Spank-less Guest: Robin Grille

Robin Grille's book Parenting for a Peaceful World is firmly entrenched in my list of "top parenting books."  I would even say that it is in my top three (along with Haim Ginott's Between Parent and Child and Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate's Hold Onto Your Kids). 

PPPW's main thrust is that, throughout human history, every advancement in democracy, social justice, and nurturing of the environment has been preceded by an improvement in the treatment of children.   Drawing on the work of psychohistorian Lloyd De Mause, Grille recounts the history of the world as reflected in how children have been treated. 

The descriptions in the historical part of the book are not an easy read--children are and have always been inconvenient, and as such, they have been routinely abandoned, neglected, and dismissed.  Even worse, children have been (and still are) used, abused and enslaved.  Such treatment arrests a chiild's maturational process, shapes the adult he/she becomes, and impacts the way he/she relates to others.  But as we have grown in our understanding of children's development and needs, we have also grown to treat each other, and our planet, better.  In later chapters, Grille is very specific in outlining what parenting for a peaceful world looks like.

This book made a huge impact on me, not only in terms of convincing me beyond a doubt that parenting is the most important work on Earth, but also in forever de-bunking any belief I had left in "the good old days" when it comes to raising kids.  PPPW taught me that our kids today (some of them, at least) are truly on the cutting edge, the best nurtured kids ever. 

We have the opportunity, each day, to give our kids the best our parents gave us, plus more, including all the benefits of 3+ decades of research about the positive, life-long effects of strong early attachment.  And if you believe Robin Grille (which I do)--and if you can tolerate the grousings of grandparents and other folks who yearn for a better time when adults were more in charge--you can make the world a better place.

So naturally, in starting a blog about the practice of spanking kids, I wanted to hear what Robin Grille had to say!  Below are my questions, followed by his responses.

1. As a parent, do you spank?  Not a chance.

2. Why or why not?  Are you kidding?  I couldn’t bring myself to hit my child.  The thought turns my stomach.  Anyway: what on Earth for?  What advantage could there possibly be?

3. Why do you think parents hit their kids?  Mostly because they were hit themselves, when they were children.  When you are hit as a child, you deal with the pain and hurt by learning to desensitize yourself from the experience.  The more we are desensitized to our own feelings, the less we can feel our children’s pain.  Also, when we and our friends and siblings are hit as children, violence appears to be ‘normal’.  It then feels acceptable to pass it on.  Very often parents hit their kids because they have not had role modeling for effective ways to assert necessary boundaries with children.  There is probably no more useless tool for boundary setting than a smack.  If you smack for ‘discipline’, then the moment you turn your back…….


4. What's the one thing you wish more parents knew--and/or would do differently--when it comes to disciplining their children?
Three things, not one:

First:  If we want our children to listen to us, then first we need to hear them. What I mean here, is to hear and validate their feelings.  When children feel heard, they are far more likely to listen to us and to want to behave respectfully.  Respect is earned through respect.

Second:  Children respond better when we show our feelings, appropriately and openly.  Emotions, when appropriately and congruently expressed, are what connect us to one another.We want our children’s empathy, not their obedience.

Third:  Every so often, natural consequences are needed-–as a last resort.  This is the opposite of punishment.  For instance: ‘if you keep hitting your little brother, I will need to separate you’.  But most of the time, when communication is strong, consequences like these are not necessary.

5. What do you imagine the world would be like if no adult ever hit a child?
The research on this issue is very, very strong.  If no parent ever hit a child, the world would be a significantly less violent place.  Crime, domestic violence and international conflict would be reduced.  But this alone is not enough, because there are other causes of violence.  Powerful causes include breaks in attachment in early childhood, shaming at home or at school (this is probably worse than hitting), and sexual abuse.



NOTE:  The USA edition of Grille's second book, Heart to Heart Parenting, is due out later this year.  It contains a new, more powerful, chapter about "discipline." 

You Can Never Tell!

We were having a big family talk.  It was about teasing.  Specifically, it was about my younger child teasing my older child, and about how teasing hurts.  As we're having the talk, and my husband is telling the younger child about how her words and tone hurt her brother's feelings, she played around with the sofa cushion.  The older one interrupted:  "How can you even tell she's concentrating?  She's not even listening to what you're saying."

And I said, "That's the hard part about using your words.  You can't tell.  You can't tell if someone is listening, if they care, if they're going to change because of what you say.  That's what's so nice about hitting--you can tell, right away, that the other person hurts.  But with words, you can't tell."

That "not being able to tell" applies to parents, too.  Especially when we're hoping, trying, expecting to change our kid's behavior.   There are times when I am SO envious of spanking parents.  I wish I had a sure-fire way to get my child's attention and to make an impact.  Now.  Spanking looks like the way. 

Except I know that it's not.

I know that lots of folks believe in spanking as a disciplinary tool.  Why, just today, I spoke with a woman who recounted scenes of her father, who, although he had a very long fuse, would sometimes lose his temper and spank his kids.  She said, "And he didn't stop at ten, or whatever it is you're supposed to do.  But every time, I deserved it."  I'm fine with her believing that, even if I don't.

Spanking LOOKS LIKE it works.  On the outside.  And in the short term.  But you can't tell what it's doing on the inside.  Research shows, for example, that kids who are spanked feel angry and vengeful, not remorseful.  Not spanking LOOKS LIKE it doesn't work.  But you never can tell what's going on on the inside.   Except if you can wait the additional time--minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, even--to see a kid change his/her own behavior, without having been hit.

"'Time Outs' Don't Work"

Sometimes when people talk about spanking kids, they say they need to do so, because "Time Outs don't work."  As if there were only two choices.

"Time Out" is usually a place--a chair, a room, a corner.  When a child is "misbehaving," a caretaker can tell the child to go this place.  Sometimes it's a break, a place to slow down.  And sometime it's a punishment.  One minute per year is one general rule for an amount of time for a child to spend in "Time Out."  After that, the child is welcome to re-join the activity, the class, the family.


If you say that "Time Out" doesn't work, I will ask you to define "work."  What I think people mean is that telling a child to go to "Time Out" doesn't result in the child becoming instantly and enduringly obedient.  My belief is that a child rarely becomes instantly obedient, because there's something else getting in the way.  "It" could be a physical state, like hunger, over-excitement, fatigue, or a strong emotion.  If a child is speaking with his/her behavior and an adult tells the child to go sit somewhere, hoping that will instill a life lesson, it's hardly surprising that it doesn't work.  By the time a kid is doing "Time Out"-worthy behavior, "Time Out" will serve only as a temporary intervention.  What the child probably really needs is the meal, the quiet, the hug, and/or the pillow.  It amuses me--in an odd way, of course--that some/most adults instead think it's time to start whacking.  

As if.


You can best teach life lessons to kids without spanking, and it takes time.  It takes repetition, and the repetition needs to happen in calm moments.  The calmness means that there's room to think, to take in.  Totally different situation than when it's time to go sit in "Time Out."

If I Were In Charge of the World

photo: Focus on the Family

If I were in charge of the world, no adult would ever hit a child.  That's why I'm starting this blog.  My intention is for it to be a place to become conscious, articulate, and deliberate about the ways we attempt to influence our children, and to choose the very best means for doing so.  I am certain that hitting is not among the best ways.

Spanking is a huge part of American parenting culture.  It has a long, entrenched history.  Occasionally, I meet someone who expresses surprise that I have never spanked my kids.  "Really?  Never?," they say.  I love it when that happens, because I know I am in a moment of inviting someone to question something they've always taken for granted as truth.

So if you don't spank your kids, you are welcome here.  If you do spank your kids--and you're either ambivalent about it or absolutely convinced that it's the best way--you are welcome here.  If YOU were spanked--and either believe it was horrible or exactly what made you the amazing adult you are today--same to you.  I have a lot to say on this topic, and I would love to hear from you.