Corporal Punishment – Low Self-Control and Low Self-Esteem

Murray Straus, a professor at the University of New Hampshire, found that children who were spanked or experienced other corporal punishment are at greater risk as adolescents and adults of verbally or physically forcing their partner to have sex.

Straus analyzed a study, International Dating Violence, of more than 14,000 college students at 68 universities in 32 countries. Students were asked if they had been frequently spanked or beaten before the age of 12 and if they had coerced a sexual partner in the previous 12 months. “It’s more evidence that parents shouldn’t spank if their child’s well-being is at stake,” Straus said.

The study revealed that men who experienced corporal punishment were four times more likely to physically force their partner to have sex than those who had not experienced corporal punishment. Coercion includes holding someone down or hitting them. Women who experienced corporal punishment were also more likely to force their partner to have sex than those who had not been spanked.

Presenting the findings at a summit of the American Psychological Association, Straus said: “People generalize that the use of coercion, physical coercion, is okay. They learn it from the people they love and respect: their parents.”

Straus said this study is consistent with other studies, which show that corporal punishment leads to low self-control and self-esteem, as well as aggressiveness, antisocial personalities, and an understanding that violence is okay, which can lead to sexual coercion. . He stressed that there are alternative ways of disciplining children that work better and have no side effects.

Alice Miller, the foremost psychologist who has dedicated her career to child abuse in its many forms, including physical abuse, emotional abuse, and child sexual abuse, presented the same results as Straus. Miller studied and wrote about the effects of poisonous pedagogy on children and lasting into adulthood, and the resulting effects on society as a whole.

Twenty-one states allow corporal punishment at school. In the 2004-2005 school year, 272,028 school-age children in the US were subjected to physical punishment. This is a significant drop of nearly 10%, continuing a consistent trend since the early 1980s. This statistic does not include corporal punishment in the home.

States that allow corporal punishment are: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania (some school districts corporal punishment prohibited), Tennessee, Texas, Wyoming.

Study of 8,000 American families revealed (Straus, MA & Yodanis, CL, 1994.) 78% of state paddlers achieved below the national average at the fourth grade level in reading. 75% of the rowing states achieved below the national average in reading at the eighth grade level (Center for Effective Discipline, 2004). Sixty-seven percent of Ohio’s rowing schools fell into the bottom 25% of schools on state school report cards in the 99-00 school year (Center for Effective Discipline, 2001).

Miller shows, with the help of her research, books, articles, interviews, and responses to emails from readers on her website, that child abuse, such as hitting and humiliation, not only makes children unhappy and confused, it doesn’t only destructive teenagers and abusive parents, but also a confused society, which works irrationally.

Miller sees the roots of global violence in the fact that children are beaten around the world, especially during their early years when their brains are being structured. The damage caused by this practice is devastating, but sadly society rarely connects the dots. The facts are easy to understand: children are forbidden to defend themselves against violence, their only recourse is to drive natural reactions like anger and fear deep into their psyche, and they vent these strong emotions later, as adults, against themselves. children or entire nations. Miller illustrates this dynamic in his books using not only his case histories, but also his many studies of the biographies of famous dictators and artists. The avoidance of this problem in all societies known to her reveals that grossly irrational behavior, brutality, sadism, and other perversions can go unmolested in families (who claim the right to “discipline” their children and products can be considered as “genetically conditioned.” Alice Miller believes that only through awareness of this dynamic can we break the chain of violence, she dedicated her life’s work to this enlightenment.

Alice Miller developed a concept of therapy that suggests that we must confront our history and acknowledge and thereby reduce the still unconscious, but very active fear of the internally battered child. When we finally get to feel our justification, anger, and outrage instead of denying it, we can become autonomous and free to choose how to live our lives, free from religious rhetoric or family tradition. . Because it is this childhood fear of abusive parents that leads adults to abuse their own children, as well as to live with serious illnesses instead of taking seriously the cruelties once suffered. Countless esoteric and “religious” offerings serve to obscure the pain resulting from torture once suffered, but completely denied.

Miller believes that his discovery, despite its tragic aspects, actually holds very optimistic options because it opens the door to consciousness, to becoming aware of childhood reality and, therefore, to liberation from its destructive consequences. He understands his search for the reality of childhood as a strong opposition to psychoanalysis which, in his opinion, remains in the old tradition of blaming the child and protecting the parents. For this reason, Miller resigned his membership in the International Psychoanalytic Association in 1988.

Alice Miller’s work reveals:

o Poor children, minorities, children with disabilities, and children are beaten more often in schools, sometimes at a rate 2-5 times that of other children.

o Academic performance is a risk factor in the use of corporal punishment of children.

o Significantly more school shooting deaths were found in states that allow corporal punishment in schools than in states that do not.

o School violence has not increased as the use of paddles has decreased. Violent crime in schools has declined dramatically since 1994. The annual rate of serious violent crime in 2003 (6 per 1,000 students) was less than half the rate in 1994.

o There is overwhelming evidence that harsh interventions harm children, both emotionally and physically. The effects of such trauma can be compounded when a child has pre-existing learning difficulties. When schools respond to these challenges using harsh methods, children can be further traumatized.

o Corporal punishment in schools is more widely used in the southern and southwestern states and in rural districts than in urban and suburban districts.

o Corporal punishment has been abolished in over 100 countries around the world, but not in the US.

o Corporal punishment teaches children that violence is an acceptable way to solve problems. Research shows that this message is taught to those who inflict pain, to those who receive it, and to those who witness it.

o Corporal punishment of children is related to less internalization of moral rules, more aggression, more antisocial behavior, more criminality, higher mental health outcomes, more abusive adult behaviors, and more risk of being a victim of abusive relationships in the workplace. adulthood.

o Corporal punishment reinforces physical aggression as an acceptable and effective means of eliminating unwanted behavior in our society.