Time to ban corporal punishment

The new NBC miniseries The Slap, which debuted Feb. 12, opens with an adult slapping a misbehaving child, shining a spotlight on a parenting topic that is still hotly debated in America: corporal punishment.

Many Americans try to distinguish between “acceptable” forms of corporal punishment and physical abuse. Increasingly, though, the rest of the world takes a different view. Indeed, the United Nations holds that all forms of corporal punishment violate children’s rights, and 44 countries have outlawed all forms of adults’ corporal punishment of children, including in the home. It’s time for the United States to join them.

Read the editorial by Duke’s Jennifer Lansford in the Philadelphia Inquirer.