UNDERMINING PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY AND POWER

UNDERMINING PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY AND POWER                          1/18/17

By Domenick J. Maglio, PhD. Traditional Realist

France became the 52^nd nation to end any and all forms of corporal punishment of children. This movement has become a well-financed global progressive initiative. Sixty-two percent of French citizens polled reported spanking their children. This is a deflated figure due to political correctness, with 82% of the respondents clearly voicing opposition to the ban, which passed. Statist governments are dictating to parents in 52 nations of the world that spanking for any reason or in any limited form will no longer be allowed by the parent or guardian. This is a direct attack on the right and power of parents to raise their children.

The extraordinary effort to limit parent’s discretion in child rearing has been gradually happening over a half century through the psychological and educational expert’s advice. This indoctrination by the media to brand any spanking as an abusive act has fallen short of the desired results. This campaign wanted a total ban on any form no matter how responsible and appropriate the spanking.

Parents in developed nations have been brainwashed to be conscious that politically correct “do gooders” will be upset to witness any form of a verbal reprimand or moderate spanking.  They are aware they would be reported to the government authorities. The citizens are encouraged by the media and government authorities to report any overt acts, which parents use to demonstrate their power to get their children to obey their authority. 

These so called, child advocates are short sighted. Often they had not raised children of their own or had less than sterling results with their own children. They believe that their children should be on an equal power plane as the parents. These utopian egalitarian ideas sound wonderful and are more important to comply with than the actual outcomes that are disastrous. They are more focused on making themselves and their children delusionally happy than preparing them for reality.

When children are not functioning normally they are labeled with a mental disorder. The child’s own thinking, listening and behavior is evaluated not the parent’s child rearing practices. It does not seem to matter that parents’ lack of consistency, follow through or any other aspect of their child rearing practices that has had a negative impact on the child. The child is viewed by the mental health professional as an independent individual rather than through the broader lens of being one element of the family dynamics in this process. The child is labeled as defective while the “loving” parent becomes the martyr for dealing their problem child.

The stigmatizing or prohibiting any method of asserting parental power has been devastating to children’s development. Without parents being in charge, the children are left to their own devices. The lack of parental authority means little daily structure or boundaries.  The child’s lifestyle becomes chaotic. The parents become solely observers of the child doing his own thing. These are missed opportunities to teach necessary life skills, politeness, gratefulness and many other moral values that are needed to perform well in a complex society.

Moderate spanking has been used throughout human history. It is and was very rare, even in this permissive era for a child to never have been spanked. The vast majority of adults have been spanked in their lives without any emotional, social or psychological damage. As adults these children have turned out to be psychologically, socially and emotionally healthy people.

Elizabeth Owens and Diana Baumrind of the University of California, Berkley authored a ground breaking longitudinal study of 100 families on their child rearing practices. They found there is no detrimental evidence that moderate spanking of a child causes any ill effects on their development. It does note that any verbal or physical consistent and severe abusive behavior does negatively impact the individual.

There is a significant distinction between moderate spanking and abusive corporal punishment that is being ignored. By lumping them together we have lost out on an essential tool in gaining the child’s attention to adhere to parental decisions. Physical abuse does not work while moderate spanking does. The lack of establishing limits with a child does have potentially negative implications to the child’s development. Children without parental parameters and a moral compass are not prepared to face reality as they age. This vacuum of predictable consequences for behavior leaves the person a dysfunctional being.

Once you frighten parents from meeting their honorable obligations under the threat of breaking the state’s arbitrary and capricious laws you have undermined parent’s power. They lose the ability to do the crucial and most difficult duty of their lives: raise good, healthy citizens.  The family is the most important social unit of any society. Without parents taking responsibility for their children, the children suffer and so does the nation.

The governments of numerous nations have proven that they cannot be good substitutes for a healthy family. Their social engineering intervention has been a dismal failure.

Domenick Maglio, PhD. is a columnist carried by various newspapers, an author of several books and owner/director of Wider Horizons School, a college prep program. Dr. Maglio is an author of weekly newspaper articles, INVASION WITHIN and a new just published book, entitled, IN CHARGE PARENTING In a PC World. You can visit Dr. Maglio at www.drmaglio.blogspot.com.