Is Spanking an Acceptable Form of Discipline?

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What happens when corporal punishment of children is banned? Twenty four nations have banned all corporal punishment of children. New Zealand banned all corporal punishment of children last year and opponents said the courts would be full of parents who had been arrested. What happened is that police used discretion in enforcing the law as they do in the U.S. when enforcing laws on wearing seat belts, smoking in non-smoking areas,and jaywalking. NO parents were indicted on minor spanking or “smacking” as it is called in New Zealand in the first six months. When corporal punishment is banned, parents are not put in jail for minor spanking. Attitudes toward hitting children change, and child abuse and death from hitting diminishes. There haven't been state attempts to expand efforts to other disciplinary practices. These are the actual outcomes from banning corporal punishment.

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What happened when Sweden banned spanking is that child abuse increased. Diana Baumrind, the foremost researcher on parrenting outcomes, finds that parents who spank are less likely to explode in violent rages toward their children than parents who self-report that they do not spank. There has not been enough time to measure the full effect of New Zealand's law, and I find it fascinating that CED uses, as their example, a law that has been in effect less than a year and not the Scandinavian laws that have been in effect over ten years. Why? Because the long-term outcome of anti-spanking laws is less than good. In the USA, liberals have demonstrated that once they gain victory in some social policy area, they cannot be restrained. The bureacracies that will be necessary to enforce anti-spanking legislation in the USA will seek to expand themselves. There has not been one social bureacracy that has not done so. This will mean, ultimately, state interference in all discipline matters, and it will erode the foundation of the family.