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Speaking of reading recommendations (the title of this thread is Strauss's new book on childrearing) someone from alt.parenting.spanking sent me a copy of the following report, which I have printed below. It's kinda long for a post, but if you don't wish to hear of an actual study about an actual place where spanking is actually not used, then of course you may choose not to read it. Or you may choose to draw information from it, since it is right here and you don't even have to leave your chair to gather some relevant data about this issue. Your choice, of course. ******************************************************* Disclaimer: My posting excerpts from a report on how well Sweden's non-spanking law seems to be working in helping families to raise well-disciplined kids does NOT imply my agreement 1) with regulating parenting methods by laws or 2) with Sweden's socialist form of government. I find neither appealing. Nor does my posting this imply that I have drawn any conclusions about anything presented in this report or necessarily agree with all conclusions the author draws. ******************************************************** The following article, posted in four parts, originally appeared in the Spring 1992 issue of _Mothering_ magazine (pp. 42-49). I am posting it on the internet with permission from the author. -Chris ________________________________________________________________________ SWEDISH PARENTS DON'T SPANK By Prof. Adrienne A. Haeuser Swedish parents rely on a variety of alternatives to physical punishment to discipline their children. Can you bring up children successfully without smacking and spanking? Sweden appears to be doing just this only a decade after passing a law which stipulates that a child may not be subjected to physical punishment or other humiliating treatment. Initially somewhat skeptical, Swedes now take the law for granted, and Swedish children are thriving. Sweden's example has inspired passage of similar laws prohibiting parental use of physical punishment in Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Austria. These and many other European countries had banned corporal punishment in schools many years before -- Austria, for instance, in 1870. In England, where corporal punishment in schools was banned as recently as 1987, advocates have embarked on a campaign to prohibit physical punishment in the home through a project called EPOCH (End Physical Punishment of Children). EPOCH-USA is now taking root in the United States [see "For More Information"]. Here, not even corporal punishment in schools has been federally banned (1). To research the backround, implementation, and outcomes of the pioneering 1979 law, I visited Sweden in 1981 under a grant from the Swedish Bicentennial Fund. I replicated this study in 1988, under a grant from the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (2). In a variety of Swedish localities, I conducted extensive and intensive interviews - currently known as "oral histories" - with government authorities, human services professionals, teachers and daycare personnel, child welfare organization leaders, parents, and some children. In the 1988 study, for example, I included structured interviews with 16 national authorities and 46 locally-based human services professionals. In addition, although I conversed with numerous parents and children at daycare centers, schools playgrounds, and in private homes, I also conducted formal interviews with 16 native Swedish parents. WHY THIS LAW? Sweden's 1979 laws reflects a sociopolitical and economic evolution, as well as an evolving value system. Prior to the First and even the Second World War, Sweden was essentially a poor, agrarian society significantly influenced by German authoritarianism and Lutheran dogma. Childrearing included regular - often weekly - harsh beatings to "drive out the devil