1. SPANKING A CHILD
When all else fails
Juan Brizuela
SPC2608

2. Table of Contents Should a Parent Spank? Sincerity Love Balance
Conclusion

3. Should a Parent Spank?
“Spanking a child is but a single act – among many – that supports civilized behavior against the natural barbarism of the American brat” (Arn Tibbetts).
Spanking is appropriate if done with sincerity, love, and balance.
Runkel and Dr. Baumrind state that a parent must, with goodwill, be serious about discipline and not act with lack of control.
PTVE and Straus and Donnelly are completely against any type of corporal punishment and believe that children have their own civil rights.

4. Sincerity
“If you’re wishy-washy that will get communicated very clearly” (Runkel).
Kids are observant.
“Contingent” means “conditional.”
Contingency represents motivation to the child.

5. Sincerity
It is hard to be contingent if you are not serious or determined about your disciplinary method.
Why do you spank?
Norman Rockwell’s “No Swimming” taken from Best Norman Rockwell Art -

6. Love Straus and Donnelly express these viewpoints:
“. . . [Children, whose parents provide lots of love and spank them,] also tend to be well- behaved,” but good behavior also results from no spanking.
“Reasoning and explaining” lessens the aggression that may result, but it doesn’t get rid of it.
Image from Heart of the Matter {Online} -

7. Love
200 pediatricians and 420 family physicians on the Ohio State Medical Board in 1992.
Taken from McCormick’s “Attitudes of Primary Care Physicians Toward Corporal Punishment.”
When a child crosses a street without looking, “pick up the child and get him or her out of danger, and, while hugging the child, explain the danger.”
“ [W]hen corporal punishment is combined with love, masochism is the result.” Parents should not set confusing messages of love right after the punishment.

8. Image by MVit from Fotolia - http://fotolia.com
Balance
The reward system is not love if done out of balance.
“[I]f anxiety is driving the boat, then you are not really in charge” (Runkel).
Tom Johnson (PTVE) says that if Americans spanked once or twice, it would be more acceptable, but that this isn’t the reality.
Image from NEVCO (National Educational Video, Inc) -
Image by MVit from Fotolia -

9. Balance
Anything can be taken to an extreme, but we can control ourselves.
Corporal punishment in Sweden has decreased significantly, especially beatings with fists or an object and spankings.
Straus and Donnelly say that spanking is mostly a release for anger.
Norman Rockwell’s “Mother Spanking Child”
Image from UK’s The Telegraph -

10. Conclusion
My main points were that a parent must determinedly use one method of discipline, that love must be the source of the discipline, and that the method must be balanced and moderate.
“ [T]wo-thirds of heavy smokers do not die of diseases Similarly, most people who were spanked can say, My parents spanked me, and I’m not a wife beater or depressed” (Straus and Donnelly).