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Parents know the difference
between spanking as a disciplinary measure and child
abuse: In the first, a loving parent uses some small,
symbolic level of force as an incremental measure among
others when a child misbehaves; in the latter, a child
is subjected to violent force for no reason, or to vicious
verbal assaults, or neglect. Even parents who would
never spank their own children understand that difference.
And yet this baffles the Senate. They
are currently working to remove section 43 from the
Criminal Code, which allows parents to spank their children.
By removing it, they aim to teach us that spanking is
always wrong, and newly illegal -- that it constitutes
child abuse. In hearing witness testimony on June 18,
Senator Sharon Carstairs said, "I define 'abuse'
as hitting a child." Senator Jim Munson said, "there
is no such thing to me as reasonable force." He
went on: "You either hit a child or do not hit
a child, no matter how hard you hit." It's all
very clear: Spanking is always harmful and ought to
be banned.
Spanking remains a point of controversy
among parents, which is precisely where it should be
discussed. In short, this is not a matter for the legislature
or Senate. Parenting is by its very nature best left
up to, well, parents. Because they -- by and large --
are concerned first and foremost with their children's
welfare.
However, if spanking is abuse, it would
not be enough to argue that we must keep the state out
of the playrooms of the nation. If this were true, it
might indeed warrant action, not necessarily from the
state because parenting is not a government mandate,
but from parents themselves.
So for those interested in studies and
statistics, the evidence is in: Spanking as a disciplinary
tool is -- drum roll please -- neutral. It is not accurate
to say that spanking necessarily has negative repercussions.
In fact there is some evidence from reputable studies
that it is, as always, done appropriately -- gasp --
good. In one meta-analysis published in the Clinical
Child and Family Psychology Review in 2005, the conclusion
was that spanking was a decidedly neutral tool, and
child outcomes depended on how spanking was used --
except in one case, where "physical discipline"
proved to be positive. "(O)ne study favour(ed)
physical discipline for reducing drug abuse," the
researchers write. "They also identified an optimal
type of physical discipline, called conditional spanking,
which led to better child outcomes than 10 of 13 alternative
disciplinary tactics," the study reads.
A 30-year longitudinal study on the
effects of spanking in New Zealand, published in 2006,
showed no negative effects of spanking and, furthermore,
that those who had been spanked "appeared to be
particularly high-functioning and achieving members
of society."
Negative memories or emotions should
not take the upper hand in our Upper Chamber. The premise
for the Senate's bill that spanking is always bad, and
that it constitutes or leads to abuse, is disputed.
No other body than the Supreme Court of Canada ruled
in 2004 that parents had the right to use "reasonable
force," while at the same time, it placed some
restrictions on its use.
There are unintended consequences to
this bill. For one, such a law cannot be easily enforced
and would require neighbour to spy upon neighbour: Recent
reports from Sweden, where spanking was outlawed in
1979, suggest not only is spanking on the rise there,
but the state has no way to control it. There is also
evidence there of a rise in youth violence for those
raised after the spanking ban, the cause of which deserves
further examination before other countries replicate
their example.
Worst of all, this bill is a slap in
the face to children truly suffering abuse. If a carefully
thought-out swat on the bum as part of a wider discipline
plan is the same thing as child abuse, then fighting
real child abuse just got a whole lot more difficult.
Efforts will be diverted from combating truly despicable
behaviour, toward a broader campaign against conscientious
parents.
Theodore Dalrymple, a British writer
and doctor, recently wrote of a problem he sees around
him: a population of Brits who are "increasingly
unable to distinguish the trivial from the important
and the virtual from the real." With this current
bill in the Senate, select senators are trivializing
parenthood by micromanaging how good parents discipline,
while turning attention away from real abuse. Most Canadians
can tell the difference -- it's a lesson some senators
still need to learn.
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/opinion/story.html?id=1b117122-59d6-4afb-8893-d6bfaa3de4ad
Andrea Mrozek and Dave Quist conduct
and compile research for the Institute of Marriage and
Family Canada, www.imfcanada.org.
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