Debate Over Spanking Continues to Hit Home

Re “Spank Your Kid, Go to Jail?” (Aug. 20): Before we choose up sides and fortify our positions on the recommended legalities of spanking, it might be helpful to define our terms.

Randomly or angrily lashing out at a child with a hand or “rod” in frustration is abuse, not spanking. This kind of interaction between a misbehaving child and a parent at his wit’s end does little more than breed anger and bullying in the child’s heart.

However, the use of reasonable corporal punishment as one small part of a well-planned, consistently administered training and discipline strategy is something else entirely.

A well-trained child rarely needs spanking. A poorly trained child will not be brought into obedience through spanking alone.

PEGGY WEBB

Westlake Village

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Now the pundits are saying it should be illegal for parents to spank their children. It should be illegal for people to tell us how to raise our children unless they’ve successfully raised their own.

Instead of using our common sense, we listen to experts. Things are getting worse, not better. Babies having babies. Children killing children. Parents killing their children. Children killing their parents. Parents afraid of their own children.

Re spanking: Some children you can talk to and get the job done. Others you can’t.

RAY MILEY

Los Angeles

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Regarding a request to have lawmakers make it illegal for adults to strike children, this would be redundant because it is already illegal to hit people. It is called assault and battery. The only problem here, it seems, is that our courts do not see children as people, but as the property of their parents.

We should follow the example of Scandinavian countries where there have been anti-spanking and anti-humiliation laws since 1977 with positive results.

BENNY WASSERMAN

La Palma