It’s in the face of personal experiences like these that science has been flailing for generations. Some 81 percent of Americans believe spanking is appropriate, even though decades of research have shown it to be both ineffective and harmful. The refrain I keep hearing is, “Well, I got spanked, and I turned out okay.” [...]
If the fear of robbing one’s child of years of life were not enough, this month two more studies added to the pile finding that childhood spanking has negative effects on the people we later become. In the extremely depressing journal Child Abuse and Neglect, researcher Julie Ma and colleagues found that spanking was associated with later aggressive behavior. Ma has previously linked spanking to later antisocial behavior, anxiety, and depression. Then last week The Journal of Pediatrics reported that researchers at the University of Texas found a correlation between corporal punishment as a child and dating violence as an adult.
That one struck a chord in light of the national conversation about sexual harassment. Of course, no single act or momentary experience turns a person from a blank slate into a violent or coercive adult. To suggest that childhood experiences explain sexual violence ignores the structural power dynamics that condone and perpetuate it. Still it’s also clear that a person’s understanding of the role of violence in conflict resolution goes way, way back. [...]
Many researchers tend to see corporal punishment and physical abuse as part of a continuum. Administered too severely or too frequently, corporal punishment is abuse. The notion of a continuum is corroborated by the stated intent of abusers. As much as two-thirds of abuse begins as an attempts to change children’s behavior, to “teach them a lesson.”
No comments:
Post a Comment