Many parents feel spanking has its place, but doctors worry discipline can cross the line to abuse
BY KARA YORIO
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORDIn study after study, as many as eight out of 10 adults in America say spanking is an appropriate form of discipline.
Suggestions for parents
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics policy, which offers guidance to pediatricians counseling parents about disciplining children:
Effective discipline has three components:
1. Provide a positive, supportive and loving relationship.
2. Use positive reinforcement.
3. When punishment is necessary, use timeouts and other alternatives to spanking or physical punishment.
The policy goes on to state:
Spanking has negative consequences and is no more effective than other forms of discipline. In fact, there’s a gray area between when spanking ends and child abuse begins.
What the studies don’t show is how people define spanking and where they believe corporal punishment of children crosses a line to abuse.
While those questions have long been quietly debated, the indictment of NFL star Adrian Peterson has raised them in a very public way, even if many of those who believe in spanking find Peterson’s alleged behavior abhorrent.
The story is well-known by now — the Minnesota Vikings running back has been indicted on child abuse charges for stuffing leaves in the mouth of his 4-year-old son and beating him with a switch — a tree branch — that left the boy with cuts and bruises all over his body.
The incident started a conversation among opponents and defenders of corporal punishment of children by their caregivers. The issue is so uncomfortable that pediatricians, who are supposed to ask parents how they discipline and if they spank their kids, rarely broach the topic.
The question hardly comes up in discussions between parents and doctors, said Dr. Howard Mazin, an attending pediatrician at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, because of the belief it has “fallen out of favor and people don’t do it.”
