Spankers and Nonspankers

Wendy Walsh

Vanessa Hernandez

March 25, 2015

Sociology 04

In the past, spanking was accepted more often than it is today. Social acceptance has a lot to do with this. Corporal punishment is defined in the text as the use of physical force with the intention of causing a child to experience pain but not injury, for purposes of correction or control of the child’s behavior. A few examples of this type of punishment would be a slap on the hand or leg, spanking on the buttocks and pinching. According to the text, 67% of all parents use some type of corporal punishment. To further break his statistic down, parents were asked to give a breakdown of age and type of punishment. Therefore, parents were asked if they spanked a child’s bottom with a hand and 72% of parents to two to four year olds did this, 71% of parents to five to eight year olds, 43% of parents to nine to twelve year olds and lastly, 14% of parents to thirteen to seventeen year olds.

Factors that affect the reasoning for spanking include the age of child, age and gender of parent, socioeconomic status, circumstances and cultural norms. Younger parents are more likely to spank than older parents and woman are more likely to spank than men. Also, parents who were hit as children are more likely to spank their children. The Southern region uses corporal punishment more than other regions. Some of the negative effects of excessive spanking mentioned in the text include antisocial behavior of children, physical aggression and depression. However, some research shows that the negative effects vary by age and ethnicity of child. Approval of spanking has gone down over the years. In 1968 there was an approval rate of94% and in 1994 it was at 68%. However, 94% of parents reported using corporal punishment for their children ages three to four years old.

Advice on spanking does not come easy. Four out of ten parents want advice from health professionals about discipline but only 23 % of parents reported discussing discipline with their children’s pediatrician. Often parents resort to advice from family and friends. However, advice from these sources isn’t the best.

In the text on page 129 it stats that, “The health belief model looks beyond the individual to consider how macro level norms and environmental supports encourage individuals to change behaviors. These environmental supports include social support, availability and accessibility of services and the mass media. Basically, the research was to compare spankers and nonspankers on the importance of sources of discipline information, the nature of spanking advice from these sources and the intensity of messages toward recommending and opposing spanking. The need for change on the attitude of spanking was the motive.

The data were from a study conducted in two counties in Minnesota by the University of New Hampshire in 1993 to evaluate effectiveness of a program to change attitudes and behavior about corporal punishment. A 20 minute telephone interview was conducted, 998 mothers answered about 130 questions about child behavior problems, discipline information sources, parenting practices, personality and family issues. Random digit dialing was used to select a sample of mothers of children aged two to fourteen. At the time of study, mothers were chosen as the respondents because mothers have more day to day child-care responsibilities. The mothers who were used as the respondents were primarily from two parent families and from first marriages. The average age of the mothers was about 37 years old, they had an average of about two children and it was equally divided between boy and girl children. Also, the sample was almost completely white and over 48% had at least some college education.

The respondents were asked questions about eight resources and how important the information from those resources was in regards to spanking. The results showed that 35.6% of the mothers reported spanking one or more times in the past six months. The reason for this low percentage could be the location of the study and that parents of older children made up more than half the sample. There were no differences between spankers and nonspankers in the importance of information sources. Both groups stated that pediatricians, workshops and magazines are very useful in regards to information about discipline. However, less than 15% of both groups stated relatives and friends as very important sources. The two main differences between spankers and nonspankers were the percentage rate of how important psychologists and workshops were. Spankers had a lower percentage for both. Nonspankers had a higher percentage, stating that both workshops and psychologists are important.

The text stated that as the child gets older, the chances of spanking decrease each year by 16%. Research shows that mothers use sources to help with disciplining their children. Increasing the understanding of the importance of knowledge on discipline is key. The findings based off the research shows how important articles, newspapers and magazines are to mothers in regard to discipline advice.

Discussion Questions

  1. Why do you think woman are more likely to spank their children versus men?
  2. Do you think that a parent’s economic status has anything to do with whether they would spank or not spank their children?
  3. Do you think that parents with more education are less likely to spank their children as opposed to parents with less education?