Does spanking children lead to violence?

Does spanking children lead to violence? 'IT MAKES CHILDREN ANGRY' | Expert urges end to corporal punishment October 14, 2008 BY ANDREW HERRMANN Staff Reporter/aherrmann@suntimes.com During a recent speech in Chicago, Dr. Alvin Poussaint, a Harvard psychiatrist, related how, when he was a child and misbehaved, his father would "smack me in the back of the head.'' "It was like shock treatment,'' said Poussaint. "He had a theory that if you misbehaved, something must be wrong with your brain and you needed a correction." The story elicited chuckles from the largely African-American audience, but Poussaint's point was no joke to him. One way to help reduce violence in poor, black urban neighborhoods is to reduce it in the home, he says. In his most recent book, Come on People: On the Path from Victims to Victors, co-authored with entertainer Bill Cosby, Poussaint cites one study that showed that 94 percent of black mothers agreed that "a good hard spanking" was a useful "disciplinary technique" compared with 65 percent of white women and 46 percent of Asian-American women. Not all black parents who use corporal punishment create violent children, he noted. Poussaint grew up in Harlem, received his M.D. from Cornell and served as a script consultant to NBC's "The Cosby Show." But, Poussaint said, "Violence begets violence -- it makes children angry." "I think a lot of homicides relate to rage and anger and getting back at someone, even if it's a nameless face,'' he said. Psychotherapist George Smith, whose Management Planning Institute works with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, said he sees the effects of spankings in preschool classes his group conducts: "Kids emulate their caregivers. They become physical." Psychiatrist Carl Bell, president of the Community Mental Health Council, said less educated people of all races tend to spank at higher rates. "Poor black people -- poor people in general -- have no idea how life works. People who don't know how life works think it's best to bully people to get what they want,'' said Bell. Blacks are more religious, said Bell, and cite Proverbs: "He who withholds his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently." No single child-rearing factor leads to violent behavior, Bell says. "I wish [ending spanking] was the magic bullet,'' he said. But for Poussaint, it's a start. "If we think of violence as learned behavior, if you are using it on your child, what are they learning?" said Poussaint. "The black community [has] to put this on the table.'' SOURCE: The Black Star Project blackstar1000@ameritech.net ==//==

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