The Adrian Peterson Beating and the Christian Right's Love of Corporal Punishment

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

The Adrian Peterson Beating and the Christian Right's Love of Corporal Punishment

The NFL star isn’t the only one. The practice of beating children lives on, buoyed by an organized, conservative Christian movement that promotes corporal punishment.

I wish I could say it was surprising to learn that Adrian Peterson, his lawyer, and his friends are all defending Peterson from allegations of child abuse by saying that Peterson’s choice to beat his 4-year-old son with a stick was nothing but an expression of love. Beating children this way can leave scars, both physical and mental, but the practice continues—and continues to be treated by many as normal—in no small part because there’s an organized, conservative Christian movement that continues to promote corporal punishment and even argues that attempts to stymie the practice are an assault on their religion.

Like Peterson, I grew up in rural Texas and can attest that yes, it’s more common than not for parents to beat their children with sticks, belts, and various kitchen implements, all in the name of “love.” (I personally was never hit this way, but my family was the exception, not the rule.) It’s not just in Texas, either, as 67 percent of parents admit to spanking their children. In fact, 19 states, including Texas, still allow corporal punishment in schools.

Most of the people who support spanking draw a distinction between “corporal punishment” and “child abuse,” but as the Peterson case shows, where people draw that line varies wildly. To make the situation worse, the Christian right has, for decades now, both heralded corporal punishment as the best way to discipline children and has resisted efforts to strengthen protections for children on the grounds that these violate “parental rights.”

This is why the United States, along with Somalia, is the only country in the world not to have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, a document that outlines U.N. expectations for how governments are to handle the rights of children. The reason for the reluctance is simple: The Christian right won’t allow the Senate to ratify the Convention. There are many reasons for this, but a big one is fear that the Convention would force the government to outlaw spanking.

It is true that the Convention, according to UNICEF, gives children “the right to be protected from being hurt and mistreated, physically or mentally” and that “any form of discipline involving violence is unacceptable.” The Convention doesn’t go so far as to explicitly call on governments to outlaw spanking, but the wording does strongly advise against all hitting of children in favor of other forms of discipline.

“Parents would no longer be able to administer reasonable spankings to their children” if the U.S. ratified the Conventions, argues the Christian right website Parental Rights, the primary resource fighting efforts to protect the rights of children.

The problem with “reasonable” is there’s no good definition of what counts as reasonable. It’s a phrase designed to call to mind a soft and painless swat on a toddler’s butt to get their attention, but in reality, what Christian conservatives define as “reasonable” is intended to cause pain and injury to children. Focus on the Family argues that any kind of spanking that does more than “sting” is too much, but even their supposedly “reasonable” approach allows for parents to “use a wooden spoon or some other appropriately sized paddle” and that it “ought to hurt” and should produce “a few tears and sniffles.”

The worst part is that Focus on the Family is restrained compared to other Christian conservative child-rearing advice. A more controversial but still popular book on child-rearing, To Train Up A Child by Michael and Debi Pearl, recommends that parents start spanking at 6 months old and use belts and plumbing tubes to beat children with. Unsurprisingly, considering the harsh attitude toward children on display, this book has turned up in a number of homes of parents accused of abusing children to death.

Christian conservatives defend the practice of spanking children, even with weapons, by saying that parents are not supposed to do so in anger. “You want to be calm, in control, and focused,” writes Chip Ingram of Focus on the Family, and that a parent who embraces corporal punishment “is not an angry, insensitive person with a big club and a vicious agenda.” This echoes a common refrain from parents to justify spanking, that they don’t do it in anger and they reserve it for serious infractions that require a lot of time and processing so the child doesn’t do it again.

Unfortunately, parents are overestimating their own abilities to keep it in check. Researchers at Southern Methodist University strapped audio recorders onto the arms of 33 mothers to see if and when they used spanking, and found that instead of retreating to a quiet space to calmly administer a spanking, mothers who spank are just hitting in anger and frustration. Kids got spanked for finger-sucking, messing with pages of a book, or getting out of a chair when they weren’t supposed to. Parents who spank say they do so around 18 times a year, but the SMU researchers found it was closer to 18 times a week.

“The recordings show that most parents responded either impulsively or emotionally, rather than being intentional with their discipline,” explained the lead researcher. This study was just of mothers who were smacking with their hands, but as the Peterson case shows, there’s reason to believe that parents who escalate to much more violent kinds of hitting are no more likely to hold back or temper their anger.

To make it all worse, there’s no reason to think spanking works. In the SMU study it was found that children lasted about 10 minutes after a smack before they started misbehaving again. Farther-reaching research shows that not only are spanked children not better behaved, they’re worse off for it, and that spanking is associated with more criminal and antisocial behavior as well as slower cognitive development.

Spanking doesn’t work to improve behavior. It’s hard for parents to regulate their spanking, so that it all too frequently turns into outright abuse. The line between “reasonable” spanking and abuse is hazy for even the best-intentioned parent. So why does the practice persist and why does the Christian right melt down at the mere hint of a suggestion that anyone would make it legally more difficult to beat your children?

A major part of the problem is that spanking your child is a part of many people’s identities about what it is to be a Christian, which is why so many conservative Christians love to claim “spare the rod and spoil the child.” Because of this, attempts to fix the problem and discourage spanking and even outright abuse are often regarded as attacks on their identities as Christians. Peterson’s own public statement, where he indicates that he was disciplined like this as a child and “the way my parents disciplined me has a great deal to do with the success I enjoyed as a man.” People feel, when you criticize spanking, that you are criticizing their families, their upbringing, and even their faith.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. As Peterson also said in his public statement, “There are other alternative ways of disciplining a child that may be more appropriate,” ways that don’t cause physical or mental harm, whether intended by the spanker or not. Christian conservatives have long argued that it’s totally possible to allow spanking while disallowing child abuse. Let’s hope this Adrian Peterson debacle shows that idea is much easier said than done.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/16/the-adrian-peterson-beating-and-the-christian-right-s-love-of-corporal-punishment.html

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

This won't get any love. It's not the right "target".

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Corporal punishment is stupid. Plain and simple. It's an expression of weakness - nothing else. And it sends a terrible message to a child - that violence is an acceptable tool to resolve conflicts. It isn't. This from the parent of one of the best behaved children in her school - a child that has never, ever had a hand laid on her. Not so much as a slap on the wrist. And yes, she knows what respect means and where and when it is due. It simply doesn't take physical force to teach a child some basic lessons.

Edited September 16, 2014 by Mr. Big Dog

[GandD 5,966]

~~Title edited to match article~~

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Corporal punishment is stupid. Plain and simple. It's an expression of weakness - nothing else. And it sends a terrible message to a child - that violence is an acceptable tool to resolve conflicts. It isn't. This from the parent of one of the best behaved children in her school - a child that has never, ever had a hand laid on her. Not so much as a slap on the wrist. And yes, she knows what respect means and where and when it is due. It simply doesn't take physical force to teach a child some basic lessons.

Conversely there's a whole library of info about the brutalising effects of violence.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Conversely there's a whole library of info about the brutalising effects of violence.

We gave daycare a try when my daughter was about 2.5 years old. It didn't take but a few days that she tried to slap whatever it was she did not like. She had never done that before because it was not a behavior she was ever exposed to. Other kids at the daycare evidently had experience with this behavior and brought it to daycare with them where our daughter picked it up pretty quickly. We got it back out of her and she knows that that is not in any way an acceptable reaction. We also did not have her in daycare very long - it did not add anything positive to her development.

[Darnell 8,479]

I see nothing wrong with corporal punishment, either swats on the backside with something or actual caning on the back, depending on age.

What I have huge issue with, is that the child had welts along the arms and legs. That's child-abuse, IMO.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

My dad always says, people use their fists when their brains run dry.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

We gave daycare a try when my daughter was about 2.5 years old. It didn't take but a few days that she tried to slap whatever it was she did not like. She had never done that before because it was not a behavior she was ever exposed to. Other kids at the daycare evidently had experience with this behavior and brought it to daycare with them where our daughter picked it up pretty quickly. We got it back out of her and she knows that that is not in any way an acceptable reaction. We also did not have her in daycare very long - it did not add anything positive to her development.

It stands to reason really - kids are only just learning to socialise. If you beat them, they start to think that's a reasonable way to behave.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

It stands to reason really - kids are only just learning to socialise. If you beat them, they start to think that's a reasonable way to behave.

Exactly.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Ran across this in today's paper. Spot on!

What kids really learn when their parents hit them

By William Saletan

WASHINGTON — Adrian Peterson, the NFL running back, has been indicted for injuring his 4-year-old son. According to sources in law enforcement, Peterson used a tree branch to discipline the boy, leaving cuts and bruises. Peterson’s lawyer says his client meant no harm. “Adrian is a loving father who used his judgment as a parent to discipline his son,” says the attorney. “He used the same kind of discipline with his child that he experienced as a child growing up in East Texas.”

Of course he did. I know all about Peterson’s world. I grew up in East Texas, about 40 miles from where he struck his son. I was never hit with what Peterson calls a “switch.” My parents didn’t believe in corporal punishment. But the public schools did. That’s where I was paddled.

My public elementary school began every day with a Christian prayer over the loudspeaker. By sixth grade, kids were getting paddled.

I can tell you what kids learn from being hit. They learn about hitting, and about you.

I wasn’t paddled until junior high. I stood, as instructed, with my hands against a desk in the principal’s office. I don’t remember what I was hit with, how many times, or whether the principal did the deed. I wasn’t looking.

When somebody’s hitting you, what you think about is being hit. And that’s what you remember afterward. Every child absorbs this differently. Some kids think they deserve it. (Presumably this includes the boys who made paddles in wood shop.) Others get upset. Others, like me, feel nothing but contempt. But all of us think about the hitting. We remember the punishment, not the crime.

That shouldn’t surprise anyone who has looked at research on child development, or who has reflected on parental experience. You start out thinking that you’re going to teach your child a lesson. You talk, or you gesture, or you spank, or you withhold. You’re trying to convey a message. But your kid doesn’t focus on the message. He focuses on you. What he experiences is the talking, the gesturing, the spanking, or the withholding. That’s what he learns. You’re not an instructor. You’re a model.

Study after study documents this pattern. It suffuses every interaction between adults and children: love, cooperation, exploitation, violence. The strongest predictor of whether a child thinks it’s OK to hit kids, and whether he'll grow up to do so, is how often he’s been disciplined that way. Light spanking isn’t as bad as wielding a tree branch. But it’s part of the continuum. Researchers call this the “hidden curriculum”: Corporal punishment teaches itself.

Peterson isn’t a monster. Nor are the millions of parents who spank their children every day. Raising kids can be frustrating. You try so hard to make them behave, but they just don’t listen. You hope a spanking will get their attention, and it does. But they’re not listening to your words. They’re listening to the switch, or the belt, or the sting of your palm. With every blow, you’re losing contact. Remember that the next time you raise your hand.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/09/16/4156760/what-kids-really-learn-when-their.html?sp=/99/108/#storylink=cpy

[Dan and Judy 614]

violence works

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

violence works

What does it achieve though?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

What does it achieve though?

more violence.

[Dakine10 5,452]

What does it achieve though?

More violence.

I saw Peterson talk about how he got the same kind if "brutal whuppins" as a child and how it led to his development as a person. Part of his development is a guy who obviously has a problem with beating his own kids.