Should you hit your children?

The debate about the corporal punishment is as old as the stick that's used for it. And we are quite emotional when asked about it.

I was with few women recently when one of them brought up the question. The response was immediate and emphatic: Yes! Children need a "light" smack once in awhile when the situation calls for it. For example, one woman said, if my child runs out of the house and into the street, a good smack will let him know not to do it again.

Will he do it again? If the into-the-street incident happens more than once, does one conclude that the child needs harsher punishment or, just maybe, that hitting does not and will not work (my stance)?

I can remember smacking one of my children. Fortunately, it didn't happen more than once. And the shock on her face was something that I'll never forget. I didn't do it again. It was hurtful for both of us.

I believe that we have confused discipline with punishment. Even the psychological tool of time-out has become a form of punishment rather than a helpful cooling-off period.

We need to set firm limits with our children. Limits and authority provide them with a sense of security and predictability. On the other hand, hitting - even if we think that we are doing so without anger - does not convey authority. On the contrary, when we hit our children we indicate that we lack confidence in our own ability to govern.

I came across a beautiful example of parenting, as recalled by the cartoonist Mel Lazarus in an article in the Sunday NY Times of May 28, 1995 entitled, "Angry Fathers."* Here is a summary:

"It was August 1938, at a Catskill Mountains boarding house. One hot Friday afternoon three of us - 9-year-old city boys - got to feeling listless... What we needed, on this unbearably boring afternoon, was some action." We decided to make our mark on the new casino. We picked up a long, wooden bench and used it as a battering ram, bashing it into a wall. Pretty soon, there was hardly a good square of sheetrock left.

Suddenly, the owner appeared in the doorway. He was furious. When they arrived from the city that night, he would tell our fathers! By six o'clock he stood at the driveway, grimly waiting for the fathers to start showing up. The first one, when he heard, took off his belt and viciously whipped his screaming son. The second knocked his son off his feet and, as the boy lay crying on the grass, kicked him. I wondered: What will my father do?

When my father came and was told what happened, I watched him follow the owner into the casino. When they emerged, my father stared at me for a long moment without expression. Then he got into his car and drove away! Where was he going?

An hour later my father came back. Tied onto the top of his car was a stack of huge sheetrock boards. Without a word, he untied it and one by one carried the boards into the casino. He spent the night there. All night long I could hear the banging of my father's hammer. I couldn't sleep, knowing what he was doing.

The next day my father didn't say a single word about the night before. We had a regular day, he, my mother and I.

"Was he mad at me? You bet he was. But in a time when many of his generation saw corporal punishment of their children as a G-d-given right, he knew "spanking" as beating, and beating as criminal. And that when kids were beaten, they always remembered the pain but often forgot the reason."

"I never forgot that my vandalism on that August afternoon was outrageous. And I'll never forget that it was also the day I first understood how deeply I could trust him."

*Quoted in Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting, by Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn, NY: Hyperion,1997,pp. 58-62.