It's illegal for a husband to strike his wife. It's not for him to strike his daughter. A teacher who hit a parent during a disagreement at a parent-teacher conference would be breaking the law. But in 23 states it would be legal for him or her to hit the parent's child. And while experts have disagreed for years about spanking, some very disturbing evidence indicates that it may be destroying the body image of our children. Even more disturbing, the numbers say that spanking kids makes them more vulnerable to sexual abuse and other violence from others.

Child abuse experts recommend that in order to protect children from abuse, certain parenting strategies should be employed:

*Avoid spanking. Spanking is a body boundary violation. Those who victimize children prey on those who have had body boundary violations because they are unlikely to protest further boundary transgressions.
*Don't touch your children in intimate areas unless absolutely necessary. These include (obviously) genitalia, but also thighs, chest, buttox. Abusers often initiate contact in these less “private” areas before moving on to more direct contact. The idea is to gradually increase the level of inappropriate touching by starting with something more innocuous.
*Teach children to protest ANY unwanted touch from the age of 2.
*Teach positive body image. Children from age 2 on should be taught that their body belongs to them and is special.

A child who has been spanked not only learns to accept body boundary violations, but internalizes the message that adults are allowed to strike his or her buttox without permission. They further learn a pattern of helplessness, submission, and feel no ownership over their own bodies. In other words: if mommy and daddy can hit, the body belongs to them, not me. This is a very dangerous signal to be sending children. Confronted by family friends, uncles, or other respected adults, children will concede when boundaries are crossed.

Further complicating the issue is the element of fear. Children who are spanked are taught that fear is the reason they behave. Misbehavior is met with violence, which is painful. These children internalize the messages: when I am bad I deserve to be hit; mommy or daddy hit me to show me they love me. Though many would argue that the messages in and of themselves are both disturbing and illogical, even supporters of spanking would be hard pressed to argue that teaching a child to accept violence as a deserved show of love is dangerous. Fast forward 20 years. Mary, who was spanked when she was a child, is now a battered wife. He hits her when she has it coming. She knows he really loves her.

Murray A. Straus, professor or Sociology at the University of New Hampshire, is the co-director of the university's Family Research Laboratory. He is also the author of many books on child rearing. Straus notes that no study has ever shown that spanking is MORE effective than non-violent methods of discipline, and further says that the long and short term side effects of spanking include delinquency, domestic violence, depression, running away from home, and higher suicide rates. He argues that spanking does not teach coping skills or critical thinking, but physical response to problems and immediate obedience without understanding the reason for it.

It isn't just an at-home problem, either. John Benjamin Guthrow, an anti-spanking advocate, did a study using data from state, local, and federal government agencies reviewing the top 10 states who use corporal punishment in schools. In these top 10 states:

*The states were also the top 10 for murder in the US. None of the 10 states with the lowest murder rates allowed corporal punishment.
*7 of the 10 were among the top 10 for incarceration rates in the US. Of the remaining 3 rates were among the top 20. None of the states with the lowest 10 incarceration rates allowed corporal punishment.
*The Condition of Children Index, which measures overall well-being for children in terms of poverty, education, and health, rated 6 of these states among the worst in the nation. Of the remaining 4, all were among the worst 20. None of the states ranked in the top 10 best for children allowed corporal punishment.

Though not all children who are spanked will develop damaging or dangerous behaviors, become abusive or abused, or show significant long term effects, many will. Guthrow says the risk can be compared to smoking. Not all who smoke develop lung cancer, but the risk is significant enough that society agrees it's best not to smoke.

The trouble is, we have a double standard. Adults continue to treat children as property. They continue to spank rather than discipline with more time-consuming methods (such as time outs, choice parenting, and dialogue) because spanking is easier, quicker, gives instant gratification to the angry parent, and they, themselves, were spanked. Nobody wants to call it abuse because using the buzzword implicates a huge segment of our society. But how many women were routinely slapped, bullied, or verbally abused while society looked away? How many still are? How long did it take our legal system to start protecting women?

Children deserve no less. Though some studies indicate that spanking may not be harmful, enough evidence to the contrary makes corporal punishment too great a risk. No study has EVER shown that spanking was better. We know it isn't.

Logic needs to be employed. Parenting is, simply put, the act of protecting, nurturing, and teaching children how to become adults. The best way to teach is by example. Children take field trips to see how it's done in “the real world.” Children mimic, play, or pretend in order to practice behaviors. Childhood is their training ground for adulthood. Hitting should never be part of that training. None of us would expect to make a mistake-- even a major mistake-- at work and be slapped for it. Violence is NOT part of acceptable adulthood, so teaching children it is an appropriate response does not teach them how to be good adults.

Spanking was once acceptable, but so was subjecting and abusing women. Those days are over. It may give instant obedience, but it teaches with fear rather that logic and understanding. It may offer angry adults instant gratification in high stress situations, but this does nothing to nurture the child. It violates their body ownership, invades their space, crosses their boundaries, and destroys their body image.