In 1869, a father doused his blind son in kerosene then locked him in a frigid cellar for several days in the dead of winter. He was fined $300 and received no jail time. The court decided that parents are given large discretion in parenting, but this discretion is limited to treatment that is reasonable and humane, and the law punishes parents who en gage in wanton and needless cruelty. But who decides what is "wanton and needless"? How do we draw the line?
Child Protective services in the United States originally served to protect children from neglect, providing them with shelter and nutrition when their own parents could not. But neglect and abuse often went hand-in-hand, and by the 20th century, child protective services were also tasked with rescuing children from potentially life-threatening abuse. In 1962, an article called "The Battered-Child Syndrome," shocked millions of Americans by implying that their routine disciplinary practices might actually be deeply harming their children. Child abuse, the authors noted, occurs not just in slums but also "among people with good education and stable financial and social background."
In recent years, scientists have found that even basic spanking has alarmingly negative consequences for childhood development. Spanking can increase a child's risk of aggression and can cause anti-social behaviour and mental scars that last a lifetime.
This is heavily disputed because so many MORE kids have been spanked and have grown up to be upstanding members of society who know right from wrong and that actions have consequences. Noone can dispute the fact that crime has increased in every single society in our nation and with so many parents opting for less "abusive" forms of discipline such as "time-outs" it begs the question, "Does spanking kids as a form of discipline teach them core values and is it worth the mental and physical anguish that results?" |
