Emotional abuse as harmful as corporal punishment?

See this interesting posting about ”An outdated worldview”, that little is said about how to improve attitudes to parenting worldwide, and about racist bigotry directed against Muslims, where it also for instance stands:

“[from a woman with the blog "A Muslim Mother's Thoughts"] … a letter to the television psychologist, Dr. Phil:

Quote:

Although I applaud your opposition to spanking and other physical punishments of children, I find the emotional manipulation you often recommend in its place to be equally harmful. ... ... your recommended punishment will cut to the core of the child's sense of well-being and will hurt him more intensely than any spanking [yes, what Dr. Phil recommends is nothing but manipulation, and thus maybe even more harmful than physical abuse, because it is more covered up!!?? I can't watch his programs at all... And thus more difficult to deal with and shake off? And more difficult to see? Made "for the child's own good" by perfect parents which never makes anything wrong, at least against their children, because they are said to love them!!?? If they really, genuinely loved and was capable of loving, and if they aren't truly that has reasons, then - what?].

In another post she explains that although Islamic scriptures contain contradictions about corporal punishment, they aren't as extreme as traditional Christian teachings:

Quote:

This is just so typical of arguments in favor of corporal punishment in which parents seek to dodge any responsibility for their children's behavior whatsoever. This view holds the parents to be godlike figures of perfection who have no responsibility to change themselves and that every problem lies with the children. They recoil in horror if any suggestion is made that a child's misbehavior is actually due to the parents' behavior or the family environment. Some authors have traced this very idea back to the Christian idea of the "Original Sin" and the idea that children are born stained with that "Sin" and therefore they are born inherently evil. Remember that in Islam we do not believe in the "Original Sin" being carried on into each individual and we believe that children are born, as the Prophet Salla l-laahu alayhi wa sallam said, on the 'fiTrah,' or 'of pure nature'."