Why spank children

Are there other discipline measures that work? It's good that you're thinking about your approach to discipline and about the effects of your choices. Many parents settle on a discipline method just because it's how they were raised. But we now know a lot about the effects of different methods of disciplining. Spanking can be humiliating for children, and cause anger, aggression, and resentment, as well as physical harm. Spanking often does not teach the lesson a parent is trying to convey.

Spanking can make children fearful of their parents, and we want our kids to behave because they respect us, not because they're afraid. And to make it even more challenging, none of our kids come with an instruction manual attached. But our children need us to do it to the best of our ability, with all the wisdom, love, gentleness and strength we can muster.

In this role, he provides leadership for the 13 licensed mental health professionals and two ordained chaplains who offer guidance and resources to people facing a variety of circumstances. Contact us at letters time. By Jared Pingleton. TIME Ideas hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary on events in news, society, and culture.

We welcome outside contributions. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors. Related Stories. Already a print subscriber? Go here to link your subscription. Need help? Visit our Help Center. Go here to connect your wallet. And yet, about a quarter of parents do it—despite a pile of evidence that it's the wrong approach. By Bonnie Schiedel November 5, His son and daughter, aged three and five, were bickering in another room.

He hollered for them to come and see him—planning only to give them a talking-to—and when his son entered the room, his eyes were fearful, his hands were on his behind and he was standing as far as he could from his dad.

And so, starting when his kids were around three, spankings were the occasional punishment for behaviour like reaching for the stove or tearing up a book. Over time, though, he admits that he was spanking less as a deliberate disciplinary strategy and more out of anger, and as often as several times a month. He started feeling crappy about it. And, as LeSauvage discovered, spanking can also leave parents feeling terrible and affect their relationships with their kids. In , Elizabeth Gershoff, a professor of human development and family sciences at the University of Texas at Austin, conducted a meta-analysis that carefully analyzed all the previous studies that had been done.

The result?