Occasionally as a young child, junior Nolan Chastain got himself into sticky situations that resulted in punishment.

Nolan said, “When I was punished as a child, usually I got time-outs, I was grounded, I got things taken away, and on occasions I was made to do certain chores that I normally didn’t do.”

Notice something missing from this list? His father Brian Chastain said he never resorted to physical punishment when disciplining Nolan, even though Mr. Chastain was physically punished in his youth.

Mr. Chastain said, “I did not think (corporal punishment) was overly effective for me as a child. I thought that it did more damage when trying to get a point across than other means. It’s a barbaric way of trying to impress an idea upon a child that what they did was wrong. I think there are much better tools available.”

Because of his father’s decision, Nolan joins a growing cluster of people who have never been subject to corporal punishment. In fact, this year, CNN reported that a new generation of Swedish children has grown up never having been physically punished. This is because the first anti-spanking law in the world was established in Sweden in 1979. Thirty more countries followed suit and banned corporal punishment since then.

Despite this growing trend, according to the University of North Carolina Injury Prevention Research Center, corporal punishment remains common throughout the world, especially in North America, where no countries have banned physical punishment. In the United States, it is still legal for parents to practice corporal punishment in all 50 states. In 19 states, including Indiana, schools are even permitted to use the practice in discipline.

(See Center for Effective Discipline for more statistics)

Jennifer Lansford, associate research professor at Duke University’s Social Science Research Institute, said, “There has been a historical decline in parents’ use of corporal punishment, although the majority of American parents today still say that they have used corporal punishment at least once.”

The use of corporal punishment is less common that it was several years ago. According to JoAnn Miller, professor of sociology at Purdue University, parents are now more reluctant to use corporal punishment in public places, compared to parents in the 1950s and 1960s.

Mr. Chastain frequently witnessed corporal punishment in public as a child and sees the shift in parents’ actions throughout the years.

“The change in our culture has caused this decrease in corporal punishment. When I was a kid, you would see kids getting spanked in the grocery store. Nowadays, there would be police called and the parents would be in trouble,” Mr. Chastain said. “The culture has changed away from physical punishment and gone more towards psychological and situational punishment.”

In addition, Miller said newer generations of parents are turning away from physically punishing their children because of their own experiences.

She said, “We grew up knowing the pain and the fear.”

Mr. Chastain said he felt the same way from his own encounters with corporal punishment as a child and that they made a strong impact on him.

“I remember how long that hallway was to get the belt to be punished. It was very effective, since I still remember it 40- some-years later,” he said.

According to Lansford, corporal punishment is in decline because parents are more informed of the circumstances. Pediatricians, parenting advisers and other experts now advocate parents to use methods other than corporal punishment to discipline their children.

Mr. Chastain said, “I think parents are better educated on other techniques. Also, shows like ‘Oprah’ and ‘Dr. Phil’ that discuss topics like physical punishment have made a difference on parents.”

Parents are now more aware of alternative discipline methods as well, according to Lansford.

“We used time-outs and would take away privileges, such as favorite toys and a computer with games on it. And it’s been very effective, even now,” Mr. Chastain said. “I think sometimes the words or actions that parents say could have a greater effect on psyche of a child than physical punishment.”

Also, recent research has discovered that corporal punishment has negative effects on a child’s psychological and mental health. For example, according to a research report published by Science Daily, corporal punishment leads to lower IQs in children and causes long-term effects on a child’s intelligence.

(Texas student paddled severely and sent to hospital)

According to Lansford, this has deterred new generations of parents from using physical punishment.

Lansford said, “More parents are now aware of the potential detrimental effects of using corporal punishment and are better informed about other discipline strategies (time-outs, manipulating privileges, rewarding good behavior, etc.).”

Nolan, who shares this view, said, “There are other methods that are effective without causing the bad side effects of physical punishment.”

Also, corporal punishment can result in behavioral problems like increased aggression.

Miller said, “Children (who are) hit are more likely to hit siblings and peers at school.”

“If you show that your only method of disciplining is physical violence, then it shows that the idea that is appropriate in other situations. If I am spanked, I am going to be more likely to react physically to another child in a school situation or playground,” Mr. Chastain said. “I think you saw that happen a lot more when there was physical punishment involved.”

According to Linda Haas, professor of sociology at IUPUI, corporal punishment promotes violence.

She said, “It seems contradictory to tell children that they shouldn’t hit and then for parents to hit them. We are a society that condones violence in all forms. We think it is the answer to everything. Witness our continuous involvement in wars.”

Recent events, such as the posting of a graphic video of Hillary Adams getting beaten by her father in November, have reignited the debate on corporal punishment.

Lansford said corporal punishment is controversial because it is difficult to distinguish between corporal punishment and abuse.

Nolan concurred, saying, “There is a fine line between physical punishment and abuse. Society is starting to shun it more. You always hear about on the news about how some dad was punishing his child just like he was in his school, and he ended up going to jail, and his child got taken away by child protective services.”

Although it is controversial, corporal punishment is legal in many different circumstances.

Nolan said he thinks that the current state of corporal punishment in the United States is only temporary and will change in the future.

“I think that it’s still legal because that’s how all the people in Congress were raised. Because most of the congressmen are middle-aged, and they are from an era where it was acceptable, but I think as time goes on and kids of today who were physically punished less and less,” Nolan said. “I think that eventually, when they make laws, we will see corporal punishment disappear.”

One instance of where the state of corporal punishment has changed is here, in our own school district. The use of corporal punishment in schools is legal in Indiana, but the Carmel Clay Schools district made the decision to remove it. According to Steve Dillon, director of student services, Carmel officially prohibited corporal punishment in 2004, but the district discontinued the practice long before then.

Assistant Principal John Newton said, “There was a lot of pressure on the administrators and teachers because of the mounting lawsuits that were popping up all over the United States.”

Nolan said he believed that this was a good choice on the school’s behalf.

He said, “If I was physically punished at school, I would think, ‘was that the really the best way to punish me and teach me my lesson?’”

Tracy Hadden, social studies department chair, used to teach at a school in Tennessee that frequently used corporal punishment. Students had a choice of whether they wanted corporal punishment or in-school suspension. The majority of the students preferred the corporal punishment because it was quicker.

Nolan said he saw the situation in the same way as the students at Hadden’s former school.

“I would rather get paddled since the effects are not as long-lasting, but the effects are driven in,” Nolan said. “I would probably prefer the short-term punishment over the long-term punishment because I feel the in school suspension, which goes on your record, I think that would be more of a long-term punishment and would have farther reaching effects than just the problem I need to correct.”

Hadden said she believes corporal punishment was not effective on the students.

“Obviously they preferred the corporal punishment since it was quick and over, so I think if they would have gone to just in school suspension or those types of things, it would have prevented the behavior problems,” she said.
According to Miller, there is no specific scientific evidence to suggest that corporal punishment in schools has a positive effect.

Hadden said she disagreed with her former school’s choice to practice corporal punishment to discipline students.

She said, “I don’t think it’s effective. I don’t think it’s justified. I think there’s enough controversy about it that there is no rational reason to use it.”

(See UNICEF’s compilation of the effects of corporal punishment on children, parents and society)

On the other hand, at St. Augustine High School in Louisiana, when corporal punishment was removed this year, parents and students protested because they believed the practice was extremely successful in building character and discipline into the students.

Although he does not support corporal punishment, Mr. Chastain said he could understand the high school’s protests.

“I think we are very blessed at Carmel that the situations in the classrooms are conducive to learning. I know that there are schools with situations where they have totally disruptive kids in school. Especially in smaller schools, where it only takes a couple of kids to disrupt all education and the only thing that worked was physically punishing the kids,” Mr. Chastain said. “If the kids only understood that they were in trouble if someone punished them physically, I would be there, protesting, too.”

According to Lansford, as more generations discontinue the practice of corporal punishment, the practice will gradually dissipate.

“Children who have been corporally punished are more likely to endorse the use of corporal punishment than those who have not been corporally punished,” Lansford said. “So as fewer children are corporally punished, there will likely be a shift over time in societal levels of approval of corporal punishment.”

Both Nolan and his father Mr. Chastain said they believe the practice will probably be abolished in the United States.

Nolan said, “Now, less and less people are being physically punished and eventually it is going to become illegal in the future. The more sympathetic people are towards the physical punishment, the more strict the laws will become. I think that society will eventually have a more moralistic way, rather than physical way, of punishing.”