Uh oh, Izzy, you may be right about the dangers of not spanking: “I have heard terrible stories of children becoming spoiled, drug using, athiests if they aren’t spanked.” :eek: http://www.parentsoup.com/experts/sears/DJuly11.html I guess that’s why I’m an atheist! If only I had been spanked for the salvation of my very soul. (Sorry, that quote was just too funny.)
Sorry, I could find cites for the increase of aggression in spanked children, but none that laid out the methodology. That’s the problem with research on the web. ::grumble:: However, I do not think they would make such a glaring error as to study spanked and non-spanked children, find that both get more aggressive, and proclaim that spanking seems to make children more aggressive. I don’t have severe reservations about the methodology of studies that even support spanking, I just think the weight of the evidence reinforces my view. If all aggressive children are spanked, and all get more aggressive over time, as you argue, then spanking is still not shown to be effective, unless you wish to argue that they would have been even worse if not spanked. However, most of the research says that kids who aren’t spanked are less aggressive, but I suppose you could say that children who are not spanked never would have gotten more aggressive. The cites, anyhow:
August 15, 1997 – A new study suggests a link between spanking and aggression later in a child’s life. Researchers found that when parents spanked their children, misbehavior increased two years later. http://www.npr.org/news/health/970815.spanking.html
While spanking may relieve a parent’s frustration and stop misbehavior briefly, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (1995), researchers suggest that spanking may be the least effective discipline method. To test this hypothesis, researchers surveyed parents, with the assumption that if spanking worked, children who were spanked would learn to behave better over time so that they would need punishing less frequently (Leach, 1996). However, the results showed that families who start spanking before their children are a year old are just as likely to spank their 4-year-old children as often as families who do not start spanking until later. Thus, children appear not to be learning the lessons parents are trying to teach by spanking. http://www.uncg.edu/edu/ericcass/violence/digests/ramsbu97.htm Leach, Penelope. (1996, July 9). Spanking: A shortcut to nowhere
The Family Research Laboratory of the University of New Hampshire conducted a large study involving over 3,000 mothers of 3 to 5 year old children during the late 1980’s. The women were interviewed in 1986, 1988 and 1990. The found that 63% of the mothers had spanked their child at least once during the previous week. Among those that spanked, they hit their children a little over 3 times per week, on average. They found that the children which were spanked the most as 3 to 5 year olds exhibited higher levels of anti-social behavior when observed 2 and 4 years later. This included higher levels of hitting siblings, hitting other children in school, defying parents and ignoring parental rules. Dr. Murray Straus, the Co-director of the Laboratory noted how ironic it is that the behaviors for which parents spank children are liable to get worse as a result of the spanking. http://www.religioustolerance.org/spanking.htm
Studies of parental spanking indicate that, in most cases, this discipline method leads children to engage in more antisocial behavior. http://library.uchc.edu/bhn/bhn95-97/cite95-97/nyt95-97/32spank.txt
My arguments against spanking:
- It does not seem to be as long-term effective as other methods.
- Attempting to teach children to not hit others by hitting them seems approximately as sensible as teaching them to keep clean by smearing them with dirt.
- IMHO, violence should not be an acceptable solution to problems (aside from defense of self and others). Children learn from what their parents do, not just from what they say. If my child breaks my VCR, I would use non-violent means of punishment (like making him pay for it, grounded, etc.) because when he grows up and someone breaks his VCR, I don’t want him to think it’s OK to hit that person–but it would be appropriate to make that person pay for it.
As to your argument about the immediacy of the punishment, I don’t believe that if you do not spank you must wait to discipline your child. The immediate reconcilliation also is possible without spanking. I don’t remember my mother being angry at me the whole time while I was grounded or otherwise punished, nor did I stay angry at her any longer than I would in reaction to any punishment. I did X, she enforced the punishment, end of story. I believe the anger of the child about the punishment and the anger of the parent over the infraction would last about the same amount of time, whether the punishment is over quickly or takes a while. When I incurred a long-term punishment, once the initial punishment had been assigned, relations were no longer strained between me and my parents, but the longer duration of the punishment did reinforce the lesson. And, speaking for myself, the pain and fear I would feel after being hit would make me rather unlikely to feel willing to reconcile immediately.
Barring compelling evidence that spanking is effective, I cannot think of a good reason to use it. However, you know your child best, and if spanking is indeed more effective than other methods and is not overused to the point of abuse and is stopped once other methods work better, I’m not going to have a serious beef with you. I am hesitant because so many parents spank–about 90% in the studies I’ve seen–and there seems to be an attitude that if you just smack them, they’ll turn out better, instead of an exploration of what works best for teaching a particular child discipline. Many of the pro-spankers (not you, IMHO, Izzy) seem to have an attitude of “smack the brat, dammit!” instead of “use appropriate and consistent discipline, dammit!” I never feared my parents, or feared that they would physically hurt me, yet I obeyed out of respect and love. The role of the parent is to teach the child to discipline him/herself, not just punish them when they do wrong.
Hmmm…we’re you just arguing that aggressive children might just always increase in aggression, an an explanation for increased aggression is spanked children?
If children cannot rationally understand any motive to not do a “bad” thing besides physical pain, I question whether they can understand that their parent is hurting them because they did something “bad”, instead of just “daddy is angry at me”. It’s been a while since I went over the stages of child development, but I do not recall one where children act out of fear. What general age is it during, and how do non-spanking parents deal with it if only spanking is effective discipline?
Out of curiousity, why does spanking have such fierce defenders? I don’t believe parents who spank want to hit their child–I sure hope not–so you’d think they would be eager to find and use other methods of discipline, particularly when spanking does not seem to have the long-term positive results desired.
I’m not trying to say that children are ruined permanently by spanking–that’s not born out by the research I’ve cited myself. I just think it is often unnecessary and less-than-effective in promoting the behaviors it is intended to encourage, and not something most people want to do anyhow.