Spanking

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It hoovers around 65% of parents who do across childhood. The big study that just came out against was a meta-analysis by 2 universitys looking at 160,000 participants over 50 years of other studies, publised in the Journal of Family Psychology. Points to negative short term (not effective) and negative long term (self esteem, learning and social) outcomes. Doesn't work for the now and hurts the future.

The onus of the evidence should be on the people who commit physical violence against their kids (or spouses).

Dear spanking-loving folks,

Can you please show us the well-published Randomized Control Trials that prove spanking works?

Thank you in advance

I can see in my own life that it works. Why would I need a study to confirm that?

Because that's a pure anecdote, and you may be wrong.

Before hitting your kids again, you should make sure that's the best way to accomplish XYZ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What you're still not understanding is that they're making no effort to isolate correlative factors. Nor do they even distinguish mild spanking for specific defiance from frequent and constant spanking or hitting. You just can't draw meaningful conclusions from that data.

"mild spanking"

Calling it that might make you feel more civilized but the most accurate terminology is hitting children.

No, by no objective argument is that the more accurate terminology. Accuracy is enhanced with precision, and that language is more precise. You choose the inflammatory, which has a purpose as you see it, but it is less accurate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What you're still not understanding is that they're making no effort to isolate correlative factors. Nor do they even distinguish mild spanking for specific defiance from frequent and constant spanking or hitting. You just can't draw meaningful conclusions from that data.

Well, anonymous internet person strangely devoted to spanking, I think I will stick with the conclusions drawn by the vast majority of scientists examining this problem, even though they are not able to do a neat spanking/no spanking study design.

What you don't even realize is that I'm not a supporter of spanking at all. It's just not our choice. But there's no science that says it's bad.

You are looking at it backwards. Does science say hitting kids is good?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It hoovers around 65% of parents who do across childhood. The big study that just came out against was a meta-analysis by 2 universitys looking at 160,000 participants over 50 years of other studies, publised in the Journal of Family Psychology. Points to negative short term (not effective) and negative long term (self esteem, learning and social) outcomes. Doesn't work for the now and hurts the future.

The onus of the evidence should be on the people who commit physical violence against their kids (or spouses).

Dear spanking-loving folks,

Can you please show us the well-published Randomized Control Trials that prove spanking works?

Thank you in advance

I can see in my own life that it works. Why would I need a study to confirm that?

How do you know that it works? How would your children behave and more importantly what kind of relationship would they have with you if you'd managed to raise them without ever hitting them? How confident would they be, how safe would the feel and what kind of relationships would they form as adults?

np. I think you, more than any of the "spankers" are ascribing WAY too much power to this simple punishment. (And I'm not a spanker)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What you're still not understanding is that they're making no effort to isolate correlative factors. Nor do they even distinguish mild spanking for specific defiance from frequent and constant spanking or hitting. You just can't draw meaningful conclusions from that data.

Well, anonymous internet person strangely devoted to spanking, I think I will stick with the conclusions drawn by the vast majority of scientists examining this problem, even though they are not able to do a neat spanking/no spanking study design.

What you don't even realize is that I'm not a supporter of spanking at all. It's just not our choice. But there's no science that says it's bad.

You are looking at it backwards. Does science say hitting kids is good?

Yes.

[Anonymous]

Some of you may be interested to read how, in one of the very few studies that did attempt to control for various factors including severity, mild spanking was found to be perfectly acceptable. Here's a study from Berkeley on the topic:

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2001/08/24_spank.html

[Anonymous]

As a psychologist I will weigh in that the studies that have been done are definitely clear that there is no benefit to spanking, there is also research showing negative effects. There are a few studies that have shown it to be less harmful - typically when it is common "in-group" practice. That is, when children grow up in households where it is common in that neighborhood/community/culture, it tends to be slightly less harmful. But there are definitely no studies endorsing the practice and decades of child psychology research suggests it does not include any of the components of discipline that we know works. Generally, spanking is a punishment not discipline - as discipline is intended to teach. Punishments don't typically work to change behavior - among adults or children.

Now yes, the research can't randomly assign kids to be hit or not - so we will never have 100% conclusive evidence - but the studies do work to control for factors like SES, education of parents, stress, and other things that could also relate to outcomes to try to limit the amount of other explanations for the findings.

Please, please don't hit your kids. As an adult, can you think of a time when someone wanted you to do something and if they slapped you or hit you, it would make you MORE likely to do it? Possibly only if you were then scared of the person. Seems like not the right reasons we want our kids to do (or not do) things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a psychologist I will weigh in that the studies that have been done are definitely clear that there is no benefit to spanking, there is also research showing negative effects. There are a few studies that have shown it to be less harmful - typically when it is common "in-group" practice. That is, when children grow up in households where it is common in that neighborhood/community/culture, it tends to be slightly less harmful. But there are definitely no studies endorsing the practice and decades of child psychology research suggests it does not include any of the components of discipline that we know works. Generally, spanking is a punishment not discipline - as discipline is intended to teach. Punishments don't typically work to change behavior - among adults or children.

Now yes, the research can't randomly assign kids to be hit or not - so we will never have 100% conclusive evidence - but the studies do work to control for factors like SES, education of parents, stress, and other things that could also relate to outcomes to try to limit the amount of other explanations for the findings.

Please, please don't hit your kids. As an adult, can you think of a time when someone wanted you to do something and if they slapped you or hit you, it would make you MORE likely to do it? Possibly only if you were then scared of the person. Seems like not the right reasons we want our kids to do (or not do) things.

Thank you for the summary.

[Anonymous]

"but the studies do work to control for factors like SES, education of parents"

Please show me the studies that have controlled for this.


"But there are definitely no studies endorsing the practice "

That's actually not true.

http://www.amsciepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2466/15.10.49.PR0.112.3.933-975

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some of you may be interested to read how, in one of the very few studies that did attempt to control for various factors including severity, mild spanking was found to be perfectly acceptable. Here's a study from Berkeley on the topic:

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2001/08/24_spank.html

Thank you. Lots of very interesting stuff in here. I could quote the whole thing, but I'll spare everyone, and just quote this:

"By "spanking," Baumrind refers to striking the child on the buttocks, hands or legs with an open hand without inflicting physical injury and with the intention of modifying the child's behavior.

"I am not an advocate of spanking," said Baumrind, "but a blanket injunction against its use is not warranted by the evidence. It is reliance on physical punishment, not whether or not it is used at all, that is associated with harm to the child.

The children of parents in the green zone who never spanked were not better adjusted than those, also in the green zone, who were spanked very seldomly, Baumrind said"

So, if you are relying on spanking as the sole form of punishment, then yes, I agree spanking won't work, and your kid will have lasting effects. But, used very seldomly, there is no evidence that these kids turn out hating or being fearful of their parents, exactly as many who were spanked a few times as kids have been saying on here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What you're still not understanding is that they're making no effort to isolate correlative factors. Nor do they even distinguish mild spanking for specific defiance from frequent and constant spanking or hitting. You just can't draw meaningful conclusions from that data.

Despite hundreds and hundreds of studies, the general public, and sometimes even some social scientists, can’t seem to agree on how harmful or beneficial spanking is. Part of the problem is that the research on spanking is messy. It’s hard to separate out all the different factors that might influence how a child turns out, and spanking has a chicken-or-egg problem: Do more difficult children simply get spanked more by their parents, or does getting spanked cause kids to act out and misbehave more? (The handful of long-term studies looking at this question point to the latter.) But the research isn’t so messy that clear patterns haven’t emerged from it: the vast majority of social scientists agree that spanking can lead to problems in childhood and adulthood and doesn’t have any real upsides[u].

I realize he is a controversial figure, and also not a social scientist. But anecdotally, spanking has a real upside, or rather, not spanking has a real downside: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303519404579354801246309702

Couldn't read the piece as I don't have a WSJ subscription. But even if I could, given the above I don't think it has any merit.

I'll take controlled studies over anecdotes, thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What you're still not understanding is that they're making no effort to isolate correlative factors. Nor do they even distinguish mild spanking for specific defiance from frequent and constant spanking or hitting. You just can't draw meaningful conclusions from that data.

Well, anonymous internet person strangely devoted to spanking, I think I will stick with the conclusions drawn by the vast majority of scientists examining this problem, even though they are not able to do a neat spanking/no spanking study design.

OK. But remember, 50-90% of your children's friends are being spanked now. That may or may not color your interactions with them or their parents. Would it?

I know this is not the case. But if it makes you feel better, go ahead and believe that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What you're still not understanding is that they're making no effort to isolate correlative factors. Nor do they even distinguish mild spanking for specific defiance from frequent and constant spanking or hitting. You just can't draw meaningful conclusions from that data.

Despite hundreds and hundreds of studies, the general public, and sometimes even some social scientists, can’t seem to agree on how harmful or beneficial spanking is. Part of the problem is that the research on spanking is messy. It’s hard to separate out all the different factors that might influence how a child turns out, and spanking has a chicken-or-egg problem: Do more difficult children simply get spanked more by their parents, or does getting spanked cause kids to act out and misbehave more? (The handful of long-term studies looking at this question point to the latter.) But the research isn’t so messy that clear patterns haven’t emerged from it: the vast majority of social scientists agree that spanking can lead to problems in childhood and adulthood and doesn’t have any real upsides[u].

I realize he is a controversial figure, and also not a social scientist. But anecdotally, spanking has a real upside, or rather, not spanking has a real downside: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303519404579354801246309702

Couldn't read the piece as I don't have a WSJ subscription. But even if I could, given the above I don't think it has any merit.

I'll take controlled studies over anecdotes, thanks.

He's a psychologist. He talks about how Sweden, having outlawed spanking 20 years ago, has raised a generation of brats. Does that sound familiar to anyone on DCUM?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It hoovers around 65% of parents who do across childhood. The big study that just came out against was a meta-analysis by 2 universitys looking at 160,000 participants over 50 years of other studies, publised in the Journal of Family Psychology. Points to negative short term (not effective) and negative long term (self esteem, learning and social) outcomes. Doesn't work for the now and hurts the future.

The onus of the evidence should be on the people who commit physical violence against their kids (or spouses).

Dear spanking-loving folks,

Can you please show us the well-published Randomized Control Trials that prove spanking works?

Thank you in advance

I can see in my own life that it works. Why would I need a study to confirm that?

By that logic, why do you put your baby on his back to sleep, or use a carseat? Why bother? Studies don't mean anything!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It hoovers around 65% of parents who do across childhood. The big study that just came out against was a meta-analysis by 2 universitys looking at 160,000 participants over 50 years of other studies, publised in the Journal of Family Psychology. Points to negative short term (not effective) and negative long term (self esteem, learning and social) outcomes. Doesn't work for the now and hurts the future.

The onus of the evidence should be on the people who commit physical violence against their kids (or spouses).

Dear spanking-loving folks,

Can you please show us the well-published Randomized Control Trials that prove spanking works?

Thank you in advance

I can see in my own life that it works. Why would I need a study to confirm that?

Because that's a pure anecdote, and you may be wrong.

Before hitting your kids again, you should make sure that's the best way to accomplish XYZ.

+1

And no one can know that spanking "works" until their children are grown. The issue is long-term damage, not short-term "effectiveness."