It’s not Video Games Teaching our Kids Violence It’s Parents and Schools
Spanking Children Teaches them to be Violent When they Don’t Like What Someone is Doing
In the 2020–21 school year, when my oldest daughter was in middle school, one of the teachers of her seventh grade class asked the students to raise their hands if their parents spanked them. Many hands went up, but not my daughter’s. I don’t hit her.
The teacher went on to say that those who didn’t get spanked should. I complained to the school about the teacher advocating violence in the classroom. The principal told me that since most parents approve of spanking, he couldn’t see what was wrong with the teacher’s actions.
I reminded him that as a school administrator, he had the responsibility to make sure nobody was advocating violence, and that scientific studies say that children ought not to be spanked. He shrugged and said I was the only parent that had a problem with it, and that this was Mississippi and this is who we are are, and that I would have to get used to it.
He claimed she was one of the best teachers in the district (15,000 student district) and that I needed to show more respect for his staff. I told him I didn’t respect people that would advocate violence in the classroom, especially someone that is an educator who should value education enough to believe educated professionals.
Cassville School District in Missouri is making news headlines for the resurrection of spanking in schools. They justify it by saying parents wanted a substitute for suspension, and that parents have to sign permission to opt in. What else is horrific is that the district had only discontinued the practice as late as 2001.
Schools are supposed to be places of education, and science is clear that spanking children being detrimental to them, and yet the school district, not caring about what educated professionals are saying, are clearly against education when it doesn’t suit their purposes. Their own public health officials are telling them that spanking is harmful to children.
Any parent who signs such a permission slip, and any school staff member that carries out the punishment needs to have CPS called on them, as those who work in schools are mandatory reporters. This means they have to report any case of child abuse they know about or even suspect, and spanking is abuse.
The people who are okay with spanking are usually the ones claiming that video games are making children violent. At least video games are not real. Spanking a child is real, and if you commit an act of violence becuase your child did something you don’t like, your child will learn that it’s okay to use violence to get what they want.
It isn’t the video games, it’s the real-life violence. Parents who bully their children with threats of violence, who assault their children, are the ones teaching that violence solves problems. With bullying on the rise, bullying a child into compliance means they will use the same tactics on others.
With mass shootings on the rise, we need to be teaching children nonviolent ways of solving things (and removing the guns). A commitment to nonviolence in parenting and life means that children will learn how to communicate using their words instead of their fists, or a gun. Children model the behavior they see.
I’ve seen many ridiculous claims on the news articles about this school district:
- “I was spanked and I turned out fine.”
If you think that spanking is an appropriate form of discipline, you did not “turn out fine,” you are continuing the cycle of violence. - “Spanking and hitting are two different things.”
In what universe? You have to hit a child in order to spank them. That’s literally how you spank a child, but repeatedly hitting them with something. If you don’t hit the child it’s not a spanking. - “Spanking is not abuse.”
Spanking is assault. It’s an assault on a child, someone smaller than you. If I as an adult spanked another adult because I was upset they did something I didn’t like, I’d be arrested for assault. It isn’t automatically not assault and abuse when it’s done to a child. - “Spanking makes children more respectful and they behave better.”
In other words, assaulting children scares them into doing what they have to do to survive the violence they are forced to live with.
Spanking children is more than just a bad idea. It’s abuse no matter who administers it. There will be power plays, and staff who hate particular students will use it as revenge. Children will be left with injuries, especially if those administering the paddle are angry at the time.
It’s also a lazy way of getting a kid to do what you want them to do. The people who are pro-spanking are often the ones who want to micromanage children and make up certain rules for the purpose of control.
We as a society need to not only ban spanking, but make it something that is heavily looked down on. We need to protect the children from abuse, and we need to teach children that violence does not solve problems. Not ever.
