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Letters: Spanking and parenting

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Re “Study fuels spanking debate,” Column, July 14

I’m disappointed in Sandy Banks’ rationalizations for hitting her children. In fact, there is no evidence-based debate over hitting or spanking children, any more than there’s a debate over the link between tobacco use and cancer. Hitting (spanking) children is linked to a wide range of negative outcomes.

Like Banks, I was hit as a child and vowed never to hit my own children. And like Banks, I ended up spanking my daughters. Unlike her, I met with my grown daughters and told them that hitting children is always wrong. I apologized. I suggested that, because they were hit, they risked repeating this with their own children.

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Instead of trying to end the cycle of poor parenting choices, Banks’ rationalizations perpetuate our own parenting mistakes.

David M. Dozier

Cardiff-by-the-Sea, Calif.

These studies on spanking are not only ambiguous but completely subjective and biased.

The anti-spanking crusade started about 50 years ago; consequently, many more children today than before are infrequently spanked.

How successful has this approach been? We seem to be surrounded by narcissistic, ill-behaved and self-absorbed young people whose language has degraded to such an extent that a declarative sentence cannot be expressed without an expletive.

Many of these youngsters undoubtedly have personality disorders, but one thing seems to be certain: They were never spanked, as spoiled brats rarely are.

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Giuseppe Mirelli

Los Angeles

Banks leaves me with the impression that spanking isn’t all that bad. She says: “I think there’s an important distinction. Hitting, smacking, slapping, shoving, grabbing are not the same thing, to my mind, as a parental smack to the behind.”

Think of it this way. If I’m not allowed by law to lay a hand on an adult, why should I be allowed to do the same to a child of any age? It’s called assault and battery. It’s that simple.

Benny Wasserman

La Palma

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