We Must Stop Hitting Children! Part 5 -- Approval of Hitting is Declining

Belief in the utility and even necessity of physical punishment as a method of child rearing has been strong through generations of Americans from at least the early 17th century to the present day. Now, four hundred years later at the beginning of the 21st century, American approval of physical punishment by parents is showing signs of decline.

In the 1960s, 94 percent of adults were in favor of physical punishment. According to the General Social Surveys (GSS), by 1986 84 percent of American adults agreed that children sometimes need a “good hard spanking.” In the latest GSS completed in 2004, the percentage had dropped to 71.3 percent of surveyed Americans as agreeing or strongly agreeing with that statement.

It is clear that although Americans remain more in favor of physical punishment than Europeans, Americans' approval of physical punishment of children by parents has declined gradually yet steadily over the last 40 years.

Do you approve or are you among those who do not?

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The NEW Confident Parenting is a book that discusses all of the issues surrounding the use of physical punishment and offers an entire program for raising children without ever having to use physical punishment.