Why does everyone pretend there is a 'spanking debate'?

[Makalakumu]

This debate interests me greatly as a martial artist. I train my hands into weapons and I can't imagine laying them on my child. Also, the hypocrisy of me telling others to not hit and then hit is profoundly obvious. Fascinating article below filled with some of the most recent studies.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-belkin/spanking-is-wrong_b_1659964.html

Spanking was a subject of debate on every parenting website on the continent during the past week, and I don't understand why.


Yes, I know why it was a topic of conversation -- the prestigious journal Pediatrics released a study early in the week showing a possible link between childhood spanking and mental health struggles later in that child's life, and that was news worth talking about.

What I don't understand is why it was a debate. By definition, that would require two sides. I see only one.


At what point does something become simple fact? The Pediatrics article was just the latest in a decades-long march of studies showing spanking -- defined as hitting with an open hand in order to correct or punish -- to be ineffective at best and psychologically harmful at worst.


In April, an article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal analyzed two decades of data and concluded that spanking has no upside, and its downsides include increased risk for depression, anxiety, substance abuse and aggressive behavior later in life.


A few years earlier, another Pediatrics study, this one by researchers at Tulane University, concluded that children who are spanked as often as twice a month at age 3 are twice as likely to become aggressive, destructive and mean when they are 5.


And it has been a decade since Columbia University psychologists went through more than 80 studies over 62 years and found that there was a "strong correlation" between parents who used "corporal punishment" and children who demonstrated 11 measurable childhood behaviors. Ten of the behaviors were negative, including such things as increased aggression and increased antisocial behavior. Only one could be considered positive -- spanking did result in "immediate compliance."

And that is probably why this behavior has persisted in the face of overwhelming evidence for so long. Spanking can make the negative behavior stop now...but the price paid later is terrible.

And yet, we keep seeing it presented as a disagreement.


"To Spank or Not to Spank" was the headline on both the CNN's report yesterday and the "Good Morning America" segment on Thursday about the latest Pediatrics study. The "Today" piece added the tagline: "Mommy Wars: Raging Parenting Debate," and a Babble blogger was found to represent each side.

But there aren't two sides. There is a preponderance of fact, and there are people who find it inconvenient to accept those facts.


Where, exactly is the debate?

Good question.

Here's a video that reads the article if you simply want to listen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvCZ0hSHxCM&feature=youtu.be&a

 

[Tgace]

A "putting over the knee", or a whipping? No.

A well considered, rare, and strategically utilized swat on the rear at the appropriate age and for appropriate reasons? Certainly. I have only had to use the hand to *** technique one to two times on each of my children. Typically a result of refusing to obey and running into a street or parking lot. It worked as planned...

Spanking as "punishment" or as venting of anger and a "spank" as an immediate consequence of dangerous behavior are different matters.

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[elder999]

Also, the hypocrisy of me telling others to not hit and then hit is profoundly obvious.

Not to mention the hypocrisy of arguing that "our children belong to us" in the Hawaiian island sale thread.....:lol:

 

[Makalakumu]

Not to mention the hypocrisy of arguing that "our children belong to us" in the Hawaiian island sale thread.....:lol:

I actually agree with you, buddy. We're stewards of our children. In one of the rare moments of internet honesty, I admit defeat. You cannot own a human life and I'm not sure how this wreaks havoc upon my current thinking yet...more to come in another thread.

 

[Makalakumu]

A "putting over the knee", or a whipping? No.

A well considered, rare, and strategically utilized swat on the rear at the appropriate age and for appropriate reasons? Certainly. I have only had to use the hand to *** technique one to two times on each of my children. Typically a result of refusing to obey and running into a street or parking lot. It worked as planned...

Spanking as "punishment" or as venting of anger and a "spank" as an immediate consequence of dangerous behavior are different matters.

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I wonder how much one aggressive act affects a child? It would seem that the contradiction becomes more pronounced the fewer the acts occur. It becomes even more unexpected.

 

[billc]

A new look at an article on spanking...

http://www.slate.com/articles/doubl...lness_a_new_study_does_not_link_the_two_.html

Something interesting from this article

To prove this point, in 2010, researchers at Oklahoma State University investigated whether nonphysical punishments are also associated with delinquent behavior later in life. They foundthat psychotherapy, grounding, and sending children to their rooms all make kids more antisocial.

The researchers don’t actually believe that psychotherapy causes behavioral problems—they just wanted to show that these kinds of studies identify associations that aren’t necessarily causally linked the way you would expect. Discipline is associated with behavioral problems in part because discipline is caused by behavioral problems.

The article from the begining...

Last week, on Facebook, a friend of mine linked to a Yahoo blog post whose title caught my eye: “Spanking Linked to Mental Illness, Says Study.” My husband and I have a 14-month-old boy, whom we’ve never planned to spank. Still, we have years of discipline ahead of us, and I was curious about the findings.

So I read the story. Then I read the study it was based on. Then I got mad.

Despite the Yahoo headline, and many others likeit, the study, published in Pediatrics in early July, does not actually link spanking to mental illness. In fact, the study has nothing to do with spanking at all. Canadian researchers asked 34,000 adults how often they had been pushed, grabbed, shoved, slapped, or hit by their parents or other adults when they were children. The authors explain that they were trying to assess the long-term effects of regular harsh physical punishment, which, they write, “some may consider more severe than ‘customary’ physical punishment (i.e., spanking).” Ultimately, the researchers reported that adults who have mental problems are more likely to say they were pushed, grabbed, shoved, slapped, or hit by their parents than healthy adults are

Yes, OK. Abuse is bad. But now I wanted to know: What about spanking? According to a 2011 study, more than half of all American parents spank their toddlers; some studies have put the number closer to 60 percent. But the American Academy of Pediatrics opposes it, and the practice is illegal in 32 countries, including Spain, Israel, and all of Scandinavia. So what’s the deal—are slaps on the tush OK if your children deserve it, or will it screw them up for life?

After digging into the literature on the topic and talking to a handful of experts, my best shot at a conclusion is this: It depends. If you spank your kids frequently, harshly, or after you’ve lost your temper, then your kids may end up worse off because of it. If, on the other hand (no pun intended), you rely primarily on nonphysical disciplinary tools like time-outs, but you (lightly) spank your kids with the palm of your hand several times when they don’t comply with these tactics, reasoning calmly but firmly with them as you do—then spanking might make your children better behaved, and it probably won’t do them any harm.

For emphasis...

If, on the other hand (no pun intended), you rely primarily on nonphysical disciplinary tools like time-outs, but you (lightly) spank your kids with the palm of your hand several times when they don’t comply with these tactics, reasoning calmly but firmly with them as you do—then spanking might make your children better behaved, and it probably won’t do them any harm.

also...

I wrote my best shot at a conclusion because, despite a recent Huffington Post piece calling the “debate” settled, the research on spanking is messy and controversial. The same study might be cited by different experts as evidence that spanking is safe and that it’s dangerous. That’s in part because the effects of spanking are hard to evaluate: You can’t assess its effects like you would a drug, in a randomized controlled clinical trial, because it’s unethical for researchers to instruct a random group of parents to spank their kids and a second group not to. Yet in the name of science, that type of study would be ideal, because it would allow scientists to compare what happens to both groups of kids—and conclude, with some certainty, that any differences arising between them were due to the spanking.



But for physical punishment, the best researchers can do is compare what happens to kids who are punished with those who are not. And the thing is, kids who incite spankings may be more difficult or delinquent to begin with than kids who don’t.

But when these types of studies report that kids who were spanked have more behavioral problems later in life than kids who were not, it’s impossible to pin the cause on spanking.



To prove this point, in 2010, researchers at Oklahoma State University investigated whether nonphysical punishments are also associated with delinquent behavior later in life. They foundthat psychotherapy, grounding, and sending children to their rooms all make kids more antisocial.

 

[jezr74]

Huffington post is a terrible site for reporting on scientific articles, I've found it to be bias towards pseudo science.

Similar to what was already reveal by bill, closure on science debate requires peer review, and controls. Nothing which they reported on, just data mining which is not very accurate.

But I think the topic will stay inconclusive since you would need to measure that fine line between discipline and abuse, which I'd think would be pretty hard and unethical to test on young kids. I'd love to know the controls they used if any.



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[MJS]

Growing up, my parents gave my sister and I a whack on the *** when it was needed. However, IMO, theres a difference between a slap on the *** and beating the child. To this day, its had no negative effects. OTOH, 99% of the time, a slap wasn't needed...all it took was 'the look' at we knew enough to stop the ********.

 

[Makalakumu]

I think the distinction is when spanking becomes the "go to" method of discipline. If it's the only tool in your tool box, then it can become abusive. A smack every once in a while may not be ethically consistent, but it surely doesn't cross the line into abuse.

 

[Tgace]

"ethically consistent"?

 

[Makalakumu]

"ethically consistent"?

Parent says, "do not hit in order to get what you want," then spanks in order to get the behavior he wants.

Martial artist says, "use force for self defense," than spanks to correct behavior.

That's what I mean.

 

[Tgace]

I guess that depends on how I frame my ethics doesn't it?

Personally, I've never applied a spank as a "you were bad for your mother while I was at work so come here and take your spanking" sort of affair. The few times I used spanking it was as an immediate consequence of behavior that required an immediate response. The fact of the matter is..while children are smarter than we give them credit for...I don't think its been proven that they reason the same way older humans do. A touch of Pavlovian conditioning at the right age and for the right reasons is not a wrong thing IMO.

That being said, there are probably too many parents that do use spanking as a vent for THEIR anger vs the well being of their children.

 

[JWLuiza]

Because n=1 studies can often have more emotional power than better done studies. Also interaction effects are often hard to parse out. There might be subgroup effects that are true but aren't born out of the literature. The AAP and AAFP go with a no hitting educational perspective when dealing with parents. However, this is a goal. We work with many lower SES parents who have minimal coping skills and increased life stressors.

I haven't had time to read the research, and i just need to know the party line for my board examinations... and since I will be going into Ob/Gyn I won't have to do too much counseling on the subject since we just hand that off to Family or Peds

Just my own n=1 story. I was spanked 2 maybe 3 times that I remember. The last time I was spanked I started laughing at my dad. He was SO mad at me and was spanking me but at the same time he was pulling me away from the spank. He wasn't hurting me. I was old enough at the time to realize he loved me, he was just frustrated at whatever it was that I did. I was old enough to know he would never hurt me. For younger kids that fear might be overiding the reality of how much their parents care for them.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

My dad spanked me - hell, let's be honest, he beat the crap out of me. Mostly deserved. As the old saying goes, I turned out fine. Let's see. Late middle age, law-abiding, served my country honorably, served in civilian law enforcement, gainfully employed, don't drink or do drugs, non-smoker, don't get into fights, never used my self-defense skills, etc. Yikes, what a nightmare my parents created.

I don't have kids. If I did, I'd spank them if they needed it. It doesn't matter what other people think of it, and I don't need scientific studies about it.

 

[elder999]

My parents didn't spank me much, and I didn't get into trouble much........rather, I didn't get caught, much. :lol:

With that said, I did get spanked, and I turned out pretty okay-I have a few sociopathic tendencies, but, looking back, I pretty much always have-that's why I didn't get caught much.

On the other hand, I raised two kids to pretty well-adjusted adulthood, mostly on my own-all I ever had to do with my son when he was small was say, I'll sink your ship, and his behavior straightened right up: Ooooh, don't sink my ship! -maybe a swat on the butt or two before he was three, and, after that, nothing.....

First time I said that to my daughter, though, it was, Go ahead! Sink my ship.-she was like three.....:lol:

Oooh, that one was a trial, let me tell ya, but I wouldn't have traded her for anyone.....even another one like the boy.

Swatted them both, they both turned out fine, and without their father's sociopathic tendencies......as far as I can tell, anyway. The boy's married and a schoolteacher, and the daughter's finishing up her residency in NY-they seem reasonably happy and well-adjusted.For all I know, though, they're both serial killers....:lol: If they are, though, it's not because of the trauma of "unjustified violence to exert my will" upon them-I mean, not because of a swat or two on the butt, anyway....:lfao:

 

[Josh Oakley]

Problem is, there are plenty of people who were spanked that ended up not-law-abiding, draft dodgers, unemployed, did drugs, were/are smokers, got into fights, etc.


This is why anecdotal evidence is tricky. It by itself proves nothing.

 

[elder999]

Problem is, there are plenty of people who were spanked that ended up not-law-abiding, draft dodgers, unemployed, did drugs, were/are smokers, got into fights, etc.


This is why anecdotal evidence is tricky. It by itself proves nothing.

And that's the truth-we're all a little different. Why is it that if this kid has a childhood history of horrible sexual abuse, he winds up with multiple personality disorder, while another kid becomes a serial killer, and another a saint? There are lots of reasons for criminality, unemployability, and drug use, and they're not all "abuse," or even "spanking," (which isn't "abuse.")

 

[Josh Oakley]

Agreed. The point I was trying to make is that using anecdotal evidence to prove spanking as effective is insufficient. It requires further evidence and study. I don't have a problem with spanking. I also don't have a problem with NOT spanking.