n being over the age of 30 is a mental case. Spanking is not the answer for everything, but in some cases it is the only answer. The growing trends for passive discipline in the United States stem largely from the revelation that there were people out there that severely abused their children. As more and more abuse cases were brought to light, laws were changed to protect the child.1 Psychological issues soon began to crop up and spanking soon came under fire, being called a form of child abuse and in some cases punishable under the law. Researchers have studied the effects of spanking and the effects are not to be taken lightly. First of all, the experts claim that spanking doesn't teach a child self-direction. The child learns to do what the parent says or else face the consequences. This leads to other issues, including lying and cheating to avoid a spanking, which in some cases result in a spanking as well. Instead of regulating the behavior, it just trades one form of bad behavior for another. Second, and probably the most talked about consequence of spanking is that it can lead to hereditary violence. In other words, a child who is spanked could display violence with siblings and classmates, and as adults with spouses and their own children. Psychologist Terry Luce of the University of Tulsa2 says his research in aggressive behavior shows that children as young as pre-school age will hit other children as a result of being spanked themselves. Spanking also sends a disturbing message. It tells the average child that hitting is a way to solve problems and that it is all right for a big person to strike a small one. Another effect experts say spanking can have is that it erodes the parent/child bond. A large part of that bond is the child's desire to please the parent. The more the parent spanks the child, the less likely it is for that child to want to please the parent. Desensitization is also a factor here. Parents that spank may feel they have to spank longer and harder to get the same message across and eventually the child stops responding all together. Along with this, a child may be too young to understand the lesson that a spanking is trying to get across. Also, spanking your child can lead to a gradual increase in the severity of the abuse. Sociologists say that one-third of the parents that spank children with an open hand on the bottom move on to using belts and paddles, then to hitting on the face and head, then to punching, kicking, and beating.3 The number one cause of infant death according to Luce is parents who beat them under the guise of discipline. Still, in spite of all of this, every state in the union has laws that allow parental corporal punishment.4 Finally, a study published by the American Medical Association in 1997 suggests that the more a parent uses corporal punishment on a child, the worse his behavior will be over time. Report author Murray A. Straus who is a sociologist at the University of New Hampshire says that this is the first study that has been able to prove that spanking is not as productive as people think it is.5 Straus used data from 1986 to 1990 collected from interviews with 900 mothers. The research showed that over that 4 year span, the behavior of the children whose mothers didn't spank them was better. Mothers who spanked their children once or twice a week had a higher instance of misbehavior in their children. The highest of all were mothers who spanked their children 3 or more times during the week. Their behavior actually got worse over that 4-year period of time. In addition, anti-social behavior, which Straus defined as lying, cheating, bullying or being cruel to others, was 14 percent higher in the frequently spanked group from 1986 to 1988.6 In short, spanking is said to be the easy way out, taking care of the problem for the time being, but having adverse effects down later in life. People who are against spanking have come up with a variety of alternative method

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