The Science and Statistics Behind Spanking Suggests that

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298 AKRON LAW REVIEW [42:243
If we were really concerned with treating children like adults, we
would lobby to force children to live on their own, get jobs, pay taxes,
and submit to adult penal and contract laws. 294 But few people do this
because children are children for a reason: they need to mature. 295 If
they do not learn when they are young that misbehavior has negative
consequences, they tend not to understand when they are older how to
deal with legal consequences. 296
So, the issue behind the spanking debate is not whether the child
should be treated as an adult. 297 The issue is whether the child should be
allowed to mature through the discipline method that suits him best.
Each child is unique; some children may need physical discipline,
whereas others may not. 298 Sometimes, not spanking could be what
begets violence, as indicated by this American youth who got in trouble
with the police “on a daily basis”: 299
beatings send a message, why don’t detentions, imprisonments, fines, and a multitude of other
punishments convey equally undesirable messages?”).
294. Contra, e.g., supra note 84 and accompanying text.
295. See, e.g., Baumrind, Discipline Controversy, supra note 157, at 412 (“Authoritative
parents view the child as maturing through developmental stages with qualitatively different
features, but do not describe this maturational process as an automatic unfolding, emphasizing
instead well-timed parental interventions.”).
296. See, e.g., supra note 12 and accompanying text; Coburn, supra note 124 (“How ironic if,
in years to come, the lack of corrective smacking in childhood is raised in mitigation of criminal
offending.”); supra Part III.
297. Contra U.N. League Table, supra note 7, at 28 (“Europe’s Social Rights Committee is
pushing its 45 member countries to acknowledge that the physical punishment of children is a
breach of their human rights.”). Many argue against spanking because it causes mild pain. David
Orentlicher, Spanking and Other Corporal Punishment of Children by Parents, 35 HOUS. L. REV.
147, 149 (1998) (saying our society overvalues pain and undervalues children). However, all
disciplines, including timeout and spanking, inflict either mental or physical pain. Indeed, research
suggests that child discipline requires pain to be effective. See LARZELERE, COMBINING LOVE,
supra note 184 (“Research on punishment has found that the stronger the punishment, the more
effective it is. That suggests that effectiveness will be maximized when the child is most distressed
. . . . However, when reasoning was used, whether by itself or in combination with punishment, an
intermediate level of child distress was associated with optimal effectiveness.”).
298. See, e.g., LARZELERE, COMBINING LOVE, supra note 184 (“For children initially high on
antisocial behavior, spanking frequency reduced their subsequent level of antisocial behavior. For
children who were lowest on antisocial behavior, spanking frequency increased their subsequent
level of antisocial behavior.”) (emphasis in original); LARZELERE, SOUND SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE,
supra note 271, at 5 (discussing the four studies by Roberts & Powers. “The spank enforcement
worked when the barrier method did not, and vice versa. This shows that parents need more
disciplinary enforcement options, not fewer options . . . . ” Dr. Larzelere also reported that these
methods can reduce recurrences of child abuse from 49% to 19% over a 2.5 year period.).
299. See, e.g., M.L. Gunnoe & C.L. Mariner, Toward a Developmental-Contextual Model of
the Effects of Parental Spanking on Children’s Aggression, 151 ARCHIVES PEDIATRICS &
ADOLESCENT MED. 768 (1997) (finding that customary spanking reduced aggression in four- to