Does Spanking kids Work?

[Book of Jeremiah]

I maintain that ostracism is one of the most powerful tools. I forgot where I picked it up but I read a book where if you did something outside of the tribal laws they acted like you did not exist or you were a ghost. It was either a NA tribe or an African tribe.

Someone here asked me to share this story as it reinforces the thought that there are other methods besides spanking to bring correction.

When my son was very small I told him if he would be honest and tell me what he's done wrong (instead of my having to find out ) the consequences would be small - something he would feel was more than fair and I would keep my word on the matter.

So one day he came into my room and gave me a dollar bill his grandmother had given him and said I don't deserve this. ( he had torn it up before handing it to me just to emphasize his misery! ) I asked him why and he said the neighbors son had put him on his handlebars and rode him to 7/11 ( which he wasn't allowed to do ) he went inside with him and the kid put candy in his pocket and had him walk out with it telling him he had stole the candy really - not my son. The boy was older and my son went along. Yes it was a bad decision but how wonderful that he came and told me how badly he felt and cried while he was telling me about it! Why was he crying? Not because he thought he was getting a spanking. Because he genuinely felt guilt for something he had done. I told him I had been tricked before and regretted not speaking up.

We talked it over and I told him I was willing to pay for the candy that was taken and accompany him to the store ( to apologise to the manager ) if he was willing to go with me to the neighbors house and talk to the boys mother about what happened. He agreed. We went to their door and the mother and boy were standing there. Her son was a few years older and didn't say a word. The mother said to her son in front of us if I find out you did this I'll kill you! My son and I were horrified. No wonder the boy wouldn't tell his mother the truth. He was afraid of her!

Fear is a very negative emotion to raise children by. It inhibits the ability to trust and be open with the very people they should be able to trust the most! Their parents!

Thank you Jeri. I thought this is an excellent example of what we were talking about by "motivation". Your son was obviously taught a strong moral/ethical code, which is a far stronger and more effective incentive than the negative reinforcement of avoiding pain (punishment, fine, jail, etc). Imparting that code serves as a guide for any situation, rather than a piecemeal threat that "if you steal you'll get spanked" followed by "if you lie you'll get spanked" and later, "this just in, if you transfer the violence we just taught you to other kids you'll get spanked some more".

You don't hand the kid individual fish-lessons; you teach the child how to fish. When you've done that, violence just isn't necessary.

Fishing is a good analogy! Because the idea of successful parenting is to work ourselves OUT of a job. That is the end goal I think.

 

[Iceweasel]

Most of the people I corresponded with in prison ministry were beaten severely as children. Some went on to boot camp, all went on to prison. The common denominator with all of them was their parents used violence as a teaching tool and it backfired. More discipline is not what brought them around. Love brought them around and love transformed them.

You could go to any prison and ask them if its the punishment there that will keep them from returning. They will tell you that isn't it. It's finding their self worth and purpose and feeling loved that will keep them from returning.

The topic is spanking, not beatings. Jesus Christ.

 

[Iceweasel]

You're actually going to try to draw a connection between corporal punishment and graffiti?

My, this thread has its logical mood swings.

The dots are actually too far apart for you? lol.

 

[Pogo]

Which is odd, because being spanked as discipline taught me to not ever hit people except for truly self-defense situations.

Can you elaborate on the process of that conclusion?
How did that lesson form? Did it amount to a change in behaviour, or was it establishing that standard from a cold start?

In other words, how did that physical contact make its point? And were there no other factors in that lesson? Like peer pressure?

Before going the spanking route, my parents would scold me and try to reason with me to not go out and hit people. Having ADHD and being very young, I didn't not listen to them; it simply did not get through. When I started attacking kids/adults with my fists and sharp objects, that was the last straw, and something needed to be done. By spanking me it "woke" me up to receive their message loud and clear that physical assault with fists or knives/forks is not acceptable. After being spanked the first time, I started to fear and respect and ultimately obey my parents more and more, because now there was a very good reason to listen to them.

Ah but their message before and after physical contact was the same, was it not?

So why would you elect to .... not "adhere to" but see the morality in that message after the physical contact, since it was the same message before? What exactly changed?

Or was it actually adhering to that guideline for fear of physical force?

In other words, why is hitting people wrong? Not now after subsequent experiences, but in that moment immediately following that physical contact? How did it change the words of that message?

 

[Pogo]

Someone here asked me to share this story as it reinforces the thought that there are other methods besides spanking to bring correction.

When my son was very small I told him if he would be honest and tell me what he's done wrong (instead of my having to find out ) the consequences would be small - something he would feel was more than fair and I would keep my word on the matter.

So one day he came into my room and gave me a dollar bill his grandmother had given him and said I don't deserve this. ( he had torn it up before handing it to me just to emphasize his misery! ) I asked him why and he said the neighbors son had put him on his handlebars and rode him to 7/11 ( which he wasn't allowed to do ) he went inside with him and the kid put candy in his pocket and had him walk out with it telling him he had stole the candy really - not my son. The boy was older and my son went along. Yes it was a bad decision but how wonderful that he came and told me how badly he felt and cried while he was telling me about it! Why was he crying? Not because he thought he was getting a spanking. Because he genuinely felt guilt for something he had done. I told him I had been tricked before and regretted not speaking up.

We talked it over and I told him I was willing to pay for the candy that was taken and accompany him to the store ( to apologise to the manager ) if he was willing to go with me to the neighbors house and talk to the boys mother about what happened. He agreed. We went to their door and the mother and boy were standing there. Her son was a few years older and didn't say a word. The mother said to her son in front of us if I find out you did this I'll kill you! My son and I were horrified. No wonder the boy wouldn't tell his mother the truth. He was afraid of her!

Fear is a very negative emotion to raise children by. It inhibits the ability to trust and be open with the very people they should be able to trust the most! Their parents!

Thank you Jeri. I thought this is an excellent example of what we were talking about by "motivation". Your son was obviously taught a strong moral/ethical code, which is a far stronger and more effective incentive than the negative reinforcement of avoiding pain (punishment, fine, jail, etc). Imparting that code serves as a guide for any situation, rather than a piecemeal threat that "if you steal you'll get spanked" followed by "if you lie you'll get spanked" and later, "this just in, if you transfer the violence we just taught you to other kids you'll get spanked some more".

You don't hand the kid individual fish-lessons; you teach the child how to fish. When you've done that, violence just isn't necessary.

Fishing is a good analogy! Because the idea of successful parenting is to work ourselves OUT of a job. That is the end goal I think.

Yeah obviously I'm referencing the "teach a man to fish" maxim. Seems to me spanking is handing out lesson-fish one at a time, whereas reasoning is teaching a child to fish for himself. As yours already knew when the convenience store incident happened; he was pre-equipped to do the right thing.

 

[Pogo]

You're actually going to try to draw a connection between corporal punishment and graffiti?

My, this thread has its logical mood swings.

The dots are actually too far apart for you? lol.

Yup, not even on the same plane dood. Because everybody knows, the one and only reason graffiti exists anywhere is that somebody's parents forgot to spank them for it.

 

[Wake]

Can you elaborate on the process of that conclusion?
How did that lesson form? Did it amount to a change in behaviour, or was it establishing that standard from a cold start?

In other words, how did that physical contact make its point? And were there no other factors in that lesson? Like peer pressure?

Before going the spanking route, my parents would scold me and try to reason with me to not go out and hit people. Having ADHD and being very young, I didn't not listen to them; it simply did not get through. When I started attacking kids/adults with my fists and sharp objects, that was the last straw, and something needed to be done. By spanking me it "woke" me up to receive their message loud and clear that physical assault with fists or knives/forks is not acceptable. After being spanked the first time, I started to fear and respect and ultimately obey my parents more and more, because now there was a very good reason to listen to them.

Ah but their message before and after physical contact was the same, was it not?

So why would you elect to .... not "adhere to" but see the morality in that message after the physical contact, since it was the same message before? What exactly changed?

Or was it actually adhering to that guideline for fear of physical force?

In other words, why is hitting people wrong? Not now after subsequent experiences, but in that moment immediately following that physical contact? How did it change the words of that message?

Their message was the same. As a young child with ADHD, there was no seeing any morality. Because my brain was still developing, I wasn't self-aware enough to contemplate and understand the concept of morality. Fear of physical force worked, because it was absolutely the only thing that could practically stop me. Hitting people in itself isn't wrong; people hit in self-defense, to dislodge foodstuffs from someone's throat, etc. If it were inherently wrong then no wars, acts of self-defense, or attempts to save lives would ever be right. Attacking someone with fists or a knife without valid reason is, though. The pain of the spanking and the acknowledgement that it would happen again if I tried to maim or kill someone opened my mind a bit and made me listen and obey their message.

 

[Iceweasel]

You're actually going to try to draw a connection between corporal punishment and graffiti?

My, this thread has its logical mood swings.

The dots are actually too far apart for you? lol.

Yup, not even on the same plane dood. Because everybody knows, the one and only reason graffiti exists anywhere is that somebody's parents forgot to spank them for it.

I was right dood. The dots are too apart for you. Why bother discussing anything with anyone? Lack of discipline has an effect and the more idiot parents there are that equate spanking with beatings, the more bad behavior we see. There, I connected the dots for you. This time.

 

[Iceweasel]

Ah but their message before and after physical contact was the same, was it not?

Ah, but it had more meaning afterwards. Get someone to walk you through it.

 

[Iceweasel]

Yeah obviously I'm referencing the "teach a man to fish" maxim. Seems to me spanking is handing out lesson-fish one at a time, whereas reasoning is teaching a child to fish for himself. As yours already knew when the convenience store incident happened; he was pre-equipped to do the right thing.

No one suggesting spanking an not teaching reasoning. You obviously are suffering badly from lack of the later.

 

[Synergy]

Which is odd, because being spanked as discipline taught me to not ever hit people except for truly self-defense situations.

Can you elaborate on the process of that conclusion?
How did that lesson form? Did it amount to a change in behaviour, or was it establishing that standard from a cold start?

In other words, how did that physical contact make its point? And were there no other factors in that lesson? Like peer pressure?

Before going the spanking route, my parents would scold me and try to reason with me to not go out and hit people. Having ADHD and being very young, I didn't not listen to them; it simply did not get through. When I started attacking kids/adults with my fists and sharp objects, that was the last straw, and something needed to be done. By spanking me it "woke" me up to receive their message loud and clear that physical assault with fists or knives/forks is not acceptable. After being spanked the first time, I started to fear and respect and ultimately obey my parents more and more, because now there was a very good reason to listen to them.

Thanks for the anecdote. However, it remains merely an anecdote. That is not to say you are lying or exaggerating in your experience, but that it is poor quality evidence. In addition to the obvious impossibility of verifying validity or accuracy is the issue of correlation and causation.

The correlation and causation fallacy is most commonly an issue when other variables are not adjusted for. In isolated samples such as this (a sample of one anecdote) this issue is magnified. Thus is the importance of well designed studies and peer review/reproducible results.

Perhaps your story is exactly true the way you said it. However, your assessment of cause and effect could be significantly skewed due to a lack of controlled variables that may have impacted how you assimilated the experience and could have been adjusted for in a series of peer reviewed studies. Or there could be no discernible reason at all why you turn up as a statistical outlier -- and that is perfectly normal even in the most robust of topics. As with individual cases of not dying of the effects of smoking being cited as proof that cigarettes are harmless, it's just not a tenable argument. Better to err on the side of caution given the statistical probabilities involved, as judged by the current state of peer review.

Peer Reviewed Data > Personal Anecdotes

 

[Wake]

Can you elaborate on the process of that conclusion?
How did that lesson form? Did it amount to a change in behaviour, or was it establishing that standard from a cold start?

In other words, how did that physical contact make its point? And were there no other factors in that lesson? Like peer pressure?

Before going the spanking route, my parents would scold me and try to reason with me to not go out and hit people. Having ADHD and being very young, I didn't not listen to them; it simply did not get through. When I started attacking kids/adults with my fists and sharp objects, that was the last straw, and something needed to be done. By spanking me it "woke" me up to receive their message loud and clear that physical assault with fists or knives/forks is not acceptable. After being spanked the first time, I started to fear and respect and ultimately obey my parents more and more, because now there was a very good reason to listen to them.

Thanks for the anecdote. However, it remains merely an anecdote. That is not to say you are lying or exaggerating in your experience, but that it is poor quality evidence. In addition to the obvious impossibility of verifying validity or accuracy is the issue of correlation and causation.

The correlation and causation fallacy is most commonly an issue when other variables are not adjusted for. In isolated samples such as this (a sample of one anecdote) this issue is magnified. Thus is the importance of well designed studies and peer review/reproducible results.

Perhaps your story is exactly true the way you said it. However, your assessment of cause and effect could be significantly skewed due to a lack of controlled variables that may have impacted how you assimilated the experience and could have been adjusted for in a series of peer reviewed studies. Or there could be no discernible reason at all why you turn up as a statistical outlier -- and that is perfectly normal even in the most robust of topics. As with individual cases of not dying of the effects of smoking being cited as proof that cigarettes are harmless, it's just not a tenable argument. Better to err on the side of caution given the statistical probabilities involved, as judged by the current state of peer review.

Peer Reviewed Data > Personal Anecdotes

Respectfully, I'm not sure what your point is. Since we're not in court, but discussing our views and opinions regarding spanking, personal experiences are quite acceptable. I don't particularly trust peer-reviewed data, either, because more than a few times have people gotten it completely wrong, and/or let their own biases taint their work. I used to be like you and be a rigid, scientific machine that put scientific numbers above most if not all things. Looking back, it seems it made me blind to some things otherwise regarded as common sense. I was less human and more machine.

...not only that, but it annoyed people who simply wanted a decent, casual discussion.

 

[Montrovant]

The use of physical violence as a reprimand teaches children that physical violence is a useful and necessary manner of serving "justice," which is subjectively applied by each individual.

Not only does spanking ignore the countless detrimental externalities that often result (for both that individual personally, and the surrounding environment he/she affects), it isn't even as effective as alternative strategies of positive reinforcement.

Whether there are individuals that survived such forms of punishment and turned into great individuals tells us absolutely nothing scientifically. By that logic, all it would take to prove that cigarettes are harmless is to find a few centenarians that died of natural causes in spite of a lifelong smoking habit. I'm sure it has happened plenty, as we expect such outliers to occur in science and statistics.

Why do you assume that those who 'survived' spanking and became great individuals are so few and far between? Why do you assume they are outliers rather than the norm?

Hop on Google scholar and test your null hypothesis. Countless studies exist, most often with regard to externalities. Statistical significance doesn't depend on miniscule totals of outliers if the overall sample/population size is very large. So, "few and far between" could be anything from a handful of individuals to thousands or millions depending on the proportional ratio of said outliers to whatever sample/population size you are analyzing.

I didn't provide any hypothesis. I simply asked why you seemingly made an assumption. You certainly haven't provided any data.

It's odd how you have belittled others in this thread for basing their opinions on personal experience rather than peer-reviewed scientific literature, yet have not linked to nor discussed nor pointed out any yourself.

 

[Montrovant]

You're actually going to try to draw a connection between corporal punishment and graffiti?

My, this thread has its logical mood swings.

The dots are actually too far apart for you? lol.

Yup, not even on the same plane dood. Because everybody knows, the one and only reason graffiti exists anywhere is that somebody's parents forgot to spank them for it.

You did compare spanking to invading a country.....

 

[Synergy]

Before going the spanking route, my parents would scold me and try to reason with me to not go out and hit people. Having ADHD and being very young, I didn't not listen to them; it simply did not get through. When I started attacking kids/adults with my fists and sharp objects, that was the last straw, and something needed to be done. By spanking me it "woke" me up to receive their message loud and clear that physical assault with fists or knives/forks is not acceptable. After being spanked the first time, I started to fear and respect and ultimately obey my parents more and more, because now there was a very good reason to listen to them.

Thanks for the anecdote. However, it remains merely an anecdote. That is not to say you are lying or exaggerating in your experience, but that it is poor quality evidence. In addition to the obvious impossibility of verifying validity or accuracy is the issue of correlation and causation.

The correlation and causation fallacy is most commonly an issue when other variables are not adjusted for. In isolated samples such as this (a sample of one anecdote) this issue is magnified. Thus is the importance of well designed studies and peer review/reproducible results.

Perhaps your story is exactly true the way you said it. However, your assessment of cause and effect could be significantly skewed due to a lack of controlled variables that may have impacted how you assimilated the experience and could have been adjusted for in a series of peer reviewed studies. Or there could be no discernible reason at all why you turn up as a statistical outlier -- and that is perfectly normal even in the most robust of topics. As with individual cases of not dying of the effects of smoking being cited as proof that cigarettes are harmless, it's just not a tenable argument. Better to err on the side of caution given the statistical probabilities involved, as judged by the current state of peer review.

Peer Reviewed Data > Personal Anecdotes

Respectfully, I'm not sure what your point is. Since we're not in court, but discussing our views and opinions regarding spanking, personal experiences are quite acceptable. I don't particularly trust peer-reviewed data, either, because more than a few times have people gotten it completely wrong, and/or let their own biases taint their work. I used to be like you and be a rigid, scientific machine that put scientific numbers above most if not all things. Looking back, it seems it made me blind to some things otherwise regarded as common sense. I was less human and more machine.

...not only that, but it annoyed people who simply wanted a decent, casual discussion.

Peer review is reliable for the precise reason you proclaim to dislike it -- sometimes the peer review consensus is wrong, but unlike religion, philosophy or politics it is self correcting. Moreover, there is always a reason. It is always due to a new discovery typically of an unforeseen confounding variable unless the previous studies to date were merely of poor quality to begin with.

The reason so many people tend to doubt the peer review process is that they don't know how to distinguish from a high or low quality study. It's largely an objective process, in fact. Not a matter of subjective whim. The media exacerbates the process with incorrectly interpreting and reporting results.

The peer review process of science is the most reliable and accurate method we currently have to separate fact from fiction. That doesn't mean it has all the answers, or that every answer it currently offers is unconditionally correct. It is merely the best approximation of the truth based on the best available evidence to date. Concepts and understandings fluctuate with time, but ultimately trend in a direction of order and agreement due to the stringent and objective structure of the process.

With that said, sure. Any form of evidence or philosophical hypothesis is allowed, but I figured our goal was what the truth actually is as opposed to what we all can dream up as possible explanations?

 

[Wake]

Thanks for the anecdote. However, it remains merely an anecdote. That is not to say you are lying or exaggerating in your experience, but that it is poor quality evidence. In addition to the obvious impossibility of verifying validity or accuracy is the issue of correlation and causation.

The correlation and causation fallacy is most commonly an issue when other variables are not adjusted for. In isolated samples such as this (a sample of one anecdote) this issue is magnified. Thus is the importance of well designed studies and peer review/reproducible results.

Perhaps your story is exactly true the way you said it. However, your assessment of cause and effect could be significantly skewed due to a lack of controlled variables that may have impacted how you assimilated the experience and could have been adjusted for in a series of peer reviewed studies. Or there could be no discernible reason at all why you turn up as a statistical outlier -- and that is perfectly normal even in the most robust of topics. As with individual cases of not dying of the effects of smoking being cited as proof that cigarettes are harmless, it's just not a tenable argument. Better to err on the side of caution given the statistical probabilities involved, as judged by the current state of peer review.

Peer Reviewed Data > Personal Anecdotes

Respectfully, I'm not sure what your point is. Since we're not in court, but discussing our views and opinions regarding spanking, personal experiences are quite acceptable. I don't particularly trust peer-reviewed data, either, because more than a few times have people gotten it completely wrong, and/or let their own biases taint their work. I used to be like you and be a rigid, scientific machine that put scientific numbers above most if not all things. Looking back, it seems it made me blind to some things otherwise regarded as common sense. I was less human and more machine.

...not only that, but it annoyed people who simply wanted a decent, casual discussion.

Peer review is reliable for the precise reason you proclaim to dislike it -- sometimes the peer review consensus is wrong, but unlike religion, philosophy or politics it is self correcting. Moreover, there is always a reason. It is always due to a new discovery typically of an unforeseen confounding variable unless the previous studies to date were merely of poor quality to begin with.

The reason so many people tend to doubt the peer review process is that they don't know how to distinguish from a high or low quality study. It's largely an objective process, in fact. Not a matter of subjective whim. The media exacerbates the process with incorrectly interpreting and reporting results.

The peer review process of science is the most reliable and accurate method we currently have to separate fact from fiction. That doesn't mean it has all the answers, or that every answer it currently offers is unconditionally correct. It is merely the best approximation of the truth based on the best available evidence to date. Concepts and understandings fluctuate with time, but ultimately trend in a direction of order and agreement due to the stringent and objective structure of the process.

With that said, sure. Any form of evidence or philosophical hypothesis is allowed, but I figured our goal was what the truth actually is as opposed to what we all can dream up as possible explanations?

I like reasoning with people instead of picking and choosing various studies that support one political agenda or another.

If you would, reason with me instead of pointing to studies and assuming they're worth more than personal experience.

People can be very intelligent. However, high intelligence doesn't erase everything else that comes with our humanity.

I do not trust "scientific" studies because, like it or not, scientists are faulty and prone to being biased with their research. Why do you think the political Right and Left fling their little studies around so much? What are your personal thoughts on this issue, what do you propose, and what do you feel about it?

If you want, I could show you what it means to be an objective, scientific machine. Then again, those who proclaim to go by science and numbers are rarely willing to strip away everything that's been instilled in them by the society they were raised in, including ethics, morals, beliefs, concepts, and all other kinds of hypothetical, man-made structures.

Edit: You may respond to me if and when you are unbanned.

 

[Pogo]

The dots are actually too far apart for you? lol.

Yup, not even on the same plane dood. Because everybody knows, the one and only reason graffiti exists anywhere is that somebody's parents forgot to spank them for it.

You did compare spanking to invading a country.....

No I didn't. I used those elements in an analogy, out of which you've stripped the rest of the context so that no meaning remains, just to make it look bad.

Not the same thing anyway-- the trollposter here made a leap of false causation, assuming that the concept of spanking is the one and only reason that graffiti exists. Which is, of course, ridiculous.

You may not have liked that analogy way back, but that's got zero to do with somebody else's fallacy of causation.

 

[Pogo]

Before going the spanking route, my parents would scold me and try to reason with me to not go out and hit people. Having ADHD and being very young, I didn't not listen to them; it simply did not get through. When I started attacking kids/adults with my fists and sharp objects, that was the last straw, and something needed to be done. By spanking me it "woke" me up to receive their message loud and clear that physical assault with fists or knives/forks is not acceptable. After being spanked the first time, I started to fear and respect and ultimately obey my parents more and more, because now there was a very good reason to listen to them.

Thanks for the anecdote. However, it remains merely an anecdote. That is not to say you are lying or exaggerating in your experience, but that it is poor quality evidence. In addition to the obvious impossibility of verifying validity or accuracy is the issue of correlation and causation.

The correlation and causation fallacy is most commonly an issue when other variables are not adjusted for. In isolated samples such as this (a sample of one anecdote) this issue is magnified. Thus is the importance of well designed studies and peer review/reproducible results.

Perhaps your story is exactly true the way you said it. However, your assessment of cause and effect could be significantly skewed due to a lack of controlled variables that may have impacted how you assimilated the experience and could have been adjusted for in a series of peer reviewed studies. Or there could be no discernible reason at all why you turn up as a statistical outlier -- and that is perfectly normal even in the most robust of topics. As with individual cases of not dying of the effects of smoking being cited as proof that cigarettes are harmless, it's just not a tenable argument. Better to err on the side of caution given the statistical probabilities involved, as judged by the current state of peer review.

Peer Reviewed Data > Personal Anecdotes

Respectfully, I'm not sure what your point is. Since we're not in court, but discussing our views and opinions regarding spanking, personal experiences are quite acceptable. I don't particularly trust peer-reviewed data, either, because more than a few times have people gotten it completely wrong, and/or let their own biases taint their work. I used to be like you and be a rigid, scientific machine that put scientific numbers above most if not all things. Looking back, it seems it made me blind to some things otherwise regarded as common sense. I was less human and more machine.

...not only that, but it annoyed people who simply wanted a decent, casual discussion.

It did, but his approach was invalid anyway. You related a story; the function is to analyze how the process worked therein, not to prove whether the story happened. That's irrelevant.

So anyway back to the actual incident...

By spanking me it "woke" me up to receive their message loud and clear that physical assault with fists or knives/forks is not acceptable. After being spanked the first time, I started to fear and respect and ultimately obey my parents more and more, because now there was a very good reason to listen to them.

I hear two different things here. This passage says you now started to "listen to them", whereas before you didn't listen. But you also say your reason for discontinuing such behaviour was fear of more physical punishment. Yet if you had "listened", the reason would have been the moral lesson they taught you. So I'm left unclear from this whether your reason at that point for discontinuing a litany of assaults was that you heard the message, or that you feared the penalty. They are two different things, are they not?

Assuming the latter was your reasoning, at what point and how did that transmute from a negative reinforcement (risk assessment of physical penalty) into a positive moral code?

And corollary question: are we to infer from this anecdote that the remedy for ADHD is physical punishment?

 

[Luddly Neddite]

I apologize that my earlier post was so unclear. I rewrote/retyped it and then didn't correct it.

I have studied this all my life but I am no where near the authority of some here. I was a child who was not expected, not supposed to survive.

Some may want to read Sanford's book, Strong At the Broken Places. Her research shows that those who were hit as children do not grow up to hit their own children.

My question is, where do people learn that hitting children is okay or even, good?

 

[laughinReaper]

This something that has interest me for quite awhile now. Since I was spanked as a kid when I did wrong and for the most part I came out fine other than my Depression that I still haven't kicked out of.

But for the most part a sane human being. But new this new data of people who spank their kids for the most part do not do well in schools and are more aggressive is this old school way of discipline hurting are kids this the question I ask you guys here.

Do Not Hit Your Children with Belts - YouTube

Study Links Spanking Kids To Aggression, Language Problems

Maternal spanking at age 5, even at low levels, was associated with higher levels of child externalizing behavior at age 9, even after an array of risks and earlier child behavior were controlled for. Father’s high-frequency spanking at age 5 was associated with lower child receptive vocabulary scores at age 9.

Womanist Musings: Dear Black Community: Beating Children With Belts Is Not Discipline, It's Abuse

He further goes on to state that he is going to give the child a reason to cry and then beats him some more. In the next scene we see the child outside with a tear streaked face. The father makes him run, crab walk and then do push ups. When he realizes that the child did the push up on his knees he accuses him of cheating and demands 15 push ups. At the end of the video you see the child doing a push up with strain more than evident on his face with the words job well done on the screen.

IDK I was spanked with a belt as was pretty much everyone I knew as a kid. You didn't see us shooting up schools, disrespecting teachers and other authority figures, and roaming the streets at all hours of the night. Why? because we all knew if we disobeyed our parents or those our parent put in charge of us,we'd get the belt.

By now everyone has seen the principal dragging the kid to the office because the kid refused to obey. The parent complained about the treatment of her child. This never would have happened when I was a kid. My parents response would have been one of horror. What did I do that got me sent to the office? Why did I fall out when told to walk. How dare I embarass my parents like that! The adults at school would think I was an undisciplined brat and my conduct would cast my parents in a bad light. Not only would my parents have appoligized for my conduct in school, but I wouldn't be able to sit down for a week once I got home.

What seems like reasonable behavior to a child may not be in reality. Kids don't have all the capabilities and information to reason as adults do. Kids need a swat on the butt when it becomes clear that they are not going to listen to their parents instructions. When reason doesn't work, the fear of pain often does. The child doesn't have to understand why YOU think they aren't old enough to cross a busy street even when they think they are old enough,they just have obey your instructions. It could save their lives. Want to know why the kids are run amok? It's because they lack proper parental discipline. I am in no way advocating child abuse, but good old fashioned swat on the butt would save people like that principal a lot of grief.