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Spanking your Child

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You can call it smacking, belting, whipping or spanking - it's all the same thing - child abuse.

One of the main freedoms society tries to protect is freedom from violence. The feeling that you are safe in your home or while walking down the street is a necessity for a society to survive and to grow. We no longer hang, whip or torture people as punishment. In fact punishment is gradually being replaced with re-education and counseling. If somebody threatens me I am able to respond with the necessary force to defend myself and no more. I do not have a right to punish them with violence no matter how much they have caused me distress, fear or even if I think they may learn a lesson from it.

But it is OK for me to do this to a child. I may hit my child for misbehaving, being disobedient, having a different opinion or just for being annoying. The most vulnerable members in our society are being abused in a manner that would cause outrage if perpetrated on more senior members. Spanking is violence and is a reaction to emotion - it gives a sense of satisfaction through retribution. If you do not have the time to discipline a child in an appropriate manner you should not have the child.

If we are ever to turn toward a kindlier society and a safer world, a revulsion against the physical punishment of children would be a good place to start.

- Dr. Benjamin Spock

Anti Spanking Websites

Project No Spank
As long as the child will be trained not by love, but by fear, so long will humanity live not by justice, but by force. As long as the child will be ruled by the educator's threat and by the father's rod, so long will mankind be dominated by the policeman's club, by fear of jail, and by panic of invasion by armies and navies.

The Center for Effective Discipline
The Center for Effective Discipline (CED) is a non-profit organization which provides educational information to the public on the effects of corporal punishment of children and alternatives to its use. It is currently the headquarters for and coordinates both National Coalition to Abolish Corporal Punishment in Schools (NCACPS) and End Physical Punishment of Children (EPOCH-USA).

Parenting in Jesus' Footsteps
A Resource for Gentle Christian Parents and Other Caring Adults
What does it mean to "parent in Jesus' footsteps?" By examining the teachings of Jesus Christ, we can apply them to the parent/child relationship. What do the Golden Rule, the Beatitudes, the Prodigal Son story and other teachings tell us about how to treat children? Come join us, read and reflect on Jesus.

Sparing the Rod
Let's talk about Proverbs 23:13: "Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you beat him with a rod he will not die. Beat him with a rod and you will save him from the grave." How do you interpret that verse?
It's a lie, because children who are beaten with a rod sometimes do die. Between one and two thousand children die every year in this country from corporal punishment. One hundred forty-two thousand are seriously injured from corporal punishment every year in America, according to the Dept. of Health and Human Services and the New England Journal of Medicine. So it can't be taken literally.

Also, Proverbs is ascribed to King Solomon. It's right in the Bible, right in the Book of Kings in the Old Testament, that Solomon displeased God. In the New Testament, Jesus says in chapter 12 of Matthew, that Jesus is greater than Solomon. And I think a lot of fundamentalists just gloss right over that. And also in Matthew, in the transfiguration, God says, "This is my son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him." God never says listen to Solomon.

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