Ahman Ah-rested

[pbmax]

There is a cultural component to this. About 100% of my wife's students experience the level of corporal punishment our great grandfathers probably experienced. When its Adrian Peterson or Ahman Green I have a hard time clutching my pearls. The truth is not beating your kids (which I think is excellent practice for the record) is like a generation old and not everybody watches enough Dateline to get the memo. Even Tanahasi Coates writes about how his dad was noble enough to beat him "so the cops wouldn't" or some such. We see a mother in Baltimore pull her kid out of a riot while hitting him in the face and she's somehow #motheroftheyear. Seems to me there are two sets of rules here and one set of laws.

Beating your children to avoid other, possibly worse beatings, might seem to be necessary, but its not desirable.

Same goes for spanking. If you can get the behavior change without the violence (I disagree with Joe that hitting is not violence, its message is pain, fear and/or humiliation no matter the velocity or frequency) it would be best to avoid it.