Tag Archives: discipline

To Spank or Not to Spank? That is the Question!

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As my private practice continues to grow, I find it has become more difficult to keep up with blogging. My new goal is to try to complete a new entry at least once per month. Here we go:

Parents often ask me about spanking: Is it o.k. to spank? Should I try another type of discipline? My child doesn’t respond to timeout—what should I do? And on and on…. It is a controversial topic and one on which many parents disagree.

After 30 years in public education and 1 ½ in private practice, I have never waivered in regards to my feelings about spanking. I don’t believe any type of physical hitting or violence is ever justified. Although my own children will tell you that I have raised my voice on more than one occasion when feeling an urgent amount of stress, I never resorted to hitting, spanking or any physical violence as they grew up. I think it’s fair to say that all parents want to raise kind, motivated, responsible, non-violent and confident children. It is my personal and professional belief that hitting and/or spanking actually undermines these goals.

Just this week, an article in the journal Pediatrics outlined the results of a study titled Spanking and Child Development Across the First Decade of Life, in which researchers examined the relationship between spanking and children’s behavior and vocabulary through age 9. Parental reports of spanking were assessed at ages 3 and 5, along with instances of aggressive behavior.

Overall, 57% of mothers and 40% of fathers engaged in spanking when children were age 3, and 52% of mothers and 33% of fathers engaged in spanking with children at age 5. Maternal spanking at age 5, even at low levels, was associated with levels of child aggressive behavior at age 9. Fathers’ high-frequency spanking of children at age 5 was associated with lower child receptive vocabulary scores at age 9.

The authors concluded that not only is spanking still used as a typical form of discipline by many American parents, but also that spanking has proven to have negative effects on both the behavior and cognitive development of young children.

I found this study to be interesting for several reasons: 1) The actual percentage of “spankers” was a bit higher than I realized; 2) Throughout my career, I have consistently counseled/educated/voiced my opinion to parents about the importance of NOT spanking, hitting or perpetrating any form of violence on their children, thus this study validated my beliefs; and 3) the study is current, had a large sample, and used a control population, deeming is scientifically sound.

Like many things, it’s easy to tell parents NOT to spank, but that’s just not enough—we must provide them education about other more healthy techniques for managing their children’s behavior (see my earlier posts about time-out, for example).

More emphasis needs to be placed on providing children the tools necessary to resolve conflicts without hitting, to manage stress in their lives, to learn empathy for others and to communicate and interact with others respectfully. Spanking is a short-term response that ultimately fails to teach children what we want them to learn over a long period of time.

So, if To Spank or Not to Spank is the question, the outcome of this study suggests that Not to Spank is most definitely the answer.

Please tell me how you feel about this topic by leaving a response above.  If you feel that you need to speak to a helping professional, contact me, your child’s teacher/school, or seek counseling from a reliable therapist. As always, thank you kindly for reading.

Beyond Time-Out: Challenges of the Older Child, Tween and Teen

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Several readers of this blog have commented to me that time-out is a useful tool with younger children, but what are they to do with their older children, tweens, or teens?

Remember, the idea of time-out is to withhold (i.e. take time-out from) positive reinforcement with the goal of reducing undesirable behavior. Sometimes traditional time-out (see blog posts 3 and 4) doesn’t work with an older child, tween or teen, and other negative consequences for reducing inappropriate behavior must be implemented.

For example, your 11-year-old is talking back to you and it’s becoming a problem within the house. She thinks time-out is for babies. You explain to Sally that talking back is an inappropriate behavior and will not be tolerated. You make it clear to Sally that every time she talks back to you, a privilege will be removed. Examples are: TV, telephone or cell phone use, staying up late, outside play time, electronic games, trip to the mall, etc. Construct a privilege list alone or together with Sally PRIOR to implementation of this technique. For each new day, when Sally talks back, an item is crossed off the list for that day. The procedure starts anew daily, allowing Sally to begin each day with a clean slate. Do not choose too MANY behaviors at first. Like time-out for younger children, concentrate on a few of the most troublesome behaviors that your child exhibits and focus on those, ignoring the less serious ones. Consistency is the key.

What if my teen misbehaves? Grounding is a technique that can be used for disciplining teens. Of course, grounding is effective with older children and tweens as well, but for now, let’s concentrate on your teenager. Grounding is like time-out in that your child is removed from a desirable activity for a period of time—things like borrowing the car, watching TV, computer time, telephone privileges, going out with friends, electronic gaming, etc.

When you utilize grounding with your teen, consider the following:

  • Discuss with your teen what grounding means. Make your expectations and rules clear; write them down and post if necessary.
  • Set an appropriate time limit on the grounding relative to the age of your child.  For a teen to lose the car for one week is not unreasonable, but a month may be too long. Remember that the grounding loses its effectiveness if the period of time of grounding is too long. Your child’s incentive for good behavior during the grounding may be lost.
  • When you are angry is NOT a good time to set a grounding limit. Calm down first and make a decision based on what you feel is reasonable for a specific unwanted behavior.
  • When you set the grounding limit based on thoughtfulness, do not change your mind. When parents give in and reduce the time of grounding your child will quickly learn that you won’t follow through.
  • So that the entire family is not punished for your teen’s misbehavior, make arrangements for that child if the family goes out. A sitter should be used so that the grounded child remains in the house while the family can still enjoy their outing.

As always, parents should not disagree with each other about discipline in front of their children. Be consistent by rewarding or punishing the same behavior in the same way as much as you can. Parents should agree with what is acceptable or unacceptable behavior and how to respond to both. When speaking to your child about unacceptable behavior, be very specific. Displeasure over a “messy kitchen” isn’t clear enough. Instead, be specific about what “messy” means. For example, the dishes are not in the dishwasher; the books are spread across the table; there are crumbs on the floor; etc. Reward desirable behavior as much as possible throughout the day, and remember that your children are modeling your behavior.

What behaviors exhibited by your teens are challenging to you?  Let me know by leaving a response or sending me feedback. As always, I’d love to hear from you.