
Child corporal punishment: SpankingLinking serious
punishment of children
with rage & crimes during adulthood

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Dr Ralph S. Welsh is a:
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Diplomate in Clinical Psychology. |
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Court-Based Assessment Psychologist in Danbury, CT. |
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Contributor to the American Psychological Association's Task force
on Violence. 1
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Member of the Advisory Board of The Center for the Study of Corporal
Punishment and Issues in the Schools, at Temple University, PA. 2
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He has evaluated over 3,000 juveniles over his multi-decade career and has
observe a strong linkage between heavy corporal punishment during childhood and
both rage and criminal activity during early adulthood. He notes that he has:
"... yet to see the first violent male juvenile delinquent who wasn't
raised on a belt, board, extension cord, fist or the equivalent. I have
carefully excluded all forms of discipline that were incapable of causing
lasting physical marks or damage including hand slaps, hands to the rear,
and even a switch to the legs. I am still amazed at the consistency of the
'belt' and its equivalents in producing angry and violent behavior."
3
Having the courage to put his money where his mouth was, he challenged his
juvenile court's probation officers. He offered them $100.00 if they could find
an aggressive male juvenile delinquent who hand not been raised on "the
belt." The catch was that if they referred a youth who they thought had
childhood free of serious parental violence but who actually was disciplined by
"the belt," the officer would have to pay Dr. Welsh $1.00. They all lost
interest in the challenge when their accumulated losses reached $20.00. As a result of years of research, he discovered that:
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Beatings stop at a later age for girls than for boys. |
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Beatings stop earlier for larger children. |
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Developmentally challenged individuals are often beaten throughout their
entire life. |
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Mothers who beat their children, and were not beaten themselves as
children, feel guilty; those who were beaten as children do not. |
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Women who are beaten tend to marry men who beat them. |
He has observed a strong link between child beating and criminal activity
later in life. This finding may help verify the results of
a New Zealand study that showed that about one
third of boys have a genetic predisposition that cause adult criminal activity
if they are abused as children. Dr. Walsh concludes:
"In short, all of the data suggests that corporal punishment as a
disciplinary technique is very dangerous, is the MAJOR contributor to our
crime rate, and tends to perpetuate itself. ..."
"Physical punishment discourages learning, and encourages retaliation
toward the parent and society in general because the abused person often
rejects the societal values of the punishing parent; it produces behavioral
variability since it does not identify the "desired" behaviors so it rarely
produces the behavior the punisher is looking for. Finally, it produces a
delayed-action affect, and this lag is critical in masking the relationship
between the punishment and later aggression. ... Because of this time lag,
the anger engendered by the punishment is not readily perceived to be
related to the long-gone punishment situation. ... Therefore, neither the
user of corporal punishment, nor the recipient of corporal punishment
realize that the punishment is the sleeper fuel that is slowly building up
aggression in the recipient of the abuse."
"In the end, when the over punished child becomes a parent, this badly
programmed individual emulates his/her parents, and repeats the abusive
cycle taught to them by their own troubled but "well meaning' abusive
parents, and the abuse continues on to the next generation." 2

References used:The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above
essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.
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"Violence & Youth," American Psychological Association's Commission on
Violence and Youth, 1993, at:
http://www.apa.org/
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Ralph S. Welsh, "Should Paddling be Banned in Schools?," Letter to
the editor of TeenNewsWeek, 2001-MAY-14, at:
http://www.nospank.net/
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Ralph S. Welsh, "The Dangers Associated With Hitting Children," Project
NoSpank, 2007-JUN, at:
http://nospank.net/

Other articles by Dr. Ralph S. Welsh:Doing a Google search for ralph
welsh spanking returned about 2,410 hits. Some were:
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A menu linked to ten essays is at:
http://www.nospank.net/
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"Research does not lie," Email to the Dallas ISD, 2003-AUG-12, at:
http://www.nospank.net/
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"Rod is the spoiler," Science News, 2006-AUG-05, at:
http://findarticles.com/
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"No surprise," Letter to the Editor, Science News, 2003-DEC-06, at:
http://findarticles.com/
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"Spanking: a grand old American tradition?," Children Today,
1985-Jan/Feb, at:
http://findarticles.com/"
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"The beaten may become beaters," Recovery Anonymous, at:
http://www.mlode.com/
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Copyright ? 2007 by
Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Originally written: 2007-JUN-17
Latest update: 2007-JUN-17
Author: B.A. Robinson

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