January 13, 2011 – Sirach 30

What I am about to say maybe makes no sense and isn’t based on any research, but just an observation that I thought about from this reading.  In my job, I see a lot of abused children.  And when a child is taken from a home, whether it was because of abuse or not, there are rules against any type of corporal punishment while the case is open.  Corporal punishment, in and of itself, is something that has been deemed ancient and ineffective by most things that I am told about or read.  Yet here we see that corporal punishment is an important part of raising children. 

In thinking about this, I was wondering if there is a connection between abuse and lack of corporal punishment.  When there is no corporal punishment on a child, they would tend to grow up less disciplined or even spoiled.  A parent would be required to have an increased sense of patience or just give up and allow the child to get away with more because discipline will not work.  This increased strain because a child pushes the envelope causes a parent to snap and lose control, leading to abuse.  Some may say that all corporal punishment is abuse, but I disagree.  I think there is a huge difference between the two and it mainly deals with the control the parent has.  When a parent loses their control, it becomes abuse.  I was just thinking that by taking corporal punishment out of parenting, children push parents further, causing parents to lose control, leading to abuse.  It doesn’t necessarily seem to follow that allow corporal punishment can decrease abuse of children, but I think there could be an argument made for that.