Spanking in Schools…It’s the Parents’ Thing to Do

As a 17-year school principal, I only spanked a student once, with the boy’s mother watching the whole thing. It was my first and my last. The 5-year old kindergartner “mooned” his classmates, and school rules called for one swat on the behind. I went through the required protocol with the mom’s full support, as she stood before me with an approving eye. I held a threatening paddle aloft, poised to swing down swiftly against little Roger’s butt, while he bent over and grabbed his shaking ankles. I felt bad immediately after the “whaaaack” echoed off my office walls.

“Spare the rod, spoil the child.”

-nowhere in the Bible

“Oh, no, that will not do,” the mother said to me. “You’ve never done this before have you? You’re a whimp. Let me show you how this is done.” With little or no ado, Roger’s mom took the paddle from my trembling hands, and spanked her son hard enough to lift his feet up off the floor.  No one reached to console Roger as he cried uncontrollably for the next ten minutes. And he never mooned anyone again the rest of the year.

The misgivings I felt before the spanking were still with me afterward, even more so.

“He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly.”

-Proverbs 13:24

As a child growing up in a two-parent household, with 5 siblings, I got a spanking from one or both of my parents just about every day. Like with breakfast, lunch and dinner, I knew a spanking was going to come, I just didn’t always know what for. Psychiatrists I saw later as an adult told me I was a physically abused child.  Until then, though, I never thought about my daily punishment experience that way.  I genuinely thought all kids got beat like that.

When it came to getting into trouble and being spanked at school, my parents told me whatever the school gave me, they would double it when I got home. And they did. I did my best to beg the principal to not spank me, telling him my parents for sure would take care of that, but it never worked. I am pretty sure he smiled at the thought of me getting a double dose of a good butt warming.

In the end, I figured I deserved whatever was coming to me, especially since I was such a bad boy. 

In the News

As a school district in south Texas prepares this year to bring back corporal punishment, after prohibiting it for years, it does so in the context of a nation that still pretty much prohibits “the rod” of discipline.

“Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, and the rod of correction will drive it far from him.”

--Proverbs 22:15

38 states currently prohibit the use of disciplining children at school with corporal punishment. 17 states permit it, though not all schools in those states practice it.  And 7 states have no law for or against it.

81% of parents recently surveyed said they believe spanking is the best option for disciplining misbehaving kids, but only 31% of those say they would allow schools to do it.  Evangelicals to the tune of 85% support spanking, but the amount of those who would give the nod of approval to schools is not known.

Gilbert Perez, the former U.S. Department of Education Secretary, took a stand against the practice of corporal punishment, saying research suggests that such could lead to aggressive behavior, depression and even PTSD.

While the Three Rivers school board and most of the parents with children attending schools there supported the return to spanking students, some parents insisted that while they support corporal punishment, they felt it was the responsibility of parents to do such disciplining, not schools.

Pros and Cons

Proponents of corporal punishment claim that it effectively gets the point across to misbehaving students, it costs nothing to administer, students are no longer suspended from school, it instills a solid sense of right and wrong, and it saves time.

Opponents claim corporal punishment is sanctioned abuse, that violence promotes more violence, students attend school in fear, that mental and emotional harm are done, and that the bottom line is that all students really learn is that big people can and do hurt little people.

“Withhold not correction from your child, for if thou beatest him with a rod, he will surely not die.”

-Proverbs 23:13-14

What the Ex-Principal Thinks

So, as an ex-principal, and as a possibly abused child, where do I stand on the matter of corporal punishment in general and in schools?

Cutting to the chase, I do not believe it is the business of schools to dispense corporal punishment. And, I believe that the administration of such, either on religious or experiential grounds, is up to the parents.  Such is a God-given responsibility to mothers and fathers…alone.

I am an Evangelical Christian, and I spanked my daughter, very rarely, but I found it necessary to do so on some occasions. One was when she was told by both her mother and father to wait for us on the sidewalk side of our family car while I retrieved her “blankey” from the play structure across the street. Even with her mother standing right near her, she chose nevertheless to run out into the street, apparently not willing to wait for me to bring it to her, and narrowly missed being hit by an oncoming car.

She got a swat on the butt that day…maybe two.  And she never raced out into the street ever again.