PEARL 36

Spanking

“Daddy, why can’t we just have a spanking and get this over with?”

Six-year-old Olivia had just slipped quietly into the living room, where
Dad was reading his paper. She begged, “Our friends get to have
spankings, and then they get to play. If you give us a spanking, we’ll
never play in the street again. We’re tired of waiting for you to decide
what you’re going to do.”
Yeah, thought Dad. Spankings are a lot easier than having to wait and
think about what you’ve done wrong. They give kids a quick escape from
the responsibility of living with a bad choice. Instead of having to live
with consequences and think about solutions, youngsters have a brief
moment of pain, and then they’re off the hook.
The original edition of this book advocated the use of spanking in
limited, controlled situations. However, as we have grown in our
professions and as more valid research has become available, we have
changed our position.
There are many good reasons to avoid the use of spankings:

•           Empathy and logical consequences    are far more    powerful

than    spanking    because they    teach   problem-solving skills.

•           Spanking    fails   to  teach   the behaviors   we  want    kids    to

emulate later   in  life.

•           Most    kids    would   rather  receive a   spanking    than    have    to  think

about   their   poor    choice.

•           More    recent  research    tells   us  that    spanking    has many