VOA标准英语2010年-Beating Children Remains Common Worldw

Research reveals cultural differences about what seems to be acceptable when it comes to physically¹ disciplining children.

But three decades on, how are children doing?

Pediatricians from the University of North Carolina have taken a look at one measure of children's well being - the extent to which they are subject to corporal punishment and abuse. 

One of the pediatricians, Desmond Runyan, was at an international meeting about a decade ago when he proposed that countries work in parallel to measure the type and extent of child abuse occurring in each place.

Researchers from Chile, Brazil, Egypt, the Philippines, India and the U S  agreed on common methods to measure child maltreatment in their respective countries. 

Cultural differences

Runyan says more than 10 years later, the data reveal interesting cultural differences about what seems to be acceptable when it comes to physically disciplining children.

"Among the things we learned for instance was that in India, slapping a child in the face or head is more common than spanking² them," he says. "And in Egypt, 25 percent of the mothers said that they had beaten their child up, which was defined as  hitting them over and over again with a closed fist."

"And then the other interesting things were like the Philippines, the rate of telling people that evil spirits or the bogey³ man was going to get them, the kind of emotional, kind of threatening to lock them out of the home, was very high."

However, despite the differences in punishment methods, Runyan found some notable similarities.  For example, he found  the education level of mothers impacted how often they resorted to physical discipline.

"The more years of education, the lower the rate of harsh physical punishment in kids," Runyan says. "So that was our major overall finding."

Effectiveness of spanking

He maintains that one of the big problems with corporal punishment - aside from the obvious - is that it just 'isn't effective' at changing behavior.

"The children that were hit were more likely to be misbehaving still after five years than the kids who weren't hit," Runyan says. "It teaches them to be more aggressive."

He maintains there are other more effective tools of parenting that don't include physical punishment, but still correct behavior.

Runyan's colleague at UNC, Adam Zolotor, agrees. He says the research shows that routinely spanking has been shown to result in many negative behaviors as the children grow up.

"Most children that are spanked⁴ don't develop those outcomes but some do, and we are not always good at predicting at who's going to develop those bad outcomes," Zolotor says.  "And there are lots of other effective tools of parenting, and I think it's important that all parents have a broad range of tools that they don't have used effectively to teach their children."

Zolotor also looked at the extent of corporal punishment of children in many countries, but he examined what happened in countries which had enacted⁵ bans on corporal punishment, or spanking. 

Ban on corporal punishment of children

These types of laws have been enacted in many countries, from Europe to Latin America.

Zolotor found that in these countries, the rates of physical abuse had dropped as the rate of physical punishment dropped.  But, he says, that for a country to pass a ban, physical punishment needs to already be falling out of favor.

"Spanking has to be unpopular enough in a representative government that is politically feasible to pass an anti-corporal punishment law," Zolotor says.

"But then I think that the passage of the anti-corporal punishment law and then maybe the policy, and the media, and the research support that comes with the passage of those laws reinforces further declines in corporal punishment."

Zolotor also examined which countries had ratified⁶ the Convention on the Rights of the Child and found that only two countries in the world had not signed on. Those countries are Somalia and the United States.

"Some people have said a bit tongue in cheek that it's perhaps because Somalia is a country without enough laws and the U.S. is a country with too many laws," says Zolotor. "There has been in opinion expressed in the political theater that the U.S. doesn't want to pass a law that would leave them accountable to the UN in terms of our own legal framework and protection of children."

He points out that only 24 of the 193 signatories to the Convention have  banned corporal punishment outright⁷.  He says such a ban isn't necessary to signing onto the law.

"It would mean that we would need to be working towards eliminating this type of violence against children," he says.

 
 

1 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

2 spanking   

adj.强烈的，疾行的；n.打屁股

参考例句：

• The boat is spanking along on the river.船在小河疾驶。
• He heard a horse approaching at a spanking trot.他听到一匹马正在疾步驰近。

3 bogey   

n.令人谈之变色之物；妖怪，幽灵

参考例句：

• The universal bogey is AIDS.艾滋病是所有人唯恐避之不及的东西。
• Age is another bogey for actresses.年龄是另一个让女演员头疼的问题。

4 spanked   

v.用手掌打( spank的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• We spanked along in his new car. 我们坐在他的新车里兜风。 来自辞典例句
• The nurse spanked the naughty child. 保育员打了一下那个淘气的孩子的屁股。 来自辞典例句

5 enacted   

制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• legislation enacted by parliament 由议会通过的法律
• Outside in the little lobby another scene was begin enacted. 外面的小休息室里又是另一番景象。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

6 ratified   

v.批准，签认（合约等）( ratify的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The treaty was declared invalid because it had not been ratified. 条约没有得到批准，因此被宣布无效。
• The treaty was ratified by all the member states. 这个条约得到了所有成员国的批准。

7 outright   

adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的

参考例句：

• If you have a complaint you should tell me outright.如果你有不满意的事，你应该直率地对我说。
• You should persuade her to marry you outright.你应该彻底劝服她嫁给你。