Spanking is Counterproductive and Dangerous

By Alice Miller (visit www.alice-miller.com)

Why spankings, slaps, and even apparently harmless blows like pats on the hand are dangerous for a baby? 1. They teach it violence.
2. They destroy the absolute certainty of being loved that the baby needs.
3. They cause anxiety: the expectancy of the next attack.
4. They convey a lie: they pretend to be educational, but parents actually use them to vent their anger; when they strike, it's because, as children, they were struck themselves.
5. They provoke anger and a desire for revenge, which remain repressed, only to be expressed much later.
6. They program the child to accept illogical arguments (I'm hurting you for your own good) that stay stored up in their body.
7. They destroy sensitivity and compassion for others and for oneself, and hence limit the capacity to gain insight.

What long-term lessons does the baby retain from spankings and other blows?

The baby learns: 1. That a child does not deserve respect.
2. That good can be learned through punishment (which is actually wrong, punishment merely teaches the children to want to punish in their own turn).
3. That suffering mustn't be felt, it must be ignored (which is dangerous for the immune system).
4. That violence is a manifestation of love (fostering perversion).
5. That denial of feeling is healthy (but the body pays the prize of this error, often much later).

How is repressed anger very often vented?

In childhood and adolescence: 1. By making fun of the weak.
2. By hitting classmates.
3. By annoying the teachers.
4. By watching TV and playing video games to experience forbidden and stored up feelings of rage and anger, and by identifying with violent heroes. (Children who have never been beaten are less interested in cruel films, and, as adults, will not produce horror shows).

In adulthood: 1. By perpetuating spanking, as an apparently educational and effective means, often heartily recommended to others, whereas in actual fact, one's own suffering is being avenged on the next generation.
2. By refusing to understand the connections between previously experienced violence and the violence actively repeated today. The ignorance of society is thereby perpetuated.
3. By entering professions that demand violence.
4. By being gullible to politicians who designate scapegoats for the violence that has been stored up and which can finally be vented with impunity: "impure" races, ethnic "cleansing", ostracized social minorities, other religious communities etc.
5. Because of obedience to violence as a child, by readiness to obey any authority which recalls the authority of the parents, as the Germans obeyed Hitler, the Russians Stalin, the Serbs Milosevic.

Conversely, some become aware of the repression and universal denial of childhood pain, realizing how violence is transmitted from parents to children, and stop hitting children regardless of age. This can be done (many have succeeded) as soon as one has understood that the causes of the "educational" violence are hidden in the repressed history of the parents.

Pictures from www.freefoto.com

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Childrearing
• parenting
• spanking
• perversion
• violence
• punishment
• alice
• miller
• advice
• peace
• war

[hinatah89]

@camaranina I just assumed that your parents used to spank you, because nobody would justify violence towards children unless they were spanked themselves (I am familiar with "I was spanked and and turn out ok".). Yes, my parents are backwards and many other things and I am not ashamed of saying it. Fortunately through reason I came to the conclusion that violence is wrong, regardless of the victim.

[hinatah89]

@camaranina Spanking is counterproductive, denying this is the equivalent of denying evolution.

[MtthwSmmns]

@Freundlichkeit82 LOL yea, children do not need punishment and criminals dont need it either. Hey how about this! LEts just let all criminals go to the corner when they do something wrong. LEts see how that works! If you are for putting criminals in jail then you are for neglect! How do you say? Because criminals are put into a locked room, sometimes even without any human interaction. This is called neglect and has been proven to be bad on the psyche, so we shouldnt do this.

[Freundlichkeit82]

I encourage you to visit the website of the American SPCC in oder to raise your voice against violence. Children deserve a peaceful upbringing.

[IllichSketchShow]

thank you for making this video

[errorspending]

Great video - if anyone is interested there is a great philosophy podcast series that goes over a lot of peaceful parenting ideas - "Freedomain Radio" - google it!

[Texasjim2007]

The only serious "danger" from a spanking is the one you liberal propagandists cause by putting out your anti-spanking propaganda stigmatizing it with statistics you play with the numbers until they show whatever you want which alienates kids from their parents causing them to be raped in your prisons or need your abortions.

[Texasjim2007]

There's never been anybody spanked to death but more people have died of AIDS than everybody killed in the Vietnam War. How do people get AIDS? Getting raped in prison because they can't afford to hire some greedy socialist lawyer who's raping his step-daughter and forcing her to have abortions to cover it up until they get AIDS,

[yourabundantliving]

Not sure why I can't respond to this video

[yourabundantliving]

jahg;aerhg; ag;aoiuj;eoiur;t

[wonderglory]

Although I'm very against ALL forms of corporal discipline, this video does have beautiful images.

[hinatah89]

@camaranina Children can be bad (I don´t that but I don´t think that they are good in a Rossounianian way. But I´m not going to discuss that) in the same way as adults. And what do you mean by saying they "need" a spank. Do you imply that if a child is never spanked he/she will be bad?. In skandinavian countries, spanking is banned both for teachers and parents and they are the best behaved in Europe according to many studies.