More than one generation of parents has uttered the words, “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.” They have been delivered by mothers as well as by fathers. They have been spoken calmly and with intense anger. Regardless of their tone, volume, or intensity, they are usually followed by a spanking.

Don’t look now, but the familiar adage, “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you,” may be true.

Because it’s the child’s bottom that gets stung, it appears at first glance that the child is the one who gets hurt. Clearly, an adult hand can tolerate more violence than a child’s tender backside can. Yes, children who are spanked regularly can hurt as much on the inside as they do on the outside. True, some of the psychological scars inflicted by hitting children can take years to heal. There is no doubt that spanking children hurts them in many ways. And yet the supposition remains: maybe spanking a child does hurt the parent as much or more than it does the child.

Consider the following:

1. When a spanking occurs, the child disconnects. He withdraws emotionally from the parent and the situation. With enough spankings, the disconnect can become permanent. If your child has disconnected from you, you are indeed the one who has been hurt.
2. When you discipline a child with physical aggression, you often initiate a power struggle. This activates resistance, reluctance, and resentment in the one who has received the discipline. Even if the child acquiesces, he often engages in revenge fantasies. That means he is wishing he could get you. If your spankings result in reluctance and resistance on the part of your child, once again it is you who has been hurt.
3. There is a name for a big person who hits little ones. That name is BULLY. If your child perceives you as a bully, you have lost again. You have lost stature in her eyes. You have injured your reputation in the heart and mind of your own child.
4. By jumping to the physical punishment stance you lose an opportunity to learn enlightened parenting skills. Not only does this strategy rarely teach the lesson you intend, it also deprives you of learning new verbal skills and parenting techniques that would add to your parenting toolbox. If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to look at everything as if it were a nail. Your effectiveness as a parent is hurt by relying on physical punishment and not developing additional skills.
5. Spanking a child meets the needs of the adult, not of the child. By satisfying your needs, you can quickly return to your own agenda. Sacrificed in the process is the family agenda, including the opportunity to debrief, listen, and seek consensus. If a sense of family is important to you, you undermine your goal by relying on the selfishness of spanking.
6. Spanking takes you in the opposite direction from becoming the parent you always wanted to be. Do you really feel like an effective parent when you spank your children? Does your image of yourself increase when you resort to hitting them? Do you say to yourself, “There, I’ve been a good parent again,” when you lay your hand on your child’s backside? If you have a grander vision of yourself as a parent than one who models “might makes right” to his children, then spanking hurts you.
7. Justifying in your mind that spanking children is necessary allows you to be unconscious about the work you need to do on your own anger issues. It stunts your growth as a mature parent and permits you to continue being a child who is attempting to raise children. Hitting children helps you stay little and does nothing to encourage you to move into adulthood.

Clearly, spanking has the potential to hurt your child in many ways. There is no doubt about that. But don’t delude yourself with the idea that it hurts them more than it hurts you. The hurt that occurs during spanking is not limited to one person. It hurts all involved. Why not stop hurting yourself and your child? Why not eliminate spanking from your parenting repertoire?

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Chick Moorman and Thomas Haller are the authors of The Only Three Discipline Strategies You Will Ever Need: Essential Tools for Busy Parents and The 10 Commitments: Parenting with Purpose. They also publish a FREE e-mail newsletter for parents and another for educators. Subscribe to them when you visit www.personalpowerpress.com.