New findings underscore downside to spanking children

AUSTIN — Robert Hudson, principal and superintendent of the only school in the Westphalia, Texas Independent School District, hasn’t paddled a student at all this year.

“That’s not to say I won’t,” said Hudson, whose school educates 156 children, in kindergarten through eighth grade, about 35 miles south of Waco.

“At some points, it’s effective,” he said. “It’s a tool that’s nice to have.”

But Texas educators are mixed on the wisdom of spanking unruly students.

Some have stopped the practice. Elsewhere, as in Hudson’s school, it’s still used, though perhaps sparingly.

The controversial discipline is getting new scrutiny, most recently from a researcher at the University of Texas whose work confirms that spanking hurts — and not in the way that many parents and school administrators may think.

Instead of promoting good behavior, spanking correlates with anti-social behavior and mental health problems for children, said Elizabeth Gershoff, an expert in human development and family sciences.

Her report, coauthored with Andrew Grogan-Kaylor of the University of Michigan, appears in the April issue of the Journal of Family Psychology.

“It’s overwhelmingly associated with negative outcomes for children,” Gershoff said.

She and Grogan-Kaylor analyzed five decades worth of spanking research, involving more than 160,000 children, and “did not find any benefits.”

Dying practice

Spanking has attracted controversy for decades.

The Center for Effective Discipline, based in Wisconsin, years ago declared April 30 “SpankOut Day,” to focus attention on ending corporal punishment of children and promoting non-violent ways to get them to behave.

“It’s satisfying when parents find that little changes can make a big impact for child development,” said Lacie Ketelhut, the center’s program director. “It starts young.

Many states have driven spanking out of schools.

In the ’80s, 13 states banned corporal punishment in schools. Seven more banned it the next decade, according to the Gunderson National Child Protection Training Center.

Jimmy Dunne, founder of People Opposed to Paddling Students, or “POPS,” remembers appearing on television programs such as “The Phil Donahue Show” and “Good Morning America” to discuss the issue during those decades.

“There was a lot more talk about it then,” said Dunne, 82, of Houston. “A lot of people think it’s gone.”

But the practice persists in schools in 19 states — including Texas 

Archie E. McAfee, director of the Texas Association of Secondary School Principals, said whether to paddle students is a local issue, though he senses that many schools have “gone away from” using it.

A Houston lawmaker tried to put a stop to it definitively during the last legislative session, but the bill to ban corporal punishment in schools failed, as have previous attempts. 

Similar efforts have been made in Congress, but to no avail.

Dunne said big-city school districts in Texas — such as those in Houston, Fort Worth, San Antonio and Austin — have dropped corporal punishment, as have some mid-size districts.

Changing behavior

The anti-spanking movement has spread around the world. Forty-nine countries ban any corporal punishment — including by parents — Gershoff said.

But George Holden, a psychologist and family violence expert at Southern Methodist University, said 80 percent of parents around the world still spank their children. 

In the United States, 70 percent to 90 percent of parents do.

Regardless of who does the spanking — a principal or a parent — Dunne considers it child abuse.

“I mean, you’re hitting a child with a board,” he said. “That would be criminal assault anywhere else.”

Holden said he doesn’t call it “child abuse,” but he believes parents who paddle are “misguided.”

“It is a violation of a child’s right not to be hit,” he said.

Holden said a standard response of parents challenged about the practice — I was spanked, and I turned out fine — is a knee-jerk defense.

“People would probably have turned out better if they weren’t spanked,” he said.

Gershoff said parents who were spanked are likelier to advocate it for for their own kids, passing the behavior to another generation. 

But research shows that parents given information about other approaches will change their behavior.

Gershoff said she advocates positive reinforcement for children — catching them being good and rewarding it — and dismisses those who say that spanking is cultural.

“They can believe what they want to, but we want them to be informed,” Gershoff said. “It’s equally bad for all kids.

She suggests that parents who feel the urge to hit a child count to 10 and use words. 

“Hitting should not be my reaction when I talk to children,” she said. “I can’t hit my co-workers. If we do not hit adults, we probably should not hit the smaller people in our population.” 

John Austin covers the Texas Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach him at jaustin@cnhi.com.