The duplicity of physical punishment
- Mathilde Baudat
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
When domestic violence is prohibited, but a spanking is accepted.
Sophie is reading on the couch with her slim legs spread underneath a blanket of thick wool. In the dim light, the words become the characters she seeks every evening. Ralf gazes at the clock.
“Sophie, let’s go to bed. We both have to wake up early.”
“Just five more minutes; I want to finish the chapter.”
He reluctantly agrees, “Okay, five minutes”, and sits beside her until his phone indicates the elapsed time. This time, he stands up: “It’s nine-twenty-five, let’s go now.”
“Humm”
“Hey, Sophie. I’m speaking.” His voice is raised when he grabs her blanket, and he folds it to the side.
“Another few minutes. I have three pages left in the chapter”
“No. It’s the same thing every day!”. His hand squeezes around her arm as he lifts her from the couch, closes the book, and smashes it on her glutes. The resounding slap shatters the loving characters dancing in Sophie’s eyes. In the morning, she will have a small bruise on her upper arm, and Ralf will remind her that he did it because he loves her.
Children do not belong to their parents
It’s the story of a man who uses physical punishment to be obeyed. This kind of behavior kills a woman every 11 minutes. Yet, the scene is not about a man and a woman; it is the routine dance of a father and his daughter. With Sophie’s youth, Ralf's actions become acceptable.
A friend of mine has, like me, a strong aversion to violence, to the point that when a man assaulted him he refused to fight back. Yet he defends that, sometimes, physical punishment is necessary. Why, to his eyes and many more, are children not granted the same respect as the rest of humanity?
Why is it domestic violence when Sophie is an adult, but it’s discipline when she is a child?
In trying to answer this question, I lost myself in the ocean of Reddit’s posts, none of which answered the eye of the storm: why are children seen as less than adults? The question seems to have slipped through the cracks of philosophy, but without its answer, I fear children may never be granted the same respect and protection offered to adults.
Children are often seen as small adults who need to be taught proper behavior. This vision is deeply flawed and threatens children's safety, health, and growth. The brain undergoes massive reorganization and development throughout infancy, until it reaches its adult state in the early twenties. This is why, until the age of 12, children are unable to grasp logic and are driven by instinctive responses to emotions and situations. From a wiring, hardware, and neurological perspective, they cannot act and think as adults. Physical punishment is most likely in infants younger than 12 years old. While, undeniably, the children’s growing size plays a role, this coincidence rather points to adults’ inability to relate and be patient with children.
Most adults will walk past violent (physically or psychologically) child punishment because the belief that a child belongs to their parents is deeply anchored in our society. Owning another human is owning a slave, a practice banned by the United Nations (UN) in 1948. Although the belief of child ownership stems from the responsibility, practicality, and legal framework of parenthood, children should not be considered as property of their parents. They are independent entities fully embodied with their own rights, according to the UN 1989 Convention. Parents are not entitled to physically (or psychologically) harm their children, however frustrated or upset one may be.
Children’s Rights
To this day, the most widely ratified United Nations convention is the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child. In doing so, all UN countries, but the United States of America, ratified that adults must protect children. No one has the right to harm a child, just like no one has the right to harm an adult. Adults must also listen to children and take them seriously. The UN resources to ensure the compliance of countries are sadly insufficient, explaining why still 6 out of 10 children experience physical punishment in their lifetime. Some may think this global number is heightened by developing countries, but statistics dismantle this prejudice; 80% of Australian adults report having experienced physical punishment as a kid, and in Switzerland, 40% of children experience physical or psychological violence at home.
Denying children their basic Human Rights
I was once asked my point of view on physical punishment. I was astonished to hear the strength with which my hosts argued that, when done out of love, physical punishment is beneficial. Yet, evidence is unequivocal: physical punishment is not more effective than other methods, teaches the use of violence in conflict resolution, decreases learning outcomes, and affects brain growth. Physical punishment also increases the likelihood of being exposed to intimate partner violence, as it teaches children that being touched violently is acceptable, especially when done by those who love them the most.
In her book ‘All About Love,’ bell hooks elegantly explains how the use of physical (or psychological) violence breaks down infants' vision of love and roots our societal incompetence to love. The author defined love as the act of ‘openly and honestly express care, affection, responsibility, respect, commitment, and trust.’. The use of physical punishment is a thorn in parental love; respect for the child’s rights is overlooked, trust in a safe environment is shattered, and affection is bruised. Exposing children to those avoidable and long-lasting consequences is a parental and societal failure.
Ignoring children’s rights is so rooted in our society that, to this day, medications are not adapted for pediatric patients, science still lags when it comes to understanding infants’ physiology, and children’s basic rights, such as the need for pain relief, are still questioned. While completing my doctorate on neonatal (infants of a few weeks of age) pain, I was shocked by how often scientists and medical experts asked if infants could feel pain and if it was worth treating. This denial of an infant’s ability to feel pain is rooted in a narrow-minded scientific approach, ignorant of children's rights to safety and not to be harmed. It also turns a blind eye to adults’ duty to not harm children, offer a safe environment, and ensure short- and long-term well-being.
As medical practitioners and scientists, our inability to understand and offer proper medical care to these incredibly vulnerable infants is a failure we should finally acknowledge.
The silent failure
It remains challenging, taboo, and impossible to intervene when scenes of child physical or psychological punishment take place in front of our eyes. Even with close family members, commenting on their education strategies and enforcement is socially prohibited. And so, we keep ignoring the child’s flinching when a parent walks by too fast, we dismiss the blatant disrespect shown to our younger relatives, and we become complicit in perpetuating the cycle of child abuse. We keep carrying the scars of our childhood and imprinting them on our vulnerable loved ones. And perhaps this is where the problem lies. While institutions, such as UNICEF, endeavor to teach children about their rights, kids still depend on the benevolence of adults to ensure their rights are upheld. As adults, and even more as parents, we must protect children's rights. And we violently fail at it.
Without publicly acknowledging and discussing the incredibly complex topic of non-violent discipline and children's rights, the household will remain a fortress protecting physical and psychological abuse. Children's innocence and vulnerability require us to face our limitations, impatience, and ignorance.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the slogan “Women's rights are human rights” became popular, defending that, like men, women are entitled to basic human rights. I am waiting for the day when “Children's rights are human rights” will be equally heard.
This post was originally published on 'Echoing Gaia', a blog by Mathilde Baudat.
Dr. Mathilde Baudat completed her PhD studying the impact of neonatal pain on brain development and its long-term consequences, including increased vulnerability to mental health challenges. Her research focused on critical developmental processes, such as the GABAergic shift, and epigenetic changes triggered by early painful experiences. During her PhD, she was frequently asked whether infants truly feel pain and whether treating it was necessary, questions that fueled her commitment to integrating human values and ethics into scientific research.
Mathilde is also a passionate traveler and reader. Her experiences around the world and as a yoga teacher exposed her to the loneliness and growing disconnection many people face. In 2025, she launched Echoing Gaia, a blog where science meets intuition and curiosity drives reflection. Through essays and creative writing, she explores with honesty the human experience, embracing both emotion and complexity.
Comments