8 August 2007
WRITTEN SUBMISSION
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Portfolio Committee on Social
Development
HEARINGS ON THE
CHILDREN’S AMENDMENT BILL
(B19B of 2006)
Section 139
SUBMISSION PRESENTED BY
DOCTORS FOR LIFE INTERNATIONAL
Zimbali
4418
DISCIPLINE OF CHILDREN (Corporal
Punishment) with specific reference to Section 139 of the Children’s Amendment
Bill
Introduction
Several specialities of the medical
profession are concerned with the area of the results of physical punishment by
parents of children. Parents often consult primary care medical doctors and
family doctors as to the best way to discipline children. Psychiatrists are
concerned with both the abusing parent and the abused child, and thus have an
input into the subject. Paediatricians and paediatric surgeons receive
physically damaged children into their care.
Parents in a democratic society rear
their offspring with different values and perspectives ensuring a desirable
diversity in child rearing goals and outcomes. The state has significant
interests in the well-being of its youth. In the absence of compelling evidence
that socially approved practices have harmful effects; the state promotes
children's welfare by respecting family privacy and parental autonomy in
child-rearing decisions. Thus the state protects the supportive and guiding
features of family life that contribute to children’s well-being and minimises
unnecessary intrusions into family life that are psychologically threatening to
children by undermining their trust on parental authority, even when intended
to advance their ‘best’ interests. The ethical problem governing state
intervention into family life is to determine when on balance state
intervention will yield greater benefit than harm to children. The main studies
done on physical punishment have been regarding physical punishment by parents,
and no inferences are made in this submission to other persons who may be in a
position to administer physical punishment to children, for example teachers at
school.
The whole question of physical
punishment in the home is controversial. The obvious reason for this is that,
in the past there were few scientific studies to give guidance regarding the
correct way to discipline a child. Recently there have been some excellent,
scientifically sound studies. DFL Int. urges the Portfolio Committee to take
note of the sound scientific evidence regarding physical punishment of children
in the home that now exists. A major literature review of corporal punishment
in childhood showed that, while certain types of physical punishment such as
harsh beatings are harmful, mild to moderate corporal punishment, particularly
when used to discipline the younger child, is not harmful. Any new law must not
be based on whichever opinion is popular at the time, but on the best
scientific evidence available.
The best scientific studies of
physical punishment in the home demonstrated beneficial, not detrimental,
effects of appropriate physical punishment in specific situations. There is
insufficient evidence to condemn parental appropriate corporal punishment and
adequate evidence to justify its proper use. The critical issue is how
appropriate corporal punishment is used more than whether it is used. The
arguments of those who consider appropriate physical punishment of children to
be harmful are not supported by scientific studies with a good research design.
Interestingly, most of these arguments can be used against other forms of
discipline. Any form of discipline (grounding, restriction, etc.), when used
inappropriately and in anger, can result in distorting a child’s perception of
justice and harming his emotional development.
Distinguishing Appropriate Corporal
Punishment From Abuse
Corporal / physical punishment is
often defined broadly as bodily punishment of any kind. Since this definition
includes spanking and other mild to moderate forms of corporal punishment as
well as obviously abusive acts such as kicking, punching, beating, face
slapping, and even starvation, more specific definitions must be used to
separate appropriate versus inappropriate corporal punishment.
Appropriate corporal punishment is
designed to be aversive without necessarily inflicting pain and definitely
without doing physical or emotional damage. It is one of many disciplinary
responses available to parents intended to shape appropriate behaviour in the
developing toddler and child. It is an adjunctive corrective measure, to be
used in combination with primary responses such as restraint, natural and
logical consequences, grounding, and restriction of privileges.
Following
is a Comparison Between Appropriate Corporal Punishment and Physical Abuse:
|
|
Appropriate
physical punishment |
Physical
Abuse |
|
The
Act |
Applied
to the buttocks using hand or other appropriate object |
Beating:
To strike repeatedly (also kick, punch, choke) |
|
The
Intent |
Training:
To correct problem behaviour |
Violence:
Physical force intended to injure or abuse |
|
The
Attitude |
With
love and concern: |
With
anger and malice |
|
The
Effects |
Behavioural
correction No emotional or Physical
injury |
Emotional
and physical injury |
It is important to recognise that
well structured studies do not show predominantly detrimental outcomes
associated with non-abusive physical punishment.
Child development experts believe
appropriate corporal punishment should be used mainly as a backup to primary
measures, and then independently to correct deliberate and persistent problem
behaviour that is not remedied with milder measures. It is most useful with
toddlers and preschoolers from 18 months to 6 years of age, when reasoning is
less persuasive.
Moreover, child development experts
say that appropriate corporal punishment should always be a planned action by a
parent, not an impulsive reaction to misbehaviour. The child should be
forewarned of the appropriate corporal punishment consequence for each of the
designated problem behaviours. Appropriate corporal punishment should always be
administered in private. One method consists of one or two spanks to the
child’s buttocks, followed by a calm review of the offence and the desired
behaviour. A stronger willed child will require more than one or two spanks,
but the parent who knows the child can ascertain what degree of correction is
needed for the individual from experience. Others would prefer something other
than the parent’s hand, for instance a slipper. It is, of course, important
that the amount of force is monitored, whatever is used. An adult hand can
easily damage a child (as can any other object). The important factor is that
the correction is administered with love and without anger or malice. This
makes the risks of injury, whether emotional or physical, vanishingly remote.
Does Appropriate Corporal Punishment
Teach Children Violence And Aggression?
Scientific studies have shown that
appropriate corporal punishment is not adversely related to aggressiveness,
delinquency, and psychological ill-health. Quality of parenting is the chief
determinant of favourable or unfavourable outcomes. Remarkably, childhood
aggressiveness has been more closely linked to maternal permissiveness and
negative criticism than to even abusive physical discipline.
It is unrealistic to expect that
children would never hit others if their parents would only exclude spanking
from their discipline options. Most children in their toddler years (long
before they are ever spanked) naturally attempt to hit others when conflict or
frustration arises. Whether this behaviour continues is largely determined by
how the parent or caregiver responds. If correctly disciplined, the hitting
will become less frequent. Instead of contributing to greater violence,
appropriate corporal punishment can be a useful component in an overall plan to
effectively teach a child to stop aggressive hitting.
Any form of discipline (withholding
of privileges, restriction, etc.), when used inappropriately and in anger, can
distort a child’s perception of justice and harm his emotional development.
Studies have shown no significant correlation between the frequency of
appropriate corporal punishment and the anger reported by mothers. Mothers who
reported being angry were not the same parents who spanked.
Reactive, impulsive hitting after
losing control due to anger is unquestionably the wrong way for a parent to use
corporal punishment. When effective appropriate corporal punishment is removed
from a parent’s disciplinary repertoire, he or she is left with nagging,
begging, belittling, and yelling, once the primary disciplinary measures such
as withholding of privileges and logical consequences have failed. By contrast,
if appropriate corporal punishment is proactively used in conjunction with other
disciplinary measures, better control of the particularly defiant child can be
achieved, and moments of exasperation are less likely to occur.
Is Appropriate Physical Punishment
Harmful To A Child?
Any disciplinary measure, physical,
verbal or emotional, carried to an extreme can harm a child. Excessive scolding
and berating of a child by a parent is emotionally harmful. Excessive use of
isolation (withholding of privileges) for unreasonable periods of time can
humiliate a child and ruin the measure's effectiveness. Obviously, excessive or
indiscriminate physical punishment is harmful and abusive. However, an
appropriately administered spanking of a forewarned disobedient child is not
harmful when administered in a loving controlled manner. There is no evidence
that proper disciplinary appropriate corporal punishment is harmful to the
child. The effects of spanking depend on
the meaning the child ascribes to the spanking. In turn, this meaning depends
on the normative standards of the community, and the extent to which the child
perceives the parent as loving, responsive and committed to the child's
welfare. There are no negative correlates of appropriate corporal punishment
for youth who perceive their parents as loving and fair.
Does Appropriate Physical Punishment
Make A Child Angry With The Parents?
All forms of punishment initially
elicit a frustrated, angry response from a child. Progression of this anger is
dependent primarily upon the parent's attitude during and after the
disciplinary event, and the manner of its application. Any form of punishment
administered angrily for purposes of retribution, rather than calmly for
purposes of correction, can create anger and resentment in a child. Actually,
appropriate corporal punishment can break the escalating rage of a rebellious
child and more quickly restore the relationship between parent and child.
Does Appropriate Physical Punishment
Teach A Child That “Might Makes Right,” That Power And Strength Are Most
Important And That The Biggest Can Force Their Will Upon The Smallest?
Parental power is commonly exerted
in routine child rearing and appropriate physical punishment is only one
example. Other situations where power and restraint are exercised by the
average parent include:
· The
young child who insists on running from his parent in a busy shopping mall
or parking lot.
· The
toddler who refuses to sit in his car seat.
· The
young patient who refuses to lie still as a vaccination is administered, or as
a
wound is sutured.
Power and control over the child are
necessary at times to ensure safety, health and proper behaviour. Classic child
rearing studies have shown that some degree of power, assertion, and firm
control is essential for optimal child rearing. When power is exerted in the
context of love and for the child's benefit, the child will not perceive it as
bullying or demeaning.
Is Appropriate Corporal Punishment
‘Violence’?
Physical punishment, as recommended
by most medical practitioners, is not violence by definition (“exertion of
physical force so as to injure or abuse”) Parents who use appropriate physical
punishment properly do not injure or abuse their child.
Is Appropriate Physical Punishment
Effective In Disciplining A Child?
There is evidence of the short-term
and long-term effectiveness of the use of appropriate physical punishment. When
combined with reasoning, the use of negative consequences (including spanking)
effectively decreases the frequency of misbehaviour recurrences with preschool
children. In clinical field trials where parental appropriate physical
punishment has been studied, it has consistently been found to reduce the
subsequent frequency of non-compliance with being grounded. Physical
punishment, as an effective enforcer of with-holding of privileges, is a
component of several well-researched parent training programmes and popular
parenting texts.
Another study “did not indicate that
negative reinforcement or appropriate physical punishment per se were harmful
or ineffective procedures, but rather the total patterns of parental control
determined the effects on the child of these procedures.”
Several child-rearing experts
advocate this approach of balanced parenting, employing the occasional use of
appropriate physical punishment. In the hands of loving parents, a spanking to
the buttocks of a defiant toddler in appropriate settings is a powerful
motivator to correct behaviour, and an effective deterrent to disobedience.
Do Adults
Who Received Appropriate Physical Punishment As Children Use Violence As A
Means Of Resolving Conflicts As Adults?
A thorough review of the literature
shows that any association between appropriate physical punishment and
antisocial aggressiveness in children is insignificant and artificial. Experts
have found no association between appropriate physical punishment (including
spanking) and later aggression, but that other variables like parental
nurturance and children’s identification with their parents were more important
in predicting later aggression.
Does Appropriate Physical Punishment
Lead A Parent To Use Harmful Forms Of Corporal Punishment That Lead To Physical
Child Abuse?
Both empirical data and professional
opinion oppose the concept of a causal relationship between spanking and child
abuse. Parental child abuse is an interactive process involving parental
competence, parental and child temperaments, and situational demands.The
aetiology of abusive parenting is multi-factorial, with emphasis on the
personalities involved; it cannot be simply explained by a parent’s use of
appropriate corporal punishment.
The Swedish experiment to reduce
child abuse by banning appropriate physical punishment has failed. Different
studies have shown both child abuse and teenage violence have increased since
appropriate physical punishment was banned.
Most experts agree that appropriate
physical punishment and child abuse are not on the same continuum, but are very
different entities. The proper use of appropriate physical punishment may
actually reduce a parent's risk of abusing the child.
Is Appropriate Physical Punishment
Never Necessary?
A significant body of child experts
agree that children need a combination of encouragement and correction as they
are disciplined to become socially responsible individuals. In order for
correction to deter disobedient behaviour, the consequence imposed upon the
child must outweigh the pleasure of the disobedient act. For very compliant
children, milder forms of correction will suffice and physical punishment may
never be necessary. For more defiant children who refuse to comply with or be
persuaded by milder consequences such as withholding of privileges, appropriate
physical punishment is useful, effective, and appropriate. The conditional use
of appropriate corporal punishment rather than reliance on appropriate corporal
punishment characterises effective parents.
Recommendation:
In the
light of the discussion above, Doctors for Life International propose that
Section 139 of the present Children’s Amendment Bill be changed to allow for
moderate, restrained and reasonable corporal punishment that is not cruel,
inhuman or degrading.
(Note:
References to studies mentioned in this submission can be provided to the
Portfolio Committee on request)