Is it time to give up spanking?

This week a video of Toya Graham beating her teenage son and dragging him away from a riot in Baltimore went viral. Parents, talk show hosts, and newscasters publicly praised her for her actions.

I, for one, disagree. Punishing one form of violence with another form of violence should not be the way we solve problems.

I am the mother of two children. One is 7 and the other is almost 3. I have never spanked either of them.

Through my own research and personal experience I have found that spanking doesn’t work.

Several years ago I conducted a study on children and discipline.

This is what I heard from children, some of whom admitted they prefer a spanking over a punishment that causes them to lose a privilege like playing a computer game or watching television:

“Spanking is simple and you can do whatever you want afterwards,” a 7-year-old told me.

“A whooping goes faster, and you can still have TV and go outside,” an 8-year-old said.

A wise-for-his-age 9-year-old also gave me his reason for why spanking doesn’t work:

“Spanking doesn’t show how to do something better; it just shows you have more power over [the child],” he said.

April 30 is National SpankOut Day, started in 1998 by the Center for Effective Discipline.

The growing awareness of the negative effects of corporal punishment has led 43 countries to pass a complete ban on the practice, including Sweden, Germany, New Zealand, Venezuela, Brazil, Kenya, and South Sudan.

However, many Americans still spank. Around 70 percent of U.S. parents still believe that spanking is an appropriate method of disciplining young children, according to the 2014 wave of the General Social Survey conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.

An argument I often hear is, “I was spanked, and I turned out okay.”

However, research conducted over the past 50 years has provided a mountain of evidence documenting negative outcomes of spanking. Children who are spanked are more likely to become angry, defiant, and even aggressive over time, because it elicits negative emotions and inadvertently teaches them that hitting can be used to solve problems. Spanking is also associated with increased stress, lower self-esteem, and greater risk of abuse.

Parents who spank are often aware of the downsides to this method, and in one of my studies almost half of the parents admitted that they felt bad after spanking their child. As one mother noted: “Spanking is almost always done in anger and I regret it immediately. It’s when I have lost my temper.”

Many also questioned its effectiveness, noting that their children continued misbehaving even though they had been spanked. One mother even revealed that when her son got angry or frustrated he would hit, and she worried that maybe spanking teaches him that hitting is okay.

The answer is: it does.

Parents are important role models to children, and when parents use hitting as a way to solve problems, it teaches children to do the same.

In my home, I do discipline my children. I just choose other methods than spanking.

Time-out worked very well for my first child, but the second one seems rather unfazed by it. Withdrawal of privileges works quite well for both of them.

For my 7-year-old the most valued privilege is computer time. The mere threat of losing that privilege is enough to make him behave. For the 2-year-old, the toy she’s playing with at that time is usually the privilege that gets taken away.

With that said, the discipline methods I use do not work all the time.

The truth is that at times nothing works. That is what parents find so frustrating. My 2-year-old is especially good at testing my patience. But in those moments I remind myself that she is not acting up just to make me mad. And if I find myself getting really frustrated, I simply walk away. Ten minutes of cooling down is usually enough to get us back on track.

In honor of National SpankOut Day, consider giving up spanking.

Try time-out. Try taking a valued privilege away. Explain calmly why the behavior was wrong, and teach your children alternative behaviors to reach the goal they were seeking with the misbehavior.

It is time to recognize that spanking is not necessary and that other lower risk discipline techniques are a better option.