Parental spanking, forbidden by 24 countries, shown to lower kids' IQ; Why are American parents still slapping the smart out of our children?+
From the University of New Hampshire, a profound study. Corporal punishment is an appropriate form of discipline only if one intends to diminish the child’s intellect.and as much a double the chance of diagnosing PTSD in adulthood.
Prof. Murray Straus shows a linear, “dose-related” response in lowered National IQ correlating to the frequency with which that nation’s parents spanked. their children.
Provocative though these findings are, they are certainly not unpredictable or counterintuitive.
The shocker is in the 66 comments to the original L.A Times.blog post referencing the study.
A disturbing sprinkling of commenters accepted the findings or (quibbled ineffectually) and professed their undiminished adherence to the imposition corporal discipline (often referencing with nostalgia spankings they themselves received as children…)
Thus::
“spanking a child, not beating, has nothing to do with IQ. In honesty, it probably helps most kids to be better mannered and respectful”
Of course, the simple assertion that the study’s findings will not be permitted to encumber the responder’s thinking falls somewhat short of reasoned discourse; the attempted distinction between “spanking” and “beating” is merely pathetic.
“I’m sure (emphasis added) spanking lowers IQ if you just spanked the kid and then gave them the IQ test. What about the ethical/moral foundation spanking provides?…The spanking I received as a kid was the best punishment for me…my parents cared enough to go to the trouble to correct my bad behavior”
Besides wilfully misstating the premise of the study (No one rushed in with an IQ test just after a brutalization by the parent), this beacon of parental intervention seems to think that the periodic experience of parent-inflicted terror is an essential building block of character.
A shocker in the study proper is the news that much spanking is done to babies as young as ONE YEAR OLD!!
24 nations forbid this sort of systematic brutalization of their own children.
That we permit it is surely another instance of American Exceptionalism to which the embattled armies of Reaction will point with pride!
I cannot share their breast swelling emotion. Personally, it makes me want to puke.
(Just parenthetically, yes, once again, I blame the Yahwists…)
My husband's nephew just married into a family that is integrated into Pastor Doug Wilson's Calvinist souther-reconstructionist church and "college" in Moscow, Idaho. Besides being an apologist for slavery, Pastor Doug requires male congregants to carry wooden spoons in their back pockets during services. If children are crossing some line, they are to be whacked with said spoon. The nephew's parents used to send us books by Focus on the Family's James Dobson, advising us to hit our kids with a stick, his contention being that "the child then understands that it is not mom or dad, but THE STICK, that is punishing the child. They sent us this book to "help us" with our adopted daughter who had fetal alcohol effect and of course, mental health issues. One of them volunteered that her problem was, rather, that "Indians perform witchcraft," and that was likely the Culprit.
Our daughter married a christianist; they sometimes went to ted haggard's church. Her husband spanks the kids, against all my pleas and explanations. Among other things, it causes many kids to become bullies; my daughter is seeing it now, and MAY be starting to do better. I had emailed her that study recently, hoping it might help buttress the arguments for "discipline" vs. "punishment."
In many of those Family Values venues, kids and wives are both essentially Property.
October 1, 2009 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Our daughter married a christianist; they sometimes went to ted haggard's church. Her husband spanks the kids
Wendy, I have been struggling to respond to your comment since it was made (first in/first out is my usual approach...)
I don't know anyone personally with the orientations you allude to, and if I were in your spot I would be, (as Im sure you are), frantic for my daughter and grandchildren.
These are the precise sorts of situations which cry out for the legislative sanction that leads the OP title.
How else to break the cycle of Yahweh empowered pathology that replicates from damaged generation to damaged generation?
Your path would be clear if you could point to the statute start dialling 911. Absent that alternative, your interventions can only be philosophical, as you mention.
What is it about the interaction of these parents and their kids that brings out this tyrannical thirst to coerce not modification of behavior but "attitude adjustment".
Why would you want to teach your kids to lie to you?
October 6, 2009 2:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, I'm not advocating beating a child, but spanking serves a purpose. It keeps the kid humble. I'm the oldest of my parents 3 sons. Myself and the elder of my two counterparts were spanked routinely whenever we crossed the line with our behavior. Our youngest brother seldom, if ever, was disciplined as such. He gradually turned into a spoiled brat through his teen years and now is much the same in college (this is not my reading alone, my middle brother and my mother agree on this point- we'll ignore my father's babying and pandering to him over the years for now- although it is without question another major factor).
Through my personal experience, I've come into the opinion that stern (but not harsh) discipline by the parents is necessary for developing a well- adjusted person. The problem is defining stern vs abuse, and assuming the parents themselves are sufficiently well-adjusted to know where that line lies.
October 1, 2009 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
You conflate corporal punishment with discipline? This is a failure of imagination.
October 1, 2009 7:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tables and graphs that spell out constructive corrections of children by parents:
http://www.parentlink.act.gov.au/parenting_guides/dr_john/punishment
October 1, 2009 11:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think environmental conditions are much more likely than spankings to produce this effect. The spankings are most likely a secondary sympton of the environmental conditions, rather than a cause of the effect being measured. In other words, poverty-stricken people without access to quality healthcare are more likely to have children with developmental problems resulting in lowered I.Q. These same people are also more likely to spank their children rather than engage with them, teach them, and help them learn.
They are also more likely to drive older cars. But you can't very well say that driving an old car lowers a child's I.Q.
In addition to environment, I suspect it is the lack of engagement, the easy path to discipline afforded by corporal punishment, rather than the hard work of effective parenting, that results in lowered I.Q. It could be anything. The main factor isn't the brutality, because most spankings aren't brutal and don't scar the child, it's the lack of parental engagement, of which spanking is just the outward expression.
October 1, 2009 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, talk about misinterpreting statistics :P
What the study has found that the dumber the nation, the more spankings it gives.
October 1, 2009 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
(Within parameters of stupidity that IQ actually tests, naturally. That is an entirely different discussion.)
October 1, 2009 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Entirely.
October 1, 2009 5:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would say not only that... but lower IQ scores may not indicate lower intelligence but greater test anxiety.
October 1, 2009 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
That, too.
October 2, 2009 9:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
I can agree that the results might not be due to: post hoc, ergo propter hoc (after it, therefore because of it). Lots of studies don't look far enough into related causes.
One of my objections to spanking is that it is often done in anger, and often goes too far. It is also predicated on the fact that an adult is bigger and more powerful physically, and I think that sends the wrong message to kids. In my mind, I can easily make the leap to nations: we have bigger weapons than you, so you will do this or that.
As for your baby brother, handgrenaid, I would guess that he was treated differently in many respects, not just not being spanked.
All kids need to grow up knowing that there are consequences for there behavior, and I think that is where the best discipline lies.
I think the possibility of turning kids into bullies is even more serious than lowering their IQ points; IQ is a notoriously poor predictor of wise behavior.
I also wonder if those of you who were spanked and are more okay with it, had NOT been spanked, your opinions might be different.
October 1, 2009 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is often done in anger, but strangely enough I think kids deal with that pretty well. They also lash out, so they can understand it, to a certain extent.
It's the cold, calculating, methodical, formal spanking that instills real and lasting terror. Children have a hard time grasping how a parent can so purposefully inflict pain.
October 1, 2009 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: forbidden by 24 countries, why not the U.S.?
I looked at the list, and strikes me that with the exception of New Zealand and Venezuela, they are not multicultural societies.
Just sayin'.
You do know that a preference for spanking is not exclusive to white fundies, right?
I'm not attempting to defend it, but I am saying that this is a "culture wars" type issue that involves quite a few cultures, more than the usual two tag teams, and unfortunately, for many, it gets into the territory of interfering in private lives.
I recall that the influence of Dr. Spock's advice on this front actually caused a counter-reaction concerning a certain generation, scientific evidence or no.
Forcing culture change, it's not an easy thing.
P.S. In my quick google for something along the lines of the link above, I also ran across this, which suggests things are not as simple on this front as they first seem:
October 1, 2009 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Forcing culture change
They may have a culture where respect flows from the young to their caregivers if the caregivers will behave respectably towards the young.
They can have any fuckin' culture they want--they cant commit *assault and battery on any person, (even if that person is their child who loves and trusts them above all other adults...)
*They can restrain these people--"time out". I'm not talking about no discipline--I just want to rule out brutality and its threat as a technique of behavior mod.
October 1, 2009 8:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
My brother and I got spanked. It instills discipline. I've never commited a crime for fear of what my parents would do to me. My parents were always complimented on our behavior growing up. My kids are spanked by me, only, because my wife just can't bring herself to do it. Guess which one of us goes crazy because the kids don't listen sometimes? Not me. My kids are tops in their class, too. We are complimented on our kids' behavior all the time. I'll just leave it to others to raise their own kids. I'll raise mine. I just know what I'd love to do to some of the spoiled, wild and loud kids that yell at and hit their parents and throw tantrums in the stores.
October 1, 2009 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Having been spanked, and having spanked my own children a few times, I have found that the discipline spankings instill is shallow and short-lived. Both of my children are now to the point where a spanking would be destructive to the discipline we have built based on respect and understanding, rather than fear. I would still spank them if I felt it was needed, but I prefer not to let a situation reach that point.
We also receive compliments from strangers about how well-behaved our children are.
October 1, 2009 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not surprised that your children do exactly what you tell them to do. They will no doubt spank their own children. When strangers notice that your children are perfectly behaved, to the point that they COMMENT on it, it makes me think you have a very unhappy family.
Ask your kids about it. If they disagree with your assessment, you can always beat the shit out of them until they comply.
October 1, 2009 7:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
you can always beat the shit out of them until they comply
If by "comply" you mean "lie"
When some monster slaps a one year old reaching for candy in the supermarket check out line, it is an alternative to moving the fucking cart away from the candy! The baby has no alternative to compliance.
Children are brutalized to force pretended agreement."I'll give you something to cry about" comes after the behavior has been interrupted.
October 1, 2009 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh great, an internet psychologist...They don't do exactly what I tell them. That is nowhere in my post. They just aren't rude to people. They take care of their friends and strangers, alike. But you preach on Dr. Phil. You seem to know all about me and my life from one post.
October 1, 2009 10:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did you even read past the first sentence?
October 2, 2009 9:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
. I just know what I'd love to do
Since tinpot tyrants like you raise violent psychopathic adults, I may have to deal with your little monsters when they go looking for payback.
I'd love to see your petty, insecure ass in jail.
October 1, 2009 7:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're right. That did not sound good. If I could take the post back, I would. But don't pretend to know me or my kids. You'd love them like everyone else does. I have not passed judgement on anyone like you seem to like to do.
Since I know you would not say these words to my face (posting, like shooting a gun, tends to make men out of pussies), I'll look past what you have to say about my children. You are forgiven, asswipe.
October 1, 2009 10:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
. We are complimented on our kids' behavior all the time.
Since we have taken so many steps together down the path of reasoned discourse, can I ask what internal experience you intend to engender in your child when you administer or threaten physical punishment?
October 3, 2009 6:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Our own cadre of terrorist apologist (because it is terror that is being deliberately induced in the child--humility to "grenaid" emerges from the woodwork!
Ya' gotta love the amateur statisticians.
Gotta run,but I will be back to shit on you later.
October 1, 2009 7:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Could it be that parents who spank their children are less intelligent to start with? If the only way you know how to get your point across is by hitting a person, it shows a low level of intellectual development.
So it is not surprising that their spawn would have lower intelligence as well. Probably not the spanking per se. Just bad genes.
Children, though immature by definition, are not stupid. They can learn positive behavior without having it beat into them. It is completely ignorant and shows an enormous lack of personal integrity to rely on pain to deliver any kind of a message; especially to those one supposedly loves and wants the best for.
Children assume that what goes on in their families is normal. They may not learn until later that it is normal to be physically abused by those who are "in charge." That is why some say that spanking was a great lesson learned by them. They don't even know what it would have been like to have a loving parent, and they don't know how to do it with their own children.
That is why abused children often marry abusive people.
If you spank your children, you really need to see a therapist soon. and so do your children.
October 1, 2009 7:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you have to ask the title question, you must've been spanked.
Just kidding.
Seriously, you need to have something better than a correlation before you become the Pope of Parental Advice.
Other correlations also exist, any of which could be a truer cause of lowered IQ, and not the correlation the study emphasizes.
October 1, 2009 8:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I shouldn't be making these arguments--I'm not a therepist, I only marry them....
THERRRAAAAAA!
October 1, 2009 8:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is entirely plausible that the net long term effects of corporal punishment as a frequent tool are negative. The reported study is consistent with that conclusion, but as others have pointed out, does not prove it.
Epidemiological studies of this type can only demonstrate correlation, never causation. The latter generally requires a controlled experiment, which of course would not be feasible in this instance.
The best example of the difficulties of using epidemiology to prove causation is the reltionship of smoking to cancer. Technically, even today, there is no formal proof that the smoking/cancer relationship is causal. Is it? Of course, but it took much more than epidemiology to prove. In addition to a large multiplicity of epidemiologic studies among a large variety of demographics, it also required demonstration that tobacco smoke contains potent carcinogens capable of causing cancers when applied to animals, as well as a multitude of studies demonstrating that the bronchi of smokers show precancerous changes that scale with smoking history and partially reverse with smoking cessation.
When purely epidemiologic studies are utilized, how do the epidemiologists strive to assess the probability that a correlation is causal? Several criteria are important. The study should be large, and the correlation should be statistically strong. Equally important, there should be a dose effect - a greater exposure to smoking for example ("pack years") should be correlated with a greater cancer incidence. There should be a plausible mechanism by which the putative cause could produce the effect. Finally, confounding factors must be excluded or controlled for. These are other variables that might be associated with the ones under study, and which might be the true causative factor. For example, it was once argued that the personality types addicted to smoking were biologically predisposed to cancer. It turned out personality did not explain the relationship, but it had to be excluded before assigning blame to the smoking itself.
The daunting challenge to epidemiology is that confounding factors that are controlled for are only those that the epidemiologists can think of, and one can never absolutely exclude the possibility that some unsuspected variable is the true causative factor.
To return to the beginning, I think there are many reasons to believe that the study reflects a harmful effect of spanking on later cognitive performance, but no-one should cite the results as proof of that hypothesis.
October 1, 2009 8:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a salutary warning against the danger of imputing casuality to a correlation, for many years, evidence accumulated showing a correlation between hormone replacement theraphy (HRT -, usually involving estrogens plus or minus progestins) and a reduced risk of heart disease in post-menopausal women. Then, when a controlled study was done, the opposite effect was observed - women on HRT suffered more heart disease. The earlier correlation was valid, but the lower heart disease risk was not due to the HRT, but to the generally better health habits of women who chose to take HRT. The HRT itself was actually a cause of increased risk that was outweighed by their generally better health status.
October 1, 2009 10:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let me seize this opportunity to totally agree with Fred for a change, and BTW does anybody actually read links? The LA TImes link is broken, and apparently nobody noticed.
This is yet another example of wishful thing masquerading as science, and most studies have found no correlation whatsoever between physical punishment and cognitive developement.
It's hard to link scholarly articles here, because although I'm hooked into JSTOR, most people aren't, but here's a summary of a lot of research on the same subject from a hard-core anti-spanking parenting site...
I have taken care of lots of children in my earthly existence, and never hit any of them, but it wasn't because I was afraid of lowering their IQ, and the few times I ever witnessed anyone hit a child, my immediate response was always...
"Why don't you try that shit with me?
October 1, 2009 11:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Also what I suspected to be true. Having been vigorously spanked as a child, it wasn't the spankings I feared.
October 2, 2009 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
jolly, I missed this entire thing.
What a reaction?
I rec'd anyway. hahahahah
October 1, 2009 11:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
What a reaction?
A regular shitstorm--I confess I didn't think I'd find the same sort of stuff I was complaining about on the LA times board over here.
I have been wrestling with what I do acknowledge to be an obligation to respond to the comments, but it depresses me to think that I actually have to trot out reasons why people shouldn't hit their kids...
The other thing that amuses is the pervasive attempt (even from ROOT! to subsitute anecdote for peer rev>iewed statistical epidemiology.
October 3, 2009 5:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Correction, not root.--he came with review article which predates study at hand...the anecdotes were not germane.
October 3, 2009 5:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Kids have a hard time controlling their emotions. This is why we have timeouts and other ways of helping them learn emotional control and negotiating skills. It takes a lot longer to teach this stuff than it does to truncate the process with a spanking.
Parents who spank (because of the "discipline" it provides) should spend a good amount of time later observing their children playing house or dolls next to kids whose parents don't spank but put in the time to do the alternatives. (Not with kids whose parents are overly permissive--that doesn't count.) In general, the "disciplined" kids are more respectful of authority figures, but the "alternative" kids are way nicer to the dolls and have a much deeper bag of tricks for making them behave....
October 2, 2009 3:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
way nicer to the dolls
That does just about sum it up, does it not?
October 3, 2009 1:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jolly, I believe it does.
October 3, 2009 3:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
way nicer
I mean, (to deconstruct this with a little more granularity), is cleo above (et al) saying he would be happy to see his kids yelling abusively at their dolls and whacking them around? I can't believe that to be true...What, he's striving for "way meaner?"
October 3, 2009 6:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's hard to say what he's striving for.
What I think is interesting is how people equate IQ with behavior as if they were the same thing. But they're not. I couldn't find the study itself online, but it looks as if they only looked at IQ and PTSD symptoms.
IQ is not a behavioral test, but it's a pretty good indicator of how efficiently, quickly, determinedly and freely a child thinks. It's not about external behavior (or success in life), it's about a kid's internal thinking process. And the correlation between frequent corporal punishment and lowered IQ is clear, especially if one looks at the PTSD chart, knowing the effect PTSD has on IQ.
Parents who spank seem to believe that any danger to a child's intelligence or psyche caused by spanking is offset by improvements in day-to-day behavior that will eventually lead to better family dynamics and success in life. To these parents I say: please prove this. And not just by talking about your own children.
October 5, 2009 12:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
better family dynamics
This is the part that really puzzles me. As best I can understand, the goal of corporal punishment is to instill a level of fear in the kid--a level proportionate, I guess, to the desired negative reinforcement that is desired to attach to some hypothetical behavior.
But fear is not respect--it is satisfied by the mere outward appearance of compliance attended by witholding of dissent (this part is real important to the batterers).
How is family dynamics improved when it's based on terror?
October 6, 2009 2:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
I probably should have said "more orderly family dynamics." That would have been closer to what I think people are trying to describe. "The mere outward appearance of compliance attended by witholding of dissent" is somehow supposed to be accompanied by a mental leap in which the kid realizes that he/she has a great family motivated by love. (As in, we're having Stockholm Syndrome with peas and carrots for dinner.)
It doesn't fly for me either.
October 6, 2009 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
see below
October 7, 2009 6:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
I probably should have said
No, I didn't misconstrue your bemusement as indicating agreement with the proposition--I was trying to get into the head of those who, (like the several upthread) do indeed equate terrified silence with "humility".
The stockholm syndrome reference is horribly apposite; reinforced, of course,by the *dissonance provoked by attempting to reconcile arbitrary and brutal discipline with professions of love and the child's instinctive attachment deriving from the biological imperative of the prolonged dependence almost unique to human offspring.
Ya gotta love the implied acknowledgement of this dissonance when Dobson says--hey, the kid will blame the fucking stick! (h/t wendy.,)
October 7, 2009 12:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, the blame the stick business is incredible. It's pretty sad when a child's first experience of learning to love his or her torturer comes from a parent. ("Blaming the stick" is probably more for the parent than the kid--"I didn't hit you, that bad stick did it." And the kid accepts this lie because it's the only way to continue.)
Your last comment made me think of something else--I have always been interested in/irritated by the Book of Job, which employs the same dynamic. God tortures Job, not for any particular reason other than to prove a point. In the face of this torture, Job maintains his love for God and refuses to embrace Satan. This is supposed to be a demonstration of his strength, faith, great love of God, triumph of free will, etc. but really, what choice does Job have? He has to stick with God, or he's totally screwed. It's either God-knows-what or you-know-what. The rest of the story is about trying to put a brave face on it.
There are a lot of ways in which life creates this dynamic--where people have to love what they've got because the alternative is worse, but I don't see why parents feel compelled to start right in teaching the lesson when kids are babies.
And don't even get me started on the whole Ferberizing thing.
October 7, 2009 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
God tortures Job, not for any particular reason
Between the capricious torment, the genocide, the periodic slaughter of the innocents (cf Sodom), and the gangsta bullshit he pulls first shot out of the box when he bludgeons Abraham to kill his "miracle kid", one is brought inexorably to the conclusion that Yahweh should fire his PR firm.
If people were talking that kind of shit about me, I would be interviewing for a new spokesmodel.
October 8, 2009 12:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Btw, Jolly R, what was up with you and Ellen on the mortgage crisis issue? I noticed that when I posted my suggestion for a huge bailout of poor people stuck underwater on their mortgages, you both responded in the negative on the basis of rent-seeking. From my perspective, home ownership, even by pretty poor people, is a stabilizing force even though in some ways it's a delusion (i.e. you don't own your home, the bank does).
I didn't really understand the underpinnings of the argument. Care to point me in the right direction? Not a requirement, it's just something I've always been curious about.
October 8, 2009 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm kinda unsure bout the particulars of the interchange--myself, I favor "cramdown" authority for bankruptcy judges, which is (presumably) a prelude to a more accomodating negotiating posture on the part of lenders. I might have cavilled at a mere stretch out of the original principal, on grounds that in the long run the borrower would be worse off than if renting--It's always a little difficult to parse Ellen's position (oddly enuff, she used to have a right wing rep on this board!--she delights in being arch--I think it's an "eyebrow thing")
October 8, 2009 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hear Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin are both on the shortlist.
Thanks for a good discussion.
October 8, 2009 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Child buttock-battering vs. DISCIPLINE:
Child buttock-battering for the purpose of gaining compliance is nothing more than an inherited bad habit.
Its a good idea for people to take a look at what they are doing, and learn how to DISCIPLINE instead of hit.
I think the reason why television shows like "Supernanny" and "Dr. Phil" are so popular is because that is precisely what many (not all) people are trying to do.
There are several reasons why child bottom-slapping isn't a good idea. Here are some good, quick reads recommended by professionals:
Plain Talk About Spanking
by Jordan Riak,
The Sexual Dangers of Spanking Children
by Tom Johnson,
NO VITAL ORGANS THERE, So They Say
by Lesli Taylor M.D. and Adah Maurer Ph.D.
Most compelling of all reasons to abandon this worst of all bad habits is the fact that buttock-battering can be unintentional sexual abuse for some children. There is an abundance of educational resources, testimony, documentation, etc available on the subject that can easily be found by doing a little research with the recommended reads-visit www.nospank.net.
Just a handful of those helping to raise awareness of why child bottom-slapping isn't a good idea:
American Academy of Pediatrics,
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry,
Center For Effective Discipline,
PsycHealth Ltd Behavioral Health Professionals,
Churches' Network For Non-Violence,
Nobel Peace Prize recipient Archbishop Desmond Tutu,
Parenting In Jesus' Footsteps,
Global Initiative To End All Corporal Punishment of Children,
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
In 26 countries (Sweden, Finland, Norway, Austria, Cyprus, Italy, Denmark, Latvia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Germany, Israel, Iceland, Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Greece, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Uruguay, Venezuela, Chile, Spain, Costa Rica, Republic of Moldova), child corporal punishment is prohibited by law (with more in process). In fact, the US was the only UN member that did not ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
October 20, 2009 3:59 PM | Reply | Permalink