Spanked: How Hitting Our Children is Harming Ourselves is a historical and cultural analysis of the long accepted practice of hitting children for learning and obedience. The book begins with understanding who spanks and how the practice of using a hand to hit the buttocks of children evolved. Erickson explores the cultural factors from historical magazine articles and parenting books to contemporary beliefs that support this type of discipline. Spanking's connections to a variety of topics are clarified, including the feelings of parents, perceptions of children, potential child abuse, school corporal punishment, attachment and bonding, the legal language that allows hitting of one's children but not others, and international perspectives on physical punishment.

The book invites an exploration of who we are as parents, and as a society, and what family leadership really means. Book group questions for families, professionals, and organizations lend the book useful for conversation and dialogue in libraries, living rooms, offices, and classrooms. Erickson gives readers an open platform to discuss respectfully what we are really communicating when we spank children.