{"id":619816,"date":"2026-06-04T00:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T00:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/619816\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T00:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T00:30:11","slug":"a-cure-for-physical-punishment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/619816\/","title":{"rendered":"A Cure for Physical Punishment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Physical punishment<\/a> (or \u201ccorporal punishment\u201d) involves the use of physical force\u2014spanking, hitting\u2014to try to change or punish a child\u2019s behavior. Just recently, a United States senator from Oklahoma commented on how he used his belt to punish his children; the same had been done to him by his parents.<\/p>\n

Problems<\/p>\n

The impact of physical punishment has been researched extensively, and the problems associated with it are remarkable. Joan Durrant, Elizabeth Gershoff, George Holden, Murray Straus, and Silvan Tomkins have been especially helpful in opening our eyes to the issues.<\/p>\n

George Holden noted \u201c\u2026there is now a very large corpus of studies, numbering well over 1,500 empirical investigations, that have established that this behavior is linked to a variety of negative outcomes\u201d (2020). In a comprehensive study, Straus et al (2014) summarized 15 harmful effects associated with physical punishment.<\/p>\n

More antisocial behavior and delinquency as a child and as a young adult
\nMore approval of other forms of violence
\nMore impulsiveness and less self-control<\/a>
\nWorse parent-child relationships
\nMore risky sexual<\/a> behaviors as a teenager<\/a>
\nMore juvenile delinquency
\nMore crime<\/a> perpetrated as an adult
\nLower national average mental ability
\nLess probability of graduation from college
\nHigh probability of depression<\/a>
\nMore violence against marital, cohabitating, and dating<\/a> partners
\nMore violence against non-family persons
\nMore physical abuse of children
\nMore sexual coercion and physically forced sex
\nMore drug use.<\/p>\n

Worldwide and United States<\/p>\n

Worldwide, the number of states (countries) prohibiting physical punishment of children in all settings (including in the home) is steadily increasing. The total currently is 70 countries. (End Corporal Punishment\u2014World Health Organization, https\/\/endcorporalpunishment.org\/countdown\/<\/a>). Among such countries are Finland, Norway, Germany, Greece, Poland, Ireland, Nepal, Switzerland, Thailand, and Japan.<\/p>\n

However, the United States and 127 other countries worldwide have not fully prohibited physical punishment of children. In addition, in the U.S., 16 states still allow physical punishment in schools. The states tend to be in the south and south west (e.g., Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas).<\/p>\n

A Potential Cureperpetrated<\/p>\n

Often, when attempting to cure illness or problems, it is useful to return to early developmental structures and processes. This is the case with physical punishment. Three early human systems provide much help: Feelings (affects), cognition<\/a>, and language.<\/p>\n

Feelings, such as fear<\/a>, anger<\/a>, and joy, function as reactions to internal and external stimuli.<\/p>\n

Cognition includes thinking, learning, self-reflection, and reality processing.<\/p>\n

Language involves putting words and symbols to perceptions, ideas, and feelings, allowing for further communication with oneself and others.<\/p>\n

All three of these systems are important and provide a cure to physical punishment. They are also easy to use.<\/p>\n

Feelings, Cognition, and Language<\/p>\n

The first is feelings. Is the child distressed, angry or experiencing some combination of feelings that leads to being out of control? And is the parent, caregiver<\/a>, or teacher, distressed or angry?<\/p>\n

The second is cognition. For instance, can the child and caregiver think about what is happening and why, self-reflect a little bit, recall what may have happened in similar circumstances?<\/p>\n

The third is language\u2014perhaps the most important in pulling together the whole system. Can the caregiver and\/or child put words to their feelings and actions, thus not have to use pain and fear\u2014physical punishment.<\/p>\n

The importance and success of using feelings and words to prevent physical punishment has been increasingly visible throughout early school years. One frequently sees pictures of facial expressions and words for feelings in kindergarten and early grades of schools.<\/p>\n

Punishment Essential Reads<\/p>\n

It Works\u2026And It\u2019s Not That Hard!<\/p>\n

One of the most important examples of deploying this process was Anny Katan, M.D., a child psychoanalyst who came to Cleveland from Europe in 1946 following World War II. She ultimately helped establish the Hanna Perkins School in Shaker Heights, Ohio.<\/p>\n

In her work with troubled children, Katan realized that the actions of the children were triggered by feelings (as Darwin showed), and that the children had no words for the feelings, making it very difficult for them to understand themselves, their feelings, and actions. They could not verbalize their feelings\u2014and therefore they just acted. The inabiliy to label feelings has been termed alexithymia\u2014difficulty identifying, describing, and processing one\u2019s emotions.<\/p>\n

Putting words to feelings\u2014verbalization\u2014is at the core of psychotherapy<\/a> and psychoanalysis<\/a>. Katan worked with the children and found dramatic positive results when she focused on the connection between action and words\u2014putting actions into words.<\/p>\n

But then she went a step further. She realized that the parents were also often unable to put words into feelings: \u201cThese feelings are not usually given names. Often they are not understood by the parents\u2026the task of the parents is much more difficult. They have to guess at the child\u2019s feelings\u201d (p. 185). Working with children and parents to put words to feelings\u2014verbalization\u2014proved to be extremely effective.<\/p>\n

However\u2026what words? What feelings? In dealing with physical punishment, the most important words and feelings involve putting words to anger, distress, fear, and shame<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wrapping Up<\/p>\n

In the midst of a fracas, understanding and labeling such feelings with words will create an opportunity to avoid physical punishment. This is literally a cure for physical punishment.<\/p>\n

Go ahead and try it\u2014and please let me know how it turns out. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Physical punishment (or \u201ccorporal punishment\u201d) involves the use of physical force\u2014spanking, hitting\u2014to try to change or punish a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-619816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}