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I don't have kids and don't plan to have them... so this spanking is a decision that I don't really have to worry about. But somebody made a good point once... I think it was Louis CK who pointed out that children are the only people in our society where it's considered acceptable to hit them.
We can legally hit only the smallest and most vulnerable humans among us. I think that says something about human 'morality'.
Is there a difference between spankings, beatings and whippings? If so, what would you say is the difference. I have always been under the impression that they were looked at as synonyms or that different parts of the country used different words for the same actions.
Anything that makes a child scared , shake or cry before being hit i nany way is awful.. and waiting with a threat ....till your father gets home is even worse... what are people thinking..its mental then physical torture and please dont say a spanking isnt torture..its hurting a smaller person than yourself in such a way to cause pain , shame and humilation, then hatred.
I don't have kids and don't plan to have them... so this spanking is a decision that I don't really have to worry about. But somebody made a good point once... I think it was Louis CK who pointed out that children are the only people in our society where it's considered acceptable to hit them.
We can legally hit only the smallest and most vulnerable humans among us. I think that says something about human 'morality'.
Good thing I didn't grow up in your family - fairness was a major, major thing for me growing up. If I had a brother who got better treatment than me, then I'd been hell on wheels and then some. And my brother would have been one miserable sibling, lol.
Stories like this is why I think they should have permitting and parenting education requirements for prospective parents before having children. Gotta have a license to drive, or a permit to build a house. Why not do the same for THE most important thing anyone can ever do in their life - raising a child.
Parents who treat their kids badly, or worse yet, unfairly, deserve a huge amount of negative karma from all of society.
But maybe this was a good thing, as I am a much more disciplined person than my brother, who has grown up to be a rebellious against authority type. So maybe spankings are what some people, like perhaps myself, needed to be more disciplined?
Do you think that disciplining children should include some sort of physical punishment?
So far I have yet to see any evidence indicating a benefit of a violence based approached to childhood disciplining. I have however seen evidence suggesting the opposite.
So over all my conclusion is not to use a violence based approach to child discipline with my own children.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ironpony
But maybe this was a good thing, as I am a much more disciplined person than my brother, who has grown up to be a rebellious against authority type. So maybe spankings are what some people, like perhaps myself, needed to be more disciplined?
Or perhaps you are individuals - always destined to be entirely different of character - and correlation is not causation so to arbitrarily pick one difference in an upbringing and assume a causal link would be an error?
Well no not really. What you have done there is taken one single study - or in this case one single article _about_ one single study - and suggested that it disagrees with a particular conclusion.
Science does not work that way. You are just cherry picking a single study because it agrees with _you_. Science does not work that way either.
Even your article states quite clearly and honestly that this _one_ study contradicts "numerous studies stating just the opposite". Perhaps you did not read that bit and stopped just at the title of the article???
Your cherry picked article goes on to say that the differences we observe between people who use a violence based approach to discipline and those that do not - likely has nothing to do with the violence at all. Rather the results are compounded by parents who are lax on _any_ kind of discipline.
In other words such studies tend to create two groups - one that use violence as a discipline method who are therefore a group into discipline - and all the rest which include people are use discipline heavily and those who are entirely lax on discipline. This is not to compare like with like at all.
Your article aside from making several thinly veiled creationist type attacks on evolution - and showing a basic hatred of children upon which their desire to hurt them is likely based ("often violent, disagreeable little creatures") - also misrepresents quite badly the arguments of the anti violence position on these matters.
For example the author writes "we often hear that corporal punishment is damaging because it “teaches violence,” a nonsensical assertion if ever there were one". This is a wanton straw man - as what people more accurately claim is not that it teaches violence - but that it teaches that violence is a valid and acceptable method of conflict resolution. A much much different claim than the one the author presumes to call nonsensical and pretends to have rebutted. It would be nice if we are going to pretend to deal with this issue - that we deal with the positions people _actually_ hold and not ones authors of contrived little opinion pieces like this have invented themselves.
The article closes out with a level of shrill desperation that is hard to compare in this discussion. Comparing parents using violence on children to police using it against violent criminals. A ridiculous comparison in the extreme - given that in the latter, unlike the former - we use violence because there is a genuine danger to the life and well being of innocent people. Taking down a mad man waving a gun around is not to be compared with a kid having a tantrum in a shopping mall because mammy wont get him a choccie bar.
It gets worse however - firstly the "college" that produced the study is affiliated with a Christian Reformed Church (explains the anti evolution rhetoric I guess) - and only focused on black mothers of 4 to 7 year olds. Why such a specific racial grouping? Why specifically on the ages where we already know there is the least likely issues caused by spanking? A study on this topic should not be limited to a cherry picked data set like that. It is clearly formed and structured specifically to get the result pro-violence parenting advocates and Christian Churches want to get. And given their track record - I am not sure we need to be looking to Christian Churches any more for their opinion on what we should be doing with - or to - our children.
But as one other article writes "Dr. Gunnoe's study is not being interpreted by either outside experts or the researchers themselves as a green light to spank some children." so you sure as hell should not be doing so either.
All that said - the report itself is worse. Its methodology is unclear - its selection of participants ridiculous - and its measures unusable. For example the report itself says they used "Our primary outcome variable is children's self-reports of frequency of fighting at school in the last 12 months." So wait a moment - the result that spanking caused less fighting is based on the "self reporting" of the children? Could it be - wait for the shocker here - that children who get hurt by their parents for fighting are less likely to report that they _had_ been fighting?!?!?!?!?!?!
Further does the report at all consider the fact there might be other reasons why children who are spanked might fight less in school that children who are not? For example - maybe the kind of child big and strong and violent enough to be getting into such fights are - by virtue of them being bigger and stronger and more violent - the ones less likely to be physically attacked by their parents in this way? And so it is not the lack of spanking that is making them fight more - but their tendency to be more aggressive fighters that leads to their being spanked less in the first place?
Poor methodology and wanton assumption from a Christian agenda - and nothing more. And you select _this_ as your cherry picked single attack against the reams of studies suggesting everything from no benefit - to actual positive harm - of violence based approaches to child discipline?
Do you think that disciplining children should include some sort of physical punishment? I grew up in a family with parents and grandparents rooted in old school southern morals. The saying that I heard a lot growing up was "spare the rod and spoil the child". I was a well behaved child for the most part but still received my fair share of 'whippings'. Whippings were not the only form of punishment used and I do not feel as though I was abused...I actually think I learned a lot from my upbringing. However, now that I am at the point of starting a family of my own, I am not quite sure how I feel about the subject.
So, what do you guys think? Is it acceptable to physically discipline your children in a reasonable manner or is this type of punishment completely archaic and off limits? If you do not discipline your children physically what are the best ways to correct poor behavior? Lets debate...
That isn't "discipline" - that is bullying, violence, and assault. There is no "reasonable" way to hit someone. Violence begins where knowledge ends. If the only way someone can get their children to act appropriately is to bully and threaten them with physical attacks for non-compliance, they seriously need parenting classes.
This thread distorts the meaning of some words and makes them sound like something they are not.
Spanking. That is usually a controlled swat on the bottom. Used on a younger kid who is not old enough to understand a sit down discussion. Often used to teach them to avoid a dangerous situation such as running out in the road. Also used on older kids if they do something terrible that they know is seriously wrong and very much against the rules--such as a 10 year old wandering off at night and not coming home until 11pm.
Spanking stops about about puberty. It is usually done by the father under controlled circumstances. The kid knows why he/she is going to get spanked because there is a discussion beforehand. They know they deserve it.
It is not very much about pain. It's a way of getting the message across when words would not be very effective. It tells the older kid that what they did is beyond words and Do NOT ever do this again! It's fast and then it's over with and the kid knows never to do that again. No two ways about it.
[url=http://time.com/3387226/spanking-can-be-an-appropriate-form-of-child-discipline/]Spanking Can Be an Appropriate Form of Child Discipline | Time.com[/url]
...we advise parents that corporal discipline should only be applied in cases of willful disobedience or defiance of authority—never for mere childish irresponsibility. And it should never be administered harshly, impulsively, or with the potential to cause physical harm.
Examples of taking words out of context and distorting the ideas--for instance, no one spanks an infant, so stop using that as an example of spanking. An infant has no control over his behavior.
Whipping and beating--they have zero to do with spanking. Apparently this was something used in the olden days or in the deep South. It seems that southerners have heard this more than northerners. They are forms of torture used on prisoners of war, to me. They are not used for teaching discipline to a child.
Controlled spanking, taking away privileges, serious reasoning with older kids who can understand, are all acceptable methods of teaching good behavior. Equating a simple spanking with such horrendous behavior as beating and whipping is wrong and unfair. It exaggerates and distorts the meaning of a spanking.
Of course spanking is about pain. If it was just touch absolutely no-one would bother doing it.
The mental machinations and lies people tell themselves to get out of admitting they are inflicting pain on someone defenceless and smaller than them is astounding. Mainly based on the *******s rationale "well my parents hit me so its ok for me to hit my children" because I turned out ok. (Turned out ok, except for thinking that hitting kids is ok)
Younger humans, like most animals, learn by modeling and less by hearing. When they learn that hitting is an option, they learn that hitting is an option.
How some of us have managed to raise respectful upstanding kids who know to connect with others, respect boundaries, and act appropriately, and how to treat those smaller than themselves, must be a complete mystery to those who use self-sanctioned violence.
For about 10 years my ex wife and I raised her younger brother. He was a pretty good kid considering how bad his early years were. When he did wrong I would talk with him and explain my expectations for his behavior. I used a system of building up to when a spanking would happen. He always knew where he stood and when he pushed things a little too far he knew there would be consequences. Spanking should not be about inflicting pain, it should be more about letting them know who is in charge and hurting their ego more than their behind.
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