SWM 137 - Why we don't spank our children

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Last week, Gary Thomas posted an article on his substack on the topic of discipline vs. punishment—not taking a stance but rather offering it up as a controversial conversation starter. Reading it made me curious about something—does your view of hell change your parenting approach? After all, if God is our example, and you believe that hell is eternal punishment, does that then lend to a more heavy-handed approach to parenting versus someone who believes that hell is an act of mercy?

I posted that question in our forum, and it then led to a discussion on using physical punishment on children. I spent a fair bit of time in the last week or two writing on that thread, and so I thought I’d repurpose it here for those who might be curious about how we raised our children.

We, Christina and I, don’t believe hell is eternal torture. We don’t believe such a view is in keeping with the Bible. We grew up in a denomination that taught it was, and it was one of the reasons we left because the doctrine couldn’t stand up to either biblical scrutiny or logic as we saw it. If you want to know why and/or argue that stance, I fully welcome you to read the post What happens when you die? That’s not the point of this post.

The point of this post is to share why we don’t spank our children, and now that my children are growing up into adults, what the outcome of such a choice has been.

Our view of hell informs our view of love

I think hell is one of the greatest showcases of God’s character. When I was growing up, I was raised in a denomination that taught that:

You are either predestined for heaven or hell and free will was an illusion.
Hell is eternal torture.
Very few people will go to heaven, relatively speaking

And so, I grew up being taught that God created everyone, randomly picked a very select few to go to heaven, and the rest he would torture for eternity for a choice they didn’t make. It also made evangelism a farce, but that’s a topic for another day.

This set of beliefs does not depict a loving God. Rather, it shows an entity that gets closest to deserving eternal torment than any other being I’ve ever met or heard of – and even then, I think the punishment is overkill. I mean, this depicts an evil worse than any of history’s largest villains. It is the equivalent of having children, choosing one at random to treat like a king, and then torturing the rest, while simultaneously keeping them alive. Except in this case, it’s trillions of children, and they are alive for ever.

Even if you believe in different variations of this, for example, perhaps you believe in free will, then you’re still left with a father raising children that he fully intends to torture the vast majority of beyond their natural lifespan. In this case, an infinite lifespan.

And if this is the view of God you hold to, and you somehow have managed to hold on to the cognitive dissonance that it is loving, then I completely understand why one could be deceived into thinking that beating your children is a loving act. It’s because your view of love is distorted.

When I grew up, started studying it for myself and learned more about God and hell, then I realized that:

God picks all of us.
We don’t all pick God.
If we pick God, our works are the evidence of that choice, but it is the choice that keeps our name in the book of life. If we do not choose Him, then our names are blotted out.
Eventually God will destroy sin, and if we choose to stand with sin, then we will be destroyed along with it.

God is not keeping sin around and not keeping us in the box with sin for eternity just to be tortured by it. If He did, that would make him an evil God.

And again, I’m going through this quickly because my intent is not to debate hell – I did that in the other post.

But this paints a very different picture picture of God, and, subsequently, love. God is not a cruel person who created the majority of mankind only to see them tortured for eternity (an eternity He manufactures). Rather, God created us to be free, in the hopes that we would see sin for what it is, and choose life with Him. If we do not – then we go back to where we came from – nothingness. No harm, no foul, in the grand scheme of things.

In this situation, death is a mercy. It’s a final loving act. It’s the acknowledgement that a child has grown up and chose to disown his father, and so all support is removed at their request. In this case, it just so happens that their very existence comes from the Father, and so when you remove that inheritance, the only possible outcome is death. Not because you were killed, but because you rejected life and it was removed from you.

It is God saying, “I wish you had chosen differently, but I will respect your wishes.” If we choose death and destruction, then we get death and destruction.

And with this view of God and love, the idea of hell being torture is – well, it makes no sense. This God, this love, is focused on grace, on mercy, on relationship. What utility does hell have? It teaches nothing – because you cannot come back from it. It doesn’t build a relationship, because you are cut off. It doesn’t build discipline, because you cannot grow anymore. And it doesn’t bring hope, because there is no hope in hell. It doesn’t even teach anyone else, because Judgement Day is the same day for everyone – after Christ returns.

The very idea of eternal hell by a God that is loving is nonsense.

Our view of love informs our actions

In the same way, claiming to love your child, using this view of God and His love, by beating them is nonsense. And you know that if you take a second to think about it because the hypocrisy jumps out pretty quickly.

If your child hits another child, and in response, you tell them not to hit people, and then you hit the child – what do they learn? They learn their parent is a hypocrite. But of course, if they point that out to you, you will become enraged, and you’ll likely hit them again. What part of that is loving?

We taught our children that it’s not okay to hit other people. Now, there are some exceptions. They know they can defend themselves, and they understand when violence is allowed – such as during martial arts training. But in day-to-day life – violence is not okay. That rule goes for children as well as adults. I have hit my kids when we’re training – but I’m using 1% or less of my power generally, and they’ve got pads on. Outside of that – I have never had to, because the only other acceptable use would be if my life was threatened, and I have never had my life threatened by my children. So, I don’t get to hit them.

I would rather draw my children to me than have them run from me

Many people have told me over the years that children should have a healthy fear of their parents. To me, this teaches your children to run from you, rather than towards you when there is trouble. You build better liars and deceivers, not better people.

My parents raised me this way, and to this day, I would not go to them for advice if I was in trouble. I would run from them and to somewhere safe. I wanted better for my own children.

When my children make a mistake – they come to me. They ask for help. They ask for forgiveness, knowing that it will be given.

We don’t punish them for mistakes. There may be consequences, but that is not the same thing. Often we negotiate the consequences with them because, ultimately, they need to learn how to set their own consequences to bad decisions and make their own rules. And honestly, sometimes they choose harsher punishments than I do. My kids will call me out for not holding them accountable for their punishments.

Do they sometimes still try to hide and deceive? Yeah, especially when they are younger. Adam and Eve did the same thing, even with a perfect Father. But as they get older, they come to us easily, asking for help before problems arise, and if there is a problem, their parents are the first people they turn to.

I wanted that relationship with them, and I’m glad to say it’s working out that way.

Theology should line up with reality

And if our theology is correct, we should see evidence of that in real life. This is one of the reasons I like running surveys. I like seeing the intersection between theology and practical application.

So, this week, I did some searching for large meta-studies—that is, studies collecting data from multiple other studies.

Here are the two studies for anyone interested in them:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3768154

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7992110

And a good summary:

https://www.apa.org/act/resources/webinars/corporal-punishment-gershoff.pdf

Here are some statistics I found:

Somewhere between 70-90% of parents spank their children
Corporal punishment from parents led to higher aggression rates in their children. It becomes a cycle of the child being more aggressive, the parents ramping up their aggression to match it and the child then responding with more aggression, bringing more physical punishment.
Spanking doesn’t make children more compliant in the short term
Spanking is not linked with long-term compliance or internalization of morals
Spanking is not linked with reductions in aggression or antisocial behaviour
Spanking is linked with worse, not better, behaviour in children.
Spanking is associated with significantly more aggression and antisocial behaviour problems
Not one of the studies showed a link between spanking and better behaviour.

So, if spanking children worked – we should see evidence of it. Instead, statistically, we see the opposite while all the wished-for behaviours I hear from parents who spank their children, my children seem to have picked up without the need to, such as internalization of morals, less aggressive, better behaviour, and a good relationship between parents and kids as well as with their siblings.

But that’s not all.

75% of abuse cases against children in Canada start as physical punishment that gets carried away
Children who are spanked are 7x more likely to be severely assaulted by their parents
Infants who are spanked are 2.3x more likely to require medical attention due to an injury inflicted by a parent

In fact, what they found in the meta-analysis is that spanking has the same outcomes as physical abuse – only with 2/3rds strength of correlation. I would say that means it is abuse – it’s merely a question of how severe.

And, this one I found really interesting:

Kids who have been spanked are more likely to develop anxiety and depression disorders, have more difficulties in school and with the skills of regulation. There is also a correlation between physical punishment and decreased brain grey matter in areas associated with performance on intelligence tests. Studies show spanking a child from age 2-4 shows, on average, a 5-point drop in IQ. Between ages 5-9, a 2.8-point drop. And the correlation gets stronger the older they are when you stop spanking them. Countries where spanking is more prevalent tend to have a lower national average IQ. So, you’re literally taking away their intelligence by spanking them.

So, in summary, kids who are spanked

have higher aggression
have lower conflict-resolution skills
have a higher chance of depression, anxiety and other mental disorders
increased struggle with self-regulation

These all set them up to struggle more in their marriages when they grow up as well. And yet, kids who are spanked tend to have a more positive view of physical punishment, and so are more likely to use it on their own children. To me, this sounds like a generational curse if ever there was one.

Doesn’t the Bible tell us to beat our children?

There are some confusing bible verses that get brought up when this topic is discussed. Probably the strongest one that is brought up is

Proverbs 23:13-14: Do not withhold correction from a child, for if you beat him with a rod, he will not die You shall beat him with a rod, And deliver his soul from hell.

The problem with this verse is that Proverbs is often poetic instead of literal, and you may think that’s a cop-out until you read this verse:

Exodus 21:20 – And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished.

So, the problem here is that the Bible says that if you beat a grown man or woman with a rod, you may very well kill him. And that makes sense because a rod is not a small stick. It is a club, a wooden equivalent of a mace. In fact, David used a rod to kill lions and bears.

As for what the Proverb means, there is some debate and I’m not entirely sure myself, but it certainly cannot mean what a plain reading is, because both logic and the Bible tell us that you can very well kill a child by hitting them with a rod.

For myself, I don’t build doctrines out of verses that contradict the rest of the Bible. I would rather set that one verse aside for a time until I grow in understanding rather than set aside the rest of the Bible in favour of the one verse. Because nothing about beating a child with a club seems to line up with the rest of scripture.

Lastly, the most common verse I hear is:

Proverbs 13:24 – He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly.

And the problem with this verse is that people no longer know what a rod was used for. A shepherd’s rod is a short, club-like stick. It is a symbol of authority (Kings and Pharaohs had rods), and it’s used to guide sheep and count them (as a pointer), but the only time it is used to hit someone or something is when you’re hitting an enemy – like a bear, lion, or someone trying to steal your sheep.

So, I believe, in light of the context of the culture, this is not talking about physical violence, but rather authority and guidance. Discipline comes in many ways, and violence is the lazy, and I’d argue evil, route.

In summary

For us, we’re glad we chose not to spank our children from the beginning. Is it harder? Absolutely. You have to use your brain, patience, gentleness, kindness, self-control and other fruit of the spirit in place of violence. No one ever said it was easy. But, it has been worth the effort for us, and statistically it seems it’s not a fluke.

Now, if you disagree, want to debate, have questions, want to share your experiences, etc, feel free to post them in the comments.