I am concerned about the ramifications of passing Senate File 74. How can any type of bruising be considered okay? For that matter, how can corporal punishment be considered reasonable? We have laws which protect adult victims (women/men/prisoners) from any type of violent acts (whether verbal or physical), but it is okay to promote violence against children. Violence is violence. A victim is a victim. A child feels pain no differently than an adult and should be offered the same protections. There is no difference in a child being "corporally punished" than in a husband "beating his wife into submission" or an employer "hitting an employee for being late" or a slaveowner "whipping his slaves for disobedience". Would you allow a nursing home to "beat your grandmother for incontinence as long as it involved only minor bruising?" Think smart - and think for our future. Children need the same protections we all take for granted.

I am done defending my position with someone who doesn't have kids. Come back and talk when you do. You need to learn the difference between hitting and spanking.
I love it when childless people try to tell those with kids how to raise them. OK it is wrong in your book. Fine. We will see how you handle your own kids.

can you honestly say that teachers wouldn't take that power and abuse it? They wouldn't be hitting kids too hard or too often? ..Are welts on your butt acceptable? Is having your pants be pulled down in front of others accaptable?

Do you deny that hitting you kid's butt is not only an act of violence, but also an act of sexual assault? ...Your butt is a personal, sexual, part of your body. It's degrading and humiliating to be hit there.

WHY hit your kid? Perhaps the reason it feels bad, it because you know it is wrong. I just dont see how it works, and if anyone claims it does work, is it possible to prove its the spanking that caused the good behavior?

I am done defending my position with someone who doesn't have kids. Come back and talk when you do.

What do you say NYG?

Just ask anyone who works with kids. Ask a cop, a teacher, a doctor, a librarian, or anyone else who comes in contact with kids everyday.

I asked 14 people today if they ever spanked their kids. Granted, 6 of them were teachers. 100% said yes and they would do it again.

WASHINGTON -- Corporal punishment remains a widely used discipline technique in most American families, but it has also been a subject of controversy within the child development and psychological communities. In a large-scale meta-analysis of 88 studies, psychologist Elizabeth Thompson Gershoff, PhD, of the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University, looked at both positive and negative behaviors in children that were associated with corporal punishment. Her research and commentaries on her work are published in the July issue of Psychological Bulletin, published by the American Psychological Association....

Gershoff found "strong associations" between corporal punishment and all eleven child behaviors and experiences. Ten of the associations were negative such as with increased child aggression and antisocial behavior. The single desirable association was between corporal punishment and increased immediate compliance on the part of the child.

The two largest effect sizes (strongest associations) were immediate compliance by the child and physical abuse of the child by the parent. Gershoff believes that these two strongest associations model the complexity of the debate around corporal punishment.

"That these two disparate constructs should show the strongest links to corporal punishment underlines the controversy over this practice. There is general consensus that corporal punishment is effective in getting children to comply immediately while at the same time there is caution from child abuse researchers that corporal punishment by its nature can escalate into physical maltreatment," Gershoff writes....

While the nature of the analyses prohibits causally linking corporal punishment with the child behaviors, Gershoff also summarizes a large body of literature on parenting that suggests why corporal punishment may actually cause negative outcomes for children. For one, corporal punishment on its own does not teach children right from wrong. Secondly, although it makes children afraid to disobey when parents are present, when parents are not present to administer the punishment those same children will misbehave.

In commentary published along with the Gershoff study, George W. Holden, PhD, of the University of Texas at Austin, writes that Gershoff's findings "reflect the growing body of evidence indicating that corporal punishment does no good and may even cause harm." Holden submits that the psychological community should not be advocating spanking as a discipline tool for parents....