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Corporal Punishment: Is Your Child at Risk?
The debate of corporal punishment rages on. There are still 22 states where this type of discipline still exists in schools. Should this type of punishment be acceptable and necessary? We don't think so, but many people do. The American Academy of Pediatrics believes that corporal punishment in school be abolished in all states by law, and that alternative forms of student behavior management be used. We hope this month's collection of articles will help enlighten you, and make you aware of a danger that may be lurking in your child's school. Please keep in mind that there are other ways to effectively discipline children at school. Let's do what we can as parents to encourage the use of these alternative methods.
Ten Things We Know About Corporal Punishment*
1. Poor children, minorities, children with disabilities and boys are hit more frequently in schools, sometimes at 2-5 times the rate of other children.
2. Corporal punishment has been abolished in more than 100 nations of the world.
3. Corporal punishment teaches children that violence is a way to solve problems. Research shows that this message is taught to those who inflict pain, those who receive it, and those who witness it.
4. Corporal punishment of children is related to decreased internalization of moral rules, increased aggression, more antisocial behavior, increased criminality, decreased mental health outcomes, increased adult abusive behaviors, and increased risk of being victimized by abusive relationships in adulthood.
5. School violence has not increased since paddling use has declined. Violent crime in schools has declined dramatically since 1994. The annual rate of serious violent crime in 2003 (6 per 1,000 students) was less than half of the rate in 1994.
6. Academic achievement is a risk factor in the use of corporal punishment of children.
7. Corporal punishment reinforces physical aggression as an acceptable and effective means of eliminating unwanted behavior in our society.
8. Significantly more school shooting deaths were found in states allowing school corporal punishment than those who do not.
9. There is overwhelming evidence that harsh interventions are damaging to children, both emotionally and physically. The effects of such trauma may be compounded when a child has preexisting learning difficulties. When schools respond to these challenges using harsh methods, children can be further traumatized.
10. School corporal punishment is more widely used in states in the south and southwest and in rural districts rather than urban and suburban districts.
Arguments Against Corporal Punishment*
1. It perpetuates a cycle of child abuse. It teaches children to hit someone smaller and weaker when angry.
2. Injuries occur. Bruises are common. Broken bones are not unusual. Children's deaths have occurred in the U.S. due to school corporal punishment.
3. Corporal punishment is used much more often on poor children, minorities, children with disabilities, and boys.
4. Schools are the only institutions in America in which striking another person is legally sanctioned. It is not allowed in prisons, in the military or in mental hospitals.
5. Educators and school boards are sometimes sued when corporal punishment is used in their schools.
6. Schools that use corporal punishment often have poorer academic achievement, more vandalism, truancy, pupil violence and higher drop out rates.
7. Corporal punishment is often not used as a last resort. It is often the first resort for minor misbehaviors.
8. Many alternatives to corporal punishment have proven their worth. Alternatives teach children to be self-disciplined rather than cooperative only because of fear.
Alternatives to corporal punishment include emphasizing positive behaviors of students, realistic rules consistently enforced, instruction that reaches all students, conferences with students for planning acceptable behavior, parent/teacher conferences about student behavior, use of staff such as school psychologists and counselors, detentions, in-school suspension and Saturday school.
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*Copyright © Center for Effective Discipline. Reprinted with permission.
1. U.S. Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights, Surveys from 1976-2003, Center for Effective Discipline.
2. The Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children, UK, 2007.
3. Eron, Walder & Lefkowitz, 1971; Hyman & Snook, 1999; Lahey, Moffit & Caspi, 2003, Reid, Patterson & Snyder, 2002.
4. Meta-Analysis of 88 corporal punishment studies (Gershoff, E.T. 2002).
5. U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2005.
6. Study of 8,000 U.S. families, (Straus, M.A. and Yodanis, CL, 1994.) 78% of paddling states achieved below the national average at the fourth grade level in reading. 75% of the paddling states achieved below the national average in eighth grade level reading (Center for Effective Discipline, 2004). Sixty-seven percent of Ohio paddling schools fell in the lowest 25% of schools on state school report cards in the 99-00 school year (Center for Effective Discipline, 2001).
7. Position paper opposing school corporal punishment by the Society for Adolescent Medicine (Greydanus, DE. et al, 2003).
8. D. Arcus, 2002.
9. Mohr, WK and Anderson, J.A. 2002.
10. Center for Effective Discipline, 2007.
Prepared by: Center for Effective Discipline, Columbus,OH.
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