr]

Yes, but it should never be done in anger, or discipline of first resort.

[Woody]

It indicates that disciplined discipline is a good way to raise your children.

[Aliensanctuary]

I think that spanking is an unnecessary, violent assault on tender little minds. Unfortunately, our children tend to copy our attitudes and behaviors, and as a result, we are punishing them for what we created, selfish little monsters, sometimes. I did spank our oldest daughter because I didn't know any better. That's the way I was raised, getting spanked, even as a teenager.

 

By the time our youngest two daughters came along, I had a much stronger bond with them than my older two stepdaughters. Daughter #3 was so mellow and happy, always singing and cooperative that I never had a reason to spank her. Daughter # 4 was much more strong-willed and rebellious than her sister. I think Daughter #3 had a personality more like mine while Daughter #4 was much more like her mother. 

 

Something that did upset me at that time was that my wife would slap and hit the children, often for no good reason---like "playing" the piano, among other groundless reasons. Much more mellow now, my wife seemed to have some serious irritability/depression issues back when the children were young and so full of energy.

 

I don't believe that Jesus would have assaulted or struck misbehaving little children because that is not how humans will be allowed to treat each other in the Kingdom of YHVH. It is far easier for us to yell and hit our little ones than to stop what we are doing and calmly and firmly make the children behave. Children tend to misbehave because they have absorbed our selfish and dictatorial behaviors, and because we are not parenting as we should.

[Tom Wetmore]

I believe in raising children without corporal punishment, but what do you do with this verse: 

 

Whoever spares the rod hates his son,

but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.

Proverbs 13:24 

Discipline, yes, beating them with a stick, no. Sadly the context of the verse has been read out of the verse over the centuries. The verse was written to an agrarian society familiar with the life of shepherds and the rod they carried to keep their sheep together, to keep them in line and to even rescue them from harm. The rod was used to guide the sheep to extend the reach of the hand of the shepherd. It wasn't used to beat them or punish them for going astray. But the shepherd could use it as a weapon against threats to his sheep by wild animals.

[Johann]

Cultural?

[joeb]

From the perspective of someone who was abused...  I have no problem with spanking when it is used as a tool of correction and education.  Children must learn that there are consequences for bad behavior, and when the behavior is bad enough a spanking is warranted.  It must be accompanied by communication from the parent as to why the behavior in question warrants a spanking, and  the parent telling, and showing, the child he is loved.

 

However, spanking is used by an abuser as mechanism of control, domination, and/or expression of anger.  That is way beyond the pale of what the Bible teaches, and way beyond the pale of what Ellen White teaches too.  Spanking in this manner is harmful, but the greater harm is the lack of love shown by the parent.

[Gregory Matthews]

A number of years ago, I was teaching a class of 155 graduate students.  This issue came up.  In responding to me, one of the students told the class and I that his Father had used a 2 x 4 piece of lumber in spanking him.  He went on to share that he did not believe that this had harmed him and he considered the Biblical injunction to allow such. 

 

Spanking is much more than a Christian issue.  It is more than a religious issue.  I may be an issue of assault.  The example above is well beyond discipline.    It is in excess of what could ever be considered reasonable and appropriate.

 

I was on a SDA School Board, once when a teacher took off his belt and whipped an elementary school student.  The student's family asked me to allow them to handle it themselves, which I did.  If I were to face the same situation today, I would act differently than I acted at that time.  I have matured in my understanding of the issues from where I was at that time.

 

All of us may have responsibilities in these situations which require actions.  Some of us may have more responsibility than do others.  That responsibility may be civil, moral and denominational.

[Woody]

The issue has become more cultural and the religious aspects have been pretty much stomped on.

Amazing how culture has the power to override religion.

[Tom Wetmore]

Similar to what Gregory has mentioned, I grew up in a time when the use of a belt, and leather or wood paddles were not uncommon instruments of corporal punishment at home and school. I was on the receiving end a few times myself. But on the extreme end I recall an incident when as a young boy I was visiting the farm of a relative near our own farm. The grandson that was about my age, or maybe a few years younger, and I had been playing out in the barn when his grandfather called him to the house because apparently he had not done his chores or something like that. The grandfather proceeded to take out a long bullwhip (10 feet or so) and went chasing after the boy across the yard, yelling and cracking that bullwhip on the boy's backside. I vividly remember the loud crack of the whip and the boy's screams. Some years later, when that boy was a teenager and out from under all that he told my father that he thought other kids were lying when they said they didn't get whipped liked he had growing up. He thought it was normal and expected.

.

[fccool]

Here's a good perspective on it:

 

http://spectrummagazine.org/node/3186

[Tom Wetmore]

Yes, A very good perspective. Well worth reading.

[bonnie]

Here's a good perspective on it:

 

http://spectrummagazine.org/node/3186

If we truly want a less violent society, not hitting our children is a good place to start,” was Paul Holinger’s response to the editor of the New York Times following a recent article on the status of “paddling” in the nation’s school systems. Dr. Holinger went on to say, “I see the carnage of physical punishment every day in the office.  Physical punishment is a major public health problem in this country.”

  Elizabeth Gershoff, a researcher at the University of Michigan’s School of Social Work, also wrote in to say, “The more children are spanked, the more aggressive they are and the more likely they are to engage in delinquent or at-risk behaviors.”  (1)

If the above is true how do we explain the current amount of violence in the young people? Spanking has had some very vocal critics the last couple of decades,less and less parents use physical discipline.

Yet while I was growing up gangs were rare,school shootings non-existant,there were fights and scuffles in school but nothing to equal the violent bullying we have now

I can't think of one of my peers that engaged in violent aggressive behavior,nor the peers of my sons growing up in the 70's and early 80's. Most if not all experienced physical discipline.

The availability of guns did not lead to all of the random shootings we have to day. When I was going with my husband their guns were "stored' behind a chair in the living room. Those that drove to school often brought their guns with them to go hunting when school let out.

With less physical discipline we have far more violence and aggressive behavior than when physical discipline was the accepted norm. The extremes of bull whips and 2 x 4's are not considered physical discipline

[Jon Arend]

I believe that there is a difference between spanking and beating. That difference may be a fine line. I remember growing up in the early 1970's where the a paddle hung on the principal's wall for all the children to see. Knowing it was there and available made us think twice about our actions.

[CynthiaZ]

Should children be spanked (hit, whooped, skinned alive, given a good thrashing, paddled, get whats-coming, and all the like-euphemisms that get laughs during the children's story at church when the adult storyteller is trying to drive home the cost of disobedience)?  

 

 I grew up in the 50s in a home where kids were spanked (not a religious home, by the way).  Like the boy who was bullwhipped in a comment above, I didn't realize that there were alternatives and was shocked and inflamed with indignation when I read the book by Swiss psychiatrist, Alice Miller, called "For Their Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence" in the early 80s.  I had never been subjected to a bullwhip or anything of that extreme, but spanked with my father's hand.  Nonetheless, the reasons for the spankings were usually our inability to settle down to sleep when our tired parents were trying to have a private conversation after my workaholic Dad (whom I got to know and love in the last 10 years of his life) arrived home, after dark, from the office.  I was likely only spanked three or four times as a child, but it seems, in my mind's eye, to have been a nightly occurrence.  Some kids have a strong sense of justice-- they just have-- and I, for the life of me, could not understand why I was singled out for correction (as the oldest, and the 'girl') and why it had to be an undignified wallop on the backside when we were only talking (okay, maybe giggling as well).  And lest you think I'm just a whining "First-World-Problemizing" wimp, you may find it interesting that my Dad apologized three or four times when he was in his 60s and 70s for spanking us, realizing that it really would have made more sense for him to have set aside some five or ten minutes every day-- as little as that-- to get to know us.  And because we didn't spank our kids and had the luxury of not working 15-hour days away from home, and had the privilege of learning about discipline that "really works" to promote a good relationship of respect and support, we can attest to much of what has already been spoken to above and in the Spectrum article: i.e., that might does not equal right, that children grow up to be parented as they were parented, that a complex multiplicity of social problems today go into the mix that produces the behaviours of kids and young adults, and a lack of corporal punishment can not be singled out as THE reason for the "selfish" behaviours we see today.

 

I have had many a debate with my peers (majorly with persons within my own Christian communion) about this topic and no longer have the energy or interest to sit up until midnight doing the blood pressure hokey pokey.  In my work life I counseled women and children who had experienced profound abuse (physical, emotional, spiritual), worked as a counselor in a sexual assault center and in a women's shelter, worked in a social services day care center as the social worker in charge of all diapering, facilitated pre-parenting programs (set up for parents who had no idea how to parent because they themselves had been badly and repeatedly abused / neglected all along their lifespan-- women and men), facilitated parenting programs, and co-ordinated parenting programming for the city of Saskatoon.  And for eleven years we were also a foster family to teens who had gone off the rails and fallen through the cracks.  We were far from perfect parents / foster parents (you could ask some of the "kids"-- most now in their late 30s and 40s on my Facebook page), but I personally experienced several situations where the loving, gentle, tender hand of the Master trumped the violent, coercive, soul-hammering, shaming "traditional discipline".  My loving partner of 44+ years helped me to heal all the heartache and confusion of an emotionally-abused childhood, and I know now that my very kind and supportive, non-violent grandparents were boons to my safety and confidence.  

 

Jesus worked hard with his disciples to teach them what they would have to know to be strong spiritual leaders when He was gone.  Unlike the cruel military leaders, nasties in all the high places, who beat their subjects into submission to maintain a place of fearful respect, Jesus continually modeled acceptance, patience, compassion, and forgiveness for those who stumbled as they followed him.  Is there even one line in the Bible that suggests/implies/infers that Jesus pushed, hit, whipped, pilloried, or in any way physically assaulted anyone?  When he said "turn the other cheek," did he mean only in situations where you, an adult, were being humiliated or assaulted by someone attacking you, or could he also have meant to take a look at how one treats precious young ones?  There are lots of ways to develop a mutually-respectful, mutually-beneficent relationship with one's offspring.  Study with the Master

[anto]

No, but that's not the end of it.  

 

If parents are not going to hit their kids they, both of them, need to parent consistently with love and understanding.  And patience.  And they'll also want to have overcome any anger problems they may have had, before they become parents.  Corporal punishment worked OK for my parents because those sort of parenting skills didn't seem to be around much back in the 40s and 50s where I was raised, so it was better than being neglected.  But it did leave some emotional scars I'm afraid.  Still, grist for the mill.

 

When the little treasures go through puberty and turn into teenagers, that's when parents really appreciate having used from the start the more sophisticated parenting option.  Corporal punishment can make for a resentful teen, and he's (my last one was a boy) only going to get bigger and angrier with every birthday.  If you're used to relying on fear to control them - good luck.

 

Having said all that though, I guess it is possible to incorporate some moderately gentle spanking, as a sort of symbolic feedback response.  We had a teacher, Brother Larkin, who used to do that.  He never did it with any anger and actually made a bit of a joke about it, so even though there was a certain amount of pain involved nobody really minded.  If anything it might have served as something of a rite of passage for some boys.  He was the most popular teacher at the school.

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

When I was growing up, it was my mom who would administer the spankings or whippings.  (Dad couldn't bear to see children hit..)  The problem was that mom always did it in the heat of anger (but never when dad was around), and the punishment would go on far longer and harder than necessary.

 

When I was about 13 when she came at me with my dad's thick leather belt.  I grabbed it away from her and said, "Don't you *ever* do this to me again."  I think it scared her....she never tried it again..

[Gail]

Should children be spanked (hit, whooped, skinned alive, given a good thrashing, paddled, get whats-coming, and all the like-euphemisms that get laughs during the children's story at church when the adult storyteller is trying to drive home the cost of disobedience)?  

Hello, Cynthia, and WELCOME! I hope to see more of you here!

I was strapped with a leather strap and early knew what fear was. However, in my case my most painful memories are not of the strap but being constantly yelled at rather than talked to. Rejection is emotional but can be more damaging than a spanking which is viewed to be merited.

[Gerr]

One Sabbath when our son was about 4 yo, my wife caught him standing up on the pew and looking back making all kinds of faces at the audience.  She calmly took him to the restroom and spanked him.  He never did it again.  Pain or the threat of it can be a useful tool when used properly.

[Tom Wetmore]

The physical punishment I received mostly just made me angry, after the fear and pain subsided. That your wife took your son to the restroom was a positve compared to my father who seemed to capitalize on the humiliation of public discipline. And again the embarrassment and shame only made me resentful and angry. I vowed I would not repeat that with my own children.

[CoAspen]

I will have to admit that I am not comfortable with physical punishment. Have I given one of my Gkids a swat? Yes. But I still regret it. Why is it okay to use physical punishment with children, for 'teaching', but then we stop at a certain age? Children it's okay, but older kids it's not! How about adults? Some how we have come to feel that inflicting pain against the very young is okay ! I find that very strange and don't believe we do it out of 'love', regardless of what one says. I can't.

[Woody]

Other forms of discipline take more time and thought.

Physical discipline is quick and easy.

* * *

[Aliensanctuary]

Spanking, it seems, tends to devalue the child, and can ultimately backfire on the parent, especially with teenagers, by damaging the bond of mutual respect and love, if there ever was that bond. Little children misbehave in church because they're just---little children---who have no adult understanding of the rules of public behavior, especially in really booooring meetings that never seem to end.