Does Christian Teaching Advise Us To Spank Our Children?

Examining scholarship and text, to learn to be a loving parent

It’s hard to be a parent, Christyl Rivers

To spank or not to spank

Your child is screaming for sugary cereal in a supermarket. It’s already been a stressful day. She didn’t take her nap. You don’t have enough money due to lay-offs.

It’s so hard.

During a global pandemic, you have so many extra preparations to make in order to just get food on the table. You take her aside and give her a very gentle, yet firm, tush-paddling. But then you feel awful when her little face streams with quiet, but accusatory tears. She is silent, and looks wary and sullen.

Upon getting to the car you don’t know what to say, or do. You scowl all the way home.

Many of us were given spankings as children, and we assure ourselves “We turned out okay, didn’t we?”

Many people today feel justified in using corporal punishment, usually spanking, in order to teach young children to mind their parents. Bible verses such as those in Proverbs 13, and Proverbs 22, seem to support this belief.

Indeed, there are some church leaders who even today teach that to “spare the rod” is “to spoil the child.” However, most pastors, and indeed, all biblical scholars today, note that…