Last Monday, a Springville, Utah, couple was charged with killing their adopted daughter by forcing her to drink large amounts of water. The parents said they forced the water drinking as a treatment for “severe problems of sneaking and lying.”
“Law & Order” turned another another “severe punishment” case into an episode when Mrs. Jeane Newmaker of Colorado accidently suffocated her 10-year-old daughter during a “rebirthing session.”
The line between abuse and discipline has changed greatly . More cases involving light spanking lean towards the child’s case, and parents are losing custody of their children. In response new forms of discipine are being created.
The new forms of discipline have mixed results. Some forms, such as grounding and “time outs,” are beng utilized more, based on the theory that if children misbehave, they will have some freedom taken away. This type of punishment has been used before, during and after the heyday of spanking, and leaves little damage, save an introduction to conformity.
Other forms of punishment, like the couple’s case, have gone beyond the extreme. Instead of trying to use discipline, parents are endangering their children.
Spanking simply needs to be brought back. Laws need to be less restrictive, and cases, where light spanking is used to take a child away from a parent, need to be thrown out.
Those who would beat their children far past the physical damage of light spanking will still beat their children, as was illustrated in Indiana when a woman allegedly beat her child after a disappointing transaction at Kohl’s.
Parents who disciplined their children with light spanking, which many people generations back said “did them good,” must now take a gamble on a roulette wheel of new therapies, treatments and punishments.
