Could you pass along some cites from her? Cites that circumscribed spanking (and not harsh physical punishment or abuse) precedes the onset of hypervigilance, hyperarousal or generalized anxiety?
I didn’t mean your arguments were illogical, just the ones you quoted.
OK, we agree those arguments have no merit.
I’m confident that inflicting unwanted physical violence without fear of retaliation does always diminish people. If you have a single example to the contrary, do post it.
Nodoby likes bullying in schools.
Nobody likes domestic violence.
Nobody likes being mugged or ‘happy slapped’.
Nobody likes being violent interrogated.
Parents only spank their children when the children are too small to retaliate.
Many parents (not all) spank when angry, or say ‘when your father gets home, you will get a beating.’
For me, the trouble with spanking is that it not only says ‘your behaviour is unacceptable’, but ‘I have complete power over you and can hurt you whenever I see fit’.
No cites on hand, but if I find some time when I get home, I’ll try to provide them.
From my faulty memory, she talks more about serious abuse than light spanking, though she draws little distinction between them. (“Sure looks like hitting to me”, said her coworker’s daughter to a man spanking his 4-year-old.) Imagine getting a light swat on the behind from a 12 foot tall, 800 pound man. You might not consider it so innocent and undamaging. But yes, the thrust of her research is more about strict, harsh, punitive upbringing than the occasional spanking.
The symptoms you describe sound a lot like PTSD. My GF talks more of denial, authoritarian attitudes, and general social bullying, such as active racism and homophobia.
The 1988 Harris Survey on Spanking is one of her cites. Google on that and you’ll find – well, more stuff than I have the patience to read.
The bully, the domestic abuser, the mugger, and the interrogator might beg to differ with you. 
We had corporal punishment at my school in England 40 years ago.
The Headmaster could beat you with a cane for anything from fighting in the playground, kissing a girl, talking back to a teacher or talking in the corridor.
The staff could hit you (I remember one boy being knocked unconscious by the sports teacher), or throw wooden blackboard rubbers at you.
The net result was that we were scared stiff of the teachers and bullying was rife, because you never asked an adult for help.
I remember being robbed of my pocket money by a gang of 6 in my first week. I asked a teacher for help. He looked astonished and told me to ‘stand up for myself’ before promptly walking away.
Presumably this is what you mean by things ‘working right back then’? :rolleyes:
Well, let’s define “diminish,” but I suspect that the Lazerle & Kuhn (2005) meta-analysis will suffice as an example of an absence of “diminishment” in response to spanking. Of course, you’re asking for the negative to be proven, so I would in turn ask you for any examples of spanking (the use of an open hand for a mild swat on the buttock for the purpose of discipline) causing “diminishment.”
We can also test your definition of “diminish” in the context of other reliable and commonly accepted means of child behavioral management. For example, does placing a child in time out diminish them? Really, what time out tells a child is ‘I have complete power over you and can [remove you from desired reinforcers] whenever I see fit’.
So your girlfriend is your cite?
Well, that’s the distinction I have assumed to be made here. As I said, I don’t advocate for spanking anyways, and would certainly actively object to anything beyond that. In fact, I used to routinely make more stringent statements against spanking, but I am (or try to be) an empirically driven practitioner.
The symptoms I was talking about were those suggested by another poster as being caused by spanking. (PTSD would also include re-experiencing, by the way.) I would strongly suggest that if you are talking about something other than mildly spanking, you endeavor to be clear, so as not to give the false impression that there is empircal support for things that there is not empirical support for. Particularly when citing secondary sources or personal communication. You might check out Kazdin & Benjet (2003) and Benjet & Kazdin (2003), as well as the Larzelere & Kuhn (2005) meta-analysis, to get a better idea of where the state of the literature stands. Perhaps your girlfriend might find these papers useful as well.
Here’s a quote from the conclusion of the Benjet & Kazdin (2003) review paper that amply expresses my stand on the matter:
I went to a Christian school in the 1990s which was very enthusiastic about spanking. They had a wooden paddle used for this purpose which was decorated with the words: “THE ROD OF CORRECTION” and the face of a wailing child. Our building had an open floorplan (divinding walls only went up 3/4 of the way to the ceiling) so whenever the “rod” was used, the shrieks and blows would echo through the whole place.
One little boy who attended had serious behavioral problems. Poor impulse control, uncontrollable rages . . . I really don’t think the poor little guy could help himself when he went into one of those fits. Well, our principal was convinced she could paddle the mental illness out of him. Whenever he saw her coming, (summoned when he acted up) he would run screaming. She would have to literally wrestle him to the ground and muscle him into the room where punishments were dispensed. I hear he’s in prison now.
I was never paddled. They only tried it once and my mother put her foot down. I had comitted the monstrous crime of going up to look at a jukebox when the class was taken out for pizza.
In my senior year, a classmate was paddled for something-or-other. (I think it was for passing a note but I can’t remember.) It was a bit strange to see a seventeen year old boy taken into the room, and hearing the whacks. He came out, rolling his eyes, but careful to hang his head whenever the principal was around.
Heh.
No, this book is my cite. You’ll need to pay for a description to read it. I won’t pay it, as I own the paperback.
Does it link spanking to Republicanism? Yeah, that’s what they got paid to write about. I’m still not entirely convinced of that causality, though they build a strong case.
Although the overview talks about “rigid, harsh childrearing practices”, the authors lumped spanking in with that, and provided cites. I just can’t remember them offhand.
I probably should have subscribed that sentence better. :rolleyes:
Actually I think our points are in agreement (or were the rolleyes meant for my grandfather, who insists that it was working well back in his days?). I was trying to say that this appeal to the past use of spanking as a form of raising a child in order to justify using it now doesn’t seem to float for me. For one thing, in my last 16 years of school in Ontario I never saw one instance of corporal punishment (is it even allowed in Ontario public schools anymore?). And it’s not like my classmates were running around destroying things and getting hurt.
All I’m saying is this appeal to the past doesn’t jive with me. Why did they stop using corporal punishment in my schools? I honestly don’t know.
Because most parents would no longer tolerate their child(ren) being harmed where they are set off to be educated.
Corporal punishment was outlawed in schools in Canada by a Supreme Court decision in 2004. It looks like every province except for Ontario, Manitoba, and Alberta had prohibited it before then, however.
If they don’t understand the real connection, then what they understand is, “I must submit to my parents’ wishes, or else.” Only from the perspective of the parent, who isn’t being spanked, do they have no need to understand the connection.
I say the reasoning is faulty because the child learns nothing about the behavior itself, but only what their parents will do to them for reasons they don’t fully understand. I don’t deny that such conditioning has strong effect on behaviour. But the effect is that the child will become submissive to commands out of fear of violence. They will psychologically associate (in the type of case we’re specifically talking about) avoiding dangerous situations as something they do because of orders from authority, rather than something they want to do for their own reasons.
And moreover, I think this is an unhealthy way of relating to other people and making decisions for the child as they grows up. It doesn’t serve their interests.
So for what purpose would one want to do all this? There’s certainly a perspective you can take where this type of arrangement will “work”, but it’s not working in precisely the way people think it is, and it’s painful and hostile to the child at the same time.
What I meant when I wrote that children become “overly cautious and hesitant” was that they became hesitant to act without permission from their parents, not that they become anxious in general. Perhaps that is “good” for the child in the short term if they aren’t going to be adequately supervised in potentially dangerous situations, but in the long term I can’t see how it can be any good. And the child suffers physically and emotionally from the spankings in the meantime.
First, I don’t think from the perspective of the child that the experience is just mildly unpleasant, both physically and emotionally. Most I’ve seen scream bloody murder and seem in serious pain, and certainly are quite emotionally upset by it. Is this just playacting?
And I don’t think it’s a particularly unusual way of looking at things. Spanking in this manner puts the responsibility on the child for his or her own welfare. The parent no longer says “I’ve got to watch out for my kid” as much as “I told you not to go near the road/play with the appliances/poke around in the cleaning materials” or whatever. This kind of reasoning and justification is enforced by violence, no matter how controlled and transitory that violence may be.
My point is that children will grow into a responsibility for their own safety (among other things) without being coerced into it. (Though perhaps you in particular aren’t arguing against that idea.) They will also be able to learn how to navigate the world more generally without a respect for authority that is based on spanking.
I mean, to expand a bit, there are lots of people I see who have real neurotic approaches to any kind of authority or morality that is concerned with their own self-interest. They chafe under the rules of society: they self-consciously resent traffic laws, healthy food, not smoking or drinking to excess, etc. Of course, it makes perfect sense to not run red lights, drive dangerously, abuse drugs, and so on even if you get away with it. Many people lose sight of this and will break the rules just because they can escape the sight of the police or moralizing people in their life or whoever else. The only motivation they sense to do these things is the threat of coercion.
(The other and more common side of this is people who tend to identify more strongly with rules and grow up to be authoritarians who passionately believe rules and common morality are meant to be followed for their own sake, rather than followed as tools or guidelines for living safely. As parents they often say things like, “Children should do what their parents say.” Perhaps these people rebelled for a few years as teenagers before coming back to this kind of perspective.)
Of course, there’s way more to this than spanking. Indeed, just being very manipulative and insistent with various punishments, threats, guilting, and other things leads in this direction too. But the logic of spanking is in line with these sorts of attitudes towards authority and I think it plays a big role in it.
This is a bit of tangent now. Even without all this, I think spanking’s wholly unnecessary for the ends it is trying to accomplish, and is worse than other approaches because it is more hostile and painful for children as well.
I think that something empirical, from a peer-reviewed journal and specific to the issue of spanking would be more helpful to the present discussion.
Please stop doing this, if you are in fact interested in understanding the effect of spanking differently from the effect of physical abuse, or now even the addition of “rigid childrearing practices.”
If you aren’t interested in understanding if there are different effects for these various constructs, then I leave you to your dogma. I need something more rational and empirical to justify messages to parents about inappropriate parenting practices.
Precisely, and this is true if the consequence they are going to receive is a time-out, a loss of video game privileges for the day, a sharp verbal command and stern reprimand, or a spanking. Whose wishes would you suggest a young child submit to otherwise?
Understand that I have been talking about circumscribed spanking that is a secondary element of a larger behavioral program. So, a spank absent any other directive would not be acceptable. If the parents’ rule is stay away from the street, a young child has no need to understand anything else. Would you suggest that parents work on negotiating around when the child can go in the street absent parental permission? Negotiating and rationalizing of parental commands are huge traps for coercive child behavior and breaking of parental rules. In an ideal world, children would do things because they have some full comprehension of the risks and consequences and can make a good and informed choice. Children cannot do this, and in fact, their brains are still developing in ways that render this not possible.
They become compliant to commands out of a fear of negative consequences. The same is true for time out or loss of consequences. If you have a moral problem with parents controlling children, that’s all well and good, but it just won’t play in the real world.
As long as they avoid dangerous situations, it doesn’t really matter. They will come to make their own decisions when they are developmentally able to do so. I would not at all recommend to parents that they allow children to behave however the child’s own reasoning suggests that they do. That’s just sheer nonsense.
Okay, just demonstrate to me that the child suffers physically and emotionally. Please provide me with any reference that adequately demonstrates that. I’ve already provided you with empirical studies and reviews that fail to find evidence for such suffering.
If they’ve been caused “serious” pain, then we are talking about something completely different than the spanking I’ve been referring to. However, perhaps you haven’t been around many children, because they also may respond with similar behavior to being told that they cannot have a toy or a cookie, or being reprimanded or sent to time out or losing a privilege. Tantrum behaviors are not exclusive to spanking, but are often secondary to frustration of a goal or desire.
Balderdash and poppycock, as friend elucidator might say. The type of spanking we are talking about is very much proactive and protective parenting. Expecting that a rational explanation should suffice to prevent future dangerous behavior, is far more laissez-faire parenting. Spanking does not mean that someone has suddenly abdicated supervision and responsibility.
To get to that developmental stage, they have to be prevented from stepping in front of a car, frying themselves in the outlet, or, in general, choosing which parental rules they can follow and which they cannot. Yes, they will learn as they move through developmental stages how to negotiate these things on their own, but there are severe limitations on the abilities of children to exercise rational decision making. Any parent knows this; it doesn’t take a clinical psychologist to tell them that.
My point is that from a theoretical standpoint, mild spanking should be no different than any other form of positive parenting. Given that it hasn’t been demonstrated to have negative consequences, one cannot make the foolish claims about it that are being made here. Saying that it does just because you believe that it does is simply not good enough, and is bad clinical practice. As I said before, I am biased against spanking, so if you have good evidence to the contrary, I will be sympathetic to it.
It ain’t a novel. It did get quite a bit of review by peers, though not in an official capacity. If you’re going to dismiss it out of hand with having so much as read a single word of it, then I guess there is no point in my using it as a cite. You’ve already made up your mind.
You know … I can understand being against non-abusal spanking in many instances. But what about in the case of disciplining defiance and back-talking? You can’t actually rationally convince a toddler that they should assume the “child” position in the “child-parent” relationship, right? And time-outs and the like won’t work (IMHO) … so what’s left? Seriously, where do you turn? Where’s magic technique that doesn’t require inhuman amounts of patience, jillions of repetitions, and months of consistency to implement?
I realize I’ve sounded horrible here … and it’s mostly to make a point: IRL, parents aren’t always equipped to handle things in the ideal textbook manner. So then what do you do? Resign yourself to be a lousy parent? What? When you need to apply working, effective discipline right now and fast, what do you do?
Petulance is unbecoming on you. I’m simply stating the commonly accepted criteria for empirical literature. Without critical peer review, you are losing one level to potentially challenge unsupported assertions or assertions that are at odds with the literature in general. It doesn’t mean that the cite is without merit, it just means that it is more susceptible to bias and other scholarly failings. You’ll note that I did not at all “reject it out of hand”, I merely pointed out that something from a peer reviewed journal, and more to the point, specific to spanking, would be “more helpful”.
OK, then let’s go by your own cites. Can you point me in the direction of something helpful? I’ve googled around, and have found little that supports what you’re saying.