Full Description
Spanked: How Hitting Our Children is Harming Ourselves is a historical and cultural analysis of the long accepted practice of hitting children for learning and obedience. The book begins with understanding who spanks and how the practice of using a hand to hit the buttocks of children evolved. Erickson explores the cultural factors from historical magazine articles and parenting books to contemporary beliefs that support this type of discipline. Spanking's connections to a variety of topics are clarified, including the feelings of parents, perceptions of children, potential child abuse, school corporal punishment, attachment and bonding, the legal language that allows hitting of one's children but not others, and international perspectives on physical punishment.
The book invites an exploration of who we are as parents, and as a society, and what family leadership really means. Book group questions for families, professionals, and organizations lend the book useful for conversation and dialogue in libraries, living rooms, offices, and classrooms. Erickson gives readers an open platform to discuss respectfully what we are really communicating when we spank children.
Contents
Part I
Chapter 1 Whupping, Paddling, and Smacking: A Spank By Any Other Name Still Stings
Chapter 2 History and Mystery
Chapter 3 Limits, Laws and Little Mary Ellen
Chapter 4 Research and Revival
Part II
Chapter 5 School Paddling: The Only Legal Place Beyond the Home
Chapter 6 Spanking Around the World
Part III
Chapter 7 In the Privacy of the Home
Chapter 8 In the Public Sphere
Chapter 9 Modern Family
Chapter 10 Leaving Spanking Where It Belongs: Behind Us
Methods and Final Thoughts
Book Group Questions
Questions for Professionals and Organizations
References
Appendix A: Laws on Physical Child Abuse in the USA
Appendix B: Definition of School Corporal Punishment and Legal Language
Appendix C: School Corporal Punishment Administration and Required Parental Communication
Appendix D: Bans on Physical Punishment of Children: Year and Country
Appendix E: Policy Language of National Bans on Physical Punishment
