Alan E. Kazdin is a frustrated man, and it's America's parents who are frustrating him. These parents are, of all things, prone to use an occasional spanking in disciplining their children. Dr. Kazdin's great frustration is that these parents insist on doing what seems right to them, and thus they are ignoring or rejecting the fact that "science" shows that spankings don't work.

I can't speak for other parents, but I didn't spank my children insisting "on doing what seems right" to me. I did it because the Bible taught me that this was God's prescribed method of dealing with and disciplining a rebellious child. And by the time they were five years old, most of them would see a child having a tantrum and say something like, "Mom, that boy needs a spanking!"

No, contrary to doing what seemed right to me, I believed God when He said,

There is a way which seems right to a man,
But its end is the way of death. (Prov. 14:12)

I'm sure that at some point my children would have appreciated it if I'd stopped to read "the science" before administering corporal punishment, but something tells me that most of them are now glad I wasn't subscribing to whatever medical and psychological journals were regarding themselves as the receptacles of all knowledge at the time. No, I naively believed that

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom;
all those who practice it have a good understanding. (Psalm 111:10)

The three of my children who now have their own children have chosen "the fear of the Lord" as the beginning of wisdom and have chosen to discipline their children according to God's instruction. I'm sure "the science" would interpret this as proof that the cycle of violence is being perpetuated because of my refusal to "get it."

Oh well.

Read Al Mohler's take: Spare the Rod? America's Parents Just Won't Get With the Science

And don't miss Kadzin's follies:

Spare the Rod: Why you shouldn't hit your kids

Labels: Children, Theater of the Absurd