Just read the comments on section 59 theme from 14. March 2007, – and felt the need to write this:

Family violence produces social violence. Violence in the home is trans-generational. Violence in the home produces violent children. researchers can and have accurately predicted boys criminal behaviour, based on which boys had a history of violence in their upbringing.

‘Socialising mode’ parents emphatically deny that spanking is violence, when the same spank, applied to a nursing home resident, or a psychiatric patient, would be unequivocally treated as assault.

When we deny the violence of a smack, this simply means that we have become personally de-sensitised to violence at that threshold. the hitting we experienced as children has made us insensitive to the pain and humiliation suffered by our own children as we swat them in the name of discipline.

So we don’t see our blows as violent, but our children-who are much more vulnerable and sensitive than ourselves-certainly experience them as violent.

In 1998 in the UK, National Children Bureau asked a large group of 5-7 year olds how they felt when they got smacked. All of them spoke of wounded feelings, hurt, embarrassment, and shock. The childrens responses, reproduced in their own words, are moving testimony to the violation they experience at the receiving end of parental ‘dicipline’.

It would take a very thick skin for anyone to read these childrens messages, and continue to deny that smacking or spanking constitute violence. The evidence of the childs emotional wound does not appear until later.

Furthermore, because not all children who are hit by their parents become violent or depressed, many of the negative effects are less obvious.

STUDY: Children who had been spanked or smacked were more likely to be aggressive towards their peers-had behaviour problems such as lying and bullying-had less remorse for hurtful behaviour, are more destructive and more disobedient, regardless of how warm their parents were.

The link between corporal punishment and aggressiveness in children is so strong that the best predictor of violent behaviour is the frequency with which children have been spanked.

Not all spanked become aggressive in thoughts or deeds. Corporal punishment has been linked to a host of other psychological problems = conduct disorder, anxiety disorder in children, depression, suicidal thoughts and alcohol abuse, decreased confidence and assertiveness, low self esteem and alcoholism, lack of empathy, social skills and personal autonomy.

The main reason why children learn to be violent is that they are natural imitators.This means that parents who rely on corporal punishment or verbal abuse to ‘control’ their kids are unwittingly acting as models for bullying behaviour.

‘Those whose anger boils over become ‘bullies’, those who are paralysed with fear become ‘victims’.

The school bully or juvenile delinquent is an emotionally injured individual trying to compensate for an inner feeling of powerlessness. To consider bullies as offenders is superficial, when in fact they are first and foremost victims.

The Israeli Supreme Court says: “Corporal punishment as a remnant of a social-educational outlook that has lost its validity. The child is not the parents property and cannot be used as a punching bag”.––-

This was an extract from a book: “Parenting for a Peaceful World”, by Robin Grille.
–highly recommended.