mls88br asked this question on 2/21/2000:

Is spanking a child Child Abuse?

nemesis2 gave this response on 2/22/2000:

Personally as well as professionally I think that absolute power corupts absolutely - dominance over weaker or smaller people is wrong. Mostly people hit a child in anger rather than spank as a forwarned and controlled method of discipline and this teaches children that is okay to react strongly and even violently to angry feelings. The other thing about this sort of discipline is that in order for a child to fear - and fear is what reinforces the punishment- one needs to increase the intensity of the "spank". So, in answer to your question, is spanking child abuse? It can lead to it. Other methods of discipline are just as effective if not more. Most children cannot stand to be left out of the action, for them, time-out options can be useful if applied moderately. removal of priveledges is also a good method, and my personal favourite is to ignore bad behaviour and praise good behaviour, this way we teach children choice and consequences. Children are very smart, given the choice, they look for positive rewards for pro-social behaviour. However, negative attention in the form of yelling or hitting is better than no attention so if they miss out on positive attention they'll get it any way they can.

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