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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There are no studies suggesting it's effective. There are some studies suggesting it does no harm, but no studies of effectiveness. If you want to argue that it could be effective but we just don't have studies of it - fine - but that's not "evidence" either.

As for the rest of my response, I don't believe people should hit. It's hurtful. And it involves doing something to someone else's body that they do not want and did not consent to. I am not sure how that begs the question.

I don't believe people should be hit and I choose to live my life and parent in accord with that belief. That's no different than any of the other 1,000 of beliefs that we all hold.[/quote]

np. That's actually not true, there have been studies showing that it's effective. The key is how the researchers design the study. When they properly control for demographics and degree of spanking (not including obviously abusive situations), it suddenly becomes effective.

In fact, I've never seen a properly controlled study that said it's ineffective.

[/quote]

Oh yeah, here's the link I intended to share. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/25/us/findings-give-some-support-to-advocates-of-spanking.html?pagewanted=all[/quote]

The link you shared describes well the fact that the evidence is mixed. There are a few limited correlations with lowered problem behaviors in some studies, true. And that same article details other studies where detrimental effects have been found. The reality is that there has never been a properly controlled study of spanking - on either side. And there never will be. Because hard experimental evidence would come from a randomized controlled trial. And no study is going to be approved that randomizes parents to spanking their children or not. So we will all have to live with the correlational studies we have and parse them as best we can.

As I said before, in the context of a loving home where a child's needs are met, I am sure occasional spanking will do no harm. If that is the choice you want to make as a parent, so be it. But my choice is to never use physical punishment. Some of my reasoning for that comes from the limited studies that have been done, some of it comes from my professional life and my knowledge of the child development literature broadly (Ph.D. in developmental psychology), and the rest of it comes from a belief I hold about how we should treat people and how we should not subject anyone to physical harm for the purposes of punishment. For me it was never a consideration. [/quote]

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