Is Spanking O.K.?

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Many studies, for example, fail to distinguish among degrees of spanking (a swat on the bottom is very different from 10 lashes with a switch). Furthermore, the problems some kids who are spanked have in later life might have to do more with their personalities--the behaviors that got them spanked in the first place--than with the punishment. New research indicates that when it is not lumped together with serious, abusive forms of corporal punishment, spanking doesn't look so bad. In a longitudinal study of 168 white, middle-class families, Diana Baumrind and Elizabeth Owens, psychologists at the University of California, Berkeley, found that occasional mild spanking does not harm a child's social and emotional development.

Similarly, after reviewing 38 studies of spanking, Robert Larzelere, a psychologist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, concluded that in children under 7, nonabusive spanking reduced misbehavior without harmful effects. Not only does spanking work, Larzelere says, but it also reinforces milder forms of discipline, so that children are more apt to respond without spanking the next time.

For Neil Gussman's three children, it took a maximum of three spankings for them not to need spanking anymore. "If they have that experience early, they don't want to repeat it," says the communications manager and former tank commander. Gussman, 52, recalls having little respect for his mother, who used negotiation as her primary disciplinary tool, but plenty for his father, who spanked him once--memorably. Gussman was 5 when he played in a forbidden swamp near his home in Stoneham, Mass. "I had scared him half to death," says Gussman of his father, an ex-boxer. "He spanked me right then and there."

In fact, parents often spank out of fear, not anger. Kristy Hagar, a child neuropsychologist at the Children's Medical Center in Dallas, has spanked her daughters occasionally, when, for example, her toddler charged into oncoming traffic. Direct defiance is also seen as a valid reason for physical discipline. But there are limits on spankable offenses: spanking should never be used to punish petty misbehavior or as a result of a parent's anger.

One of the touchiest aspects of the spanking debate is that some groups tend to spank more than others, out of habit, cultural tradition or common parenting practice. Men, low-income parents, Southerners, evangelical Christians, Latinos and African Americans are more supportive of spanking. African-American parents say their children need to be especially under control in a prejudiced society. "I think black people have a lower tolerance for children looking disrespectful," says Pam Jackson, an economist and single mother in Washington. Wilma Ann Anderson, publisher of Mahogany Baby, an online magazine for black parents, and a mother of four, agrees. When a white woman goes out with four children, Anderson says, she instantly commands respect. "When I go out with my four kids, I feel like if they misbehave, people think I'm a welfare mom."