About spanking:
In 1992 Accidental deaths in US was 13.3 in 100 000 and in sweden 5.
In 1965, half of the Swedish population believed that physical punishment is necessary in childrearing, only 6% of Swedes born since that time support its use today (SIFO, 1981; SCB, 1996). The implications of such a societal shift for reducing child physical abuse may be revealed in the following statistic: between 1975 and 1996, only four children died in Sweden from the effects of physical abuse
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"Haeuser points out that an interesting change in Swedish childrearing has occurred since passage of the 1979 law. By 1988, the picture had changed markedly. Child guidance professionals were admitting that permissive childrearing was a failed experiment, and parent educators were telling parents to "dare to be parents." She saw parents setting limits and disciplining their children - partly because the professionals were now giving this sort of advice, partly because the sociopolitical climate had become more conservative, and partly because the 1979 law had forced parents to think about childrearing options.
Swedish parents now discipline their children; and in doing so, they rely on a variety of alternatives to physical punishment. The method most commonly used is verbal conflict resolution, which invites parents as well as children to express their anger in words. Haeuser, whose Last study was more than a decade ago, concludes that the law appears to be effective and has demonstrated that it is indeed possible to bring up children without smacking and spanking."
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In an article entitled, Spanking of Children Much Less Common, on the Statistics Sweden website, Sanden and Lundgren conclude that a clear majority of the Swedish people are against all forms of physical punishment of children. Of pupils born abroad coming to Sweden after 1990, 21 per cent have been subjected to occasional physical punishment in comparison to four per cent of all children born in Sweden. This information was taken from two surveys commissioned by the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs in the Spring of 1994 and 1995 and which were carried out by Statistics Sweden.
http://www.nospank.net/durrant.htm
[ July 25, 2003, 22:16: Message edited by: Ruatha ]