Spanking of children

World map of the legal status of parental, school and judicial (including prison) corporal punishment.

Spanking of children is the practice of punishing a child (a boy or girl) by administering corporal punishment to his or her buttocks.

Legal situation

Legality of child corporal punishment in Europe (2007).
Green: domestic and school corporal punishment permitted.
Yellow: domestic corporal punishment permitted, school corporal punishment forbidden.
Red: domestic and school corporal punishment forbidden.

School corporal punishment was abandoned in several countries as early as the 1950s and 1960s, but up to 1979, the appropriate and nonabusive spanking of children for punishment by their parents (and other caretakers who acted in loco parentis) was legal everywhere on the planet. Sweden was the first country to ban all corporal punishment of children, including in the home. Since then, several countries have followed Sweden's example:

• Sweden (1979)
• Finland (1983)
• Norway (1987)
• Austria (1989)
• Cyprus (1994)
• Italy (1996)
• Denmark (1997)
• Latvia (1998)
• Croatia (1999)
• Israel (1999 or 2000)
• Bulgaria (2000)
• Germany (2000)
• Iceland (2003)
• Romania (2004)
• Ukraine (2004)
• Hungary (2004)
• Greece (2006)
• Netherlands (2007)
• New Zealand (2007)
• Portugal (2007)
• Uruguay (2007)
• Venezuela (2007)
• Spain (2007)
• Chile (2007)
• NSW Australia
• Moldova

Specific articles

For specific articles on the spanking of children, see:

• Punishment of children
• Disciplinary spanking
• Domestic spanking
• School corporal punishment
• History of spanking
• Pro-spanking
• Anti-spanking

Links

• List of worldwide bans on Corporal Punishment on Stophitting.com
• Include Spanking in Child Discipline A WikiHow page on child discipline
• Chastise With Love (formerly called Spank With Love) A website with information on how to correctly spank your child
• Survey on public attitudes towards the physical discipline of children by Sue Carswell (2001)
• Proposition de loi de Mme Edwige Antier visant à abolir les châtiments corporels infligés aux enfants (22 janvier 2010)
• A Map of the World Anti-Spanking League (world map of countries that have banned the spanking of children, in Swedish)
• How to Include Spanking in Child Discipline on wikiHow

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