Hello, im ray suarez. Nfl player Adrian Peterson is in legal trouble after it was found he used physical discipline with his own son, hitting him with an object i called a switch. At first the vikings sat him down for last weeks game. As the fury continued to blow up, the team reconsidered, barring peterson from all team activities. When and whether to hit your kids is a social war shack issues. It divides by race, religion, region, social class, and it leads people to very different destinations. Youll hear adults say yes, i was hit by a kid and it didnt do me any lasting harm, and i spank my own kids. And yes, i was hit as a kid, and i dont and wont. Star running back Adrian Peterson on indefinite suspension after former charges of abusing his own son. The public and politicians including the governor, the vikings changed course. We made a mistake. We needed to get this right. It really is about getting it right. Thats what we wanted to do here. Petersons felony charges is linked to an event in may when his fouryearold son pushed another son off a video game. Peterson is accused of grabbing a tree branch called a switch and striking his son until he bleed. A pediatrician called police after finding marks on the boy. I have to live with the fact that when i disciplined my son the way i was disciplined as a child i caused an injury that i never intended or thought would happen. I know that many people disagree with the way i disciplined my child. I have always believed that the way my parents disciplined me has a great deal to do with the success ive enjoyed as a man. I love my son, and i will continue to become a better parent and learn from the many mistakes i ever make. It has opened a Wider National discussion, specifically where is the line between discipline and child abuse. In the u. S. Its legal to use force against a child as long as reasonable. Its not only legal but has broad support. Adrian peterson said whoopings were common when he was growing up in east texas. Nfl commissioner Roger Goodell announced friday that the league would be developing new conduct policies for its players to include dealing with Domestic Violence and child abuse. The commissioner was asked by the peterson case. While im disappointed with what Adrian Peterson was involved in, we want to see the facts. Its tragic. I have two daughters who are 13. Thats difficult to see. If convicted of the charges peterson could face up to two years in prison and a 10,000 fine. Whether or not or when to use physical discipline on children is our focus this time. Part of the difficulty of the conversation is that the blanket terms we use cover everything from a swat on the palm of the hand to almost ritualized beatings using objects like belts and sticks. Another difficult aspect of the topic is that defenders dont necessarily condone physical discipline that crosses the line into abuse, but they worry about the law reaching past the front door of the family home into private decisions around raising children. Well try to break all of this down for you on this edition of inside story. Joining me are michael walker, the executive director for a safe cleveland. Assad kirkland, the author of beating black kids, and murray straws, founder of the Research Plan at the university of ne new hampshire, also the author of beating the devil out of them Corporal Punishment in american families. Before we begin lets take a look at some numbers that might surprise you. In 2012 a survey asked people if sometimes a child needs, quote a good hard spanking. 77 of men said yes. 65 of women said yes. Thats a drop of more than 20 since the survey began in 1986. The survey also shows 82 of africanamericans agreed that spanking is okay. The survey combines whites and hispanic together revealing 71 of demographic does not have a problem with spanking either. So professor strauss, are americans very different from other people in the rich industrialized world . Are we bigger hitters of our children than the british, the french, the germans . In most of these countries people also think that spanking is also necessary, but the United States has a higher percentage. The exact same question has not been asked in other countries, but in my survey i did a survey of 32 nations using a somewhat different question, and i found that the u. S. Was near the top ranking. Other countries particularly scandinavia, sweden, norway, denmark and also netherlands, belgium, are much lower. About 30 . There is a huge difference in the u. S. The most recent survey also asked about specific acts such as occurred in the case of peterson, hitting a child with a stick, belt, hair brush, things like that. We asked this of University Students in several universities, and asked them at age ten about their relationships with their parents. 47 of u. S. University students in our sample said that when they were ten years old they were hit with an object. Is part of the problem the mushiness of the language . That when we talk about a whooping, it could mean a lot of Different Things in a lot of different households, and really covers a range from things that might seem appropriate to families to things that might make them recoil in horror. Sure, im glad you brought up the issue of language. Repeatedly i kept hearing about how people discipline their children, and when you look up the word discipline , i charge the audience to get their dictionaries now. It has a latin root to teach. When you discipline your child you should be teaching your child not hitting them. That came out of an experience where a slave master beat a slave and said im going to teach you. It does get mushy, but only because we have a misunderstanding of words. They need to clear discipline, friend, i was on a show yesterday where we talked about how people say i dont want to be my childs friend, but weve had callers call in and say what the definition means, ally, a person of trust. You totally want to be your childs friend. Language is very important in defining what were going to do and should do going forward. Could you predict in families where this kind of hitting, use of physical force has a part of discipline runs in families. If you got whacked pretty hard youre more likely to do that to your own children or less likely . Is there some inte inter generational parenting going on here. If a parent smokes, the child will more than likely smoke. We talk about gang violence. You taught the child first when he was two years old. You taught them to get result they hit. To get the results they use they use violence. Parents are upset but you taught the child violence when they were young. Hitting children is such a ski skillless act. I say raise your skills and not your hands to discipline children because theyre turning out into what we created. We can do much better than that. We have to do better than that. Michael walker, what do you observe about the tolerance inside neighborhoods, inside households for physical disciplined disciplines, is there less or more tolerance for picking up your hand to somebody . Well, i think there is a number of things. Number one, i was spanked, and i was whooped with a switch by my grandmother, but her skill sets are from from the 1940s and 50s. They couldnt take television away. We didnt have one. I didnt have a tablet, cell phone and time out was me going out to plow the field. Things have changed. One of the things that we can talk about there is truly a difference in words. There are people who discipline, and there are people who punish. The think the punish becomes abuse. As we talk about this issue one we need to be really clear on the words being similar and meaning the same thing. Im from alabama. Born in alabama. Three states that use Corporal Punishment are texas, mississippi, and alabama. In petersons situation he was raised in a community where it was appropriate in their mind to discipline in their mind their child with a switch. As times change we learn those things. The most important thing is lets not demonize people. Lets give them the tools. As stated earlier a lot of this is about frustration, and when a person is trying to figure out, and also there is historical basis in terms of what happened in a lot of families as they brought up their kids. As we reported the majority of Americans Still find physically disciplining children to be acceptable and sometimes necessary. Push beyond that yes no question there is variation in the response. When we come back after the break well look at the breakdown of region, race, religious, its on inside story. Stay with us. On the stream, a growing group of aging americans cant afford to retire. We explore their life on on the road, living in vehicles with no place to call home. The stream, on Al Jazeera America welcome back to inside story on Al Jazeera America. Corporal punishment. What it accomplished, who does it, all this time on the program. Asaada kirkland, help me out here. We saw all this widespread societal discussion after the Adrian Peterson story broke. And from the tone of it on television, in newspapers online you would think that this was a country that was far more disapproving of hitting children than it really is. Is the problem the kind of people who make and appear on tv shows are a little different than the people who are sitting at home and watching tv shows . Well, you know, lets not get it twisted, as we would say on the street, right . Lets not get it twisted. This is an american problem. This is how american started. It started with whipping people. Even the dialogue, im going to give you a whoopin, you change the vowel and its im going to give a whipping. This is an american crisis. Some people may say that theyre not in support of it, but family members did believe in it. We have to look at the fiber of american society. Spanking is from the seed of war. War comes from people who cant handle communication, canned handle making decisions together and they use violence. This starts it off, spanking. There is really not a big difference in america between those populations, but i just feel like what i love about all of this is that it puts the dirty laundry on the table, and now we can start cleaning some things up and really talking it there, sifting through it, and getting a better result. As a nation we need to improve this. This is not just the black community. Its highly the black community because we think its normal in our culture, but its an american problem overall to see that its something that should be done. Professor, is that right . When you hear the suggestion that this is a very old american story, is she right . Oh, yes, i thoroughly agree with that. In massachusetts there was a law on the books that if a child was disobedient he should be executed. No child was ever executed, but that law stood for centuries. It skates the mentality , the violent tone that has been mentioned. But i have a different aspect of the discrepancy that you pointed out between the overwhelming approval of spanking and the negative reaction to what Adrian Peterson did. Its that the negative reaction is not because he spanked, not because he hit, but because he injured the child. Everyone is opposed to that. If he hadnt, i dont think we would have this. Involving excessive corporal punish ment. This is true with states with those laws that comes to my attention. Americans are not against speaking either legally or in their hearts. Theyre against injuring children. Michael walker, how about that, the problem with Adrian Peterson was not that he hit his child, but that there is a line and he crossed it. Well, i think so. 19 states have legal Corporal Punishment in schools. The notion of abuse, i mean, the reality is that hes admitted that he went overboard. I think again the question, and my concern is always universa universality is if Corporal Punishment is legal in a state, then the question is abuse, beating and injury. I think the professor mentions very well that we would not be having this conversation, there was no injury. He didnt want the other child harmed, and we move forward. The conversation needs to be open, and that we need to be clear that theyre going into homes and saying how are you going to raise your child . No one is condoning beatings. You opened the conversation today with, boy, this becomes a child when you ask and 70 of the people still today are thinking its okay. I think over time more americans will go towards nonviolent approaches, but they need tools to deal with that. I think were saying slowly changing an American Culture around this issue. Asaada kirkland, there have been sizable drops of people who say its okay, but its still a big majority. See, i have a zero tolerance of any hitting of a child. Were talking about abuse versus spanking. And because Adrian Peterson left marks. There should be zero tolerance. Youre a big adult hitting a little child. Really . Were having a conversation oh, you can slap your wife a couple of times when she gets out of line. Thats adult. Its Domestic Violence period, and we should have a problem with a child being hit by an adult first and foremost because it does not solve anything, it doesnt teach them anything. And its totally confusing when someone you loves leaves the memory of bringing you pain. Where do you go when the person you love brings you pain . You go somewhere else. Thats where the trouble starts because those people do not care for you the same way your family is supposed to care for you. That begins a downward spiral for the young person to have solutions on how to handle life. We should be against bringing any pain. Do we know about the lives of adults and have good numbers contrasting adults who were hit a lot as children versus ones who were not . Yes, there has been excellent research, Longitudinal Research and a couple of experiments that leave little doubt that spanking has harmful side affects. Even when done, quote, in moderation. What kind of affects. The more spanking the worst the affect. Even a small amount adversely affects children, but less so. How can that be . Almost everyone can say since almost everyone has been spanked, almost everyone can say, well, i was spanked and im okay. They do that to justify spanking. But thats not what it means. Its true, they were spanked and theyre okay. But thats like smokers saying, well, ive smoked a lot and im okay. Whatever statistics on smoking and theyre parallel on spanking. If youre a heavy smoker there is a 30 chance that youre going to die prematurely. Thats pretty horrible. But the same statistic means that 70 of heavy smokers can say whats all this nonsense . Im a heavy smoker, and here im, ii am, but im fine. The correct interpretation is that were one of the lucky 70 , not the unlucky 30 . Similarly when i talk to people they say, well, i was spanked, and i havent hit my wife. Well be back with more inside story after this short break. When we come back well talk about the use of the law to regulate behavior inside the family. Everyone might agree that there is a difference between spanking and child abuse. Is the law a blunt instrument for helping us tell the difference . Stay with us. no noise, no clutter, just real reporting. The new Al Jazeera America mobile app, available for your apple and android mobile device. Download it now youre watching inside story on Al Jazeera America. Im ray suarez. If i reached across the table and smacked one of my guests, those of you at home watching my endorse a charge of battery. If after the workday i headed home and hit my 14yearold daughter in the exact same manner, many of you might balk at criminal charges. Were trying to drill down the subtle differences that shape our responses to those two slaps today on the program. Michael walker is there a sense that we all have, that our children belong to us in a way, and are ours to do with what we want . Well, heres my concern, and its kind of a challenge because i think youve listened to logic. Logic says that hitting serves no purpose. Im not going to sit here and say my grandmother who had me pick my own switch and gave me those swats didnt love me. But what was different was she knew things as they grew older, and i learned things from that. The problem with the law is that were responsible. I heard a doctor say, well, an adult hitting a child and the injury. We wouldnt tolerate that with Domestic Violence on women. Well, we changed. I can recall in our society when it was okay to do that. So i think in reality the law has been very, very challenging because its trying to define when you cross the line. If i go into your home and i say, teach your child not to be a baptist because im catholic, all of us would be appalled at them. But no one says anything about atheism. The law is challenging because clarity is a problem. Maybe you can help us understand whether just outlying this behavior would keep people from crossing that line . Well, i have two comments on that. First, the line should be no hitting. Ever. Never spank a child ever. Help them in other ways, correct them in other ways. Then there is no line. The second thing is that i think a law is necessary as part of the solution, but not a law that has criminal penalties. Sweden is an example. They passed a law prohibiting all spanking in 1979. And its been very successful. Let me turn now to chicago to asaada kirkland. Can we do it merely by changing peoples hearts, changing peoples attitude, or do we need a law backing us up to change this behavior if thats what you think we need. We need everything. We need the law passed, yes, make it illegal. So that youre going to jail if you hit a child. Make the law, and we have to appeal peoples hearts. I do it every day. Just this morning approaching people on the bus saying hey, interven there is another way. Intervening when i see a mom yelling at her child. We did not turn out fine. Fine is mediocre. We need to turn out excellent. Our country needs to emerge and we have to change our behavior. Earlier you hinted you thought that we were already on the road. Are we Getting Better . Were out of time. Well have to continue this conversation down the road. Thanks for joining us on inside story. In washington, im ray suarez. Small, medium, large. Cluster oysters and white tablecloth half shell oysters. For nearly a century, oysters have been harvested here in drakes estero. Seven years ago kevin lunny bought the floundering farm here and turned it into a 1. 5 Million Dollar annual business, but some environmentalists say he has outstayed his welcome and it is time for the farm to stop production. But it is fundamentally incompatible with a National Park wilderness area to have a commercial, private oyster operation. It just doesnt fit. Lunny insists he is a responsible steward of the land and exemplifies sustainability. Lunny says if the Lower Court Ruling against him stands, the community may gain a quiet estuary, but some of their cultural history will be lost. Fighting intensifies in yemen. The hout thisthu rebels fight and the state television station is under attack. Welcome to al jazeera live from doha. Loose ahead on the program, free at last. 46 turkish
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