
What Happens When a Country Bans Spanking? - Varcht
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/10/25/660191806/what-happens-when-a-country-bans-spanking
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manfredo
On one hand quantitative data seems to suggest spanking had zero merit. On the
other hand one I've heard from many parents that spanking was the only
disincentive that could stop certain seriously bad behavior - revoking
privileges, assigning chores, etc. did not solve the problem. The more extreme
examples involved actions that put siblings in the ER, or behavior that would
easily get kid expelled. I think it's possible for spanking to be ineffective
in aggregate, but effective from the point of view of parents. If you need to
stop your child from doing something _right now_ because it could seriously
impact their future life prospects, it may be a worthwhile trade-off to risk
the chance that a child adopts more aggressive (but not intolerably so)
behavior down the road. I'd be interesting in seeing the types and magnitude
of behavior that instigated the spanking vs. the behavior spanked children do
later in childhood.

While the quantitative data seems to suggest spanking is negative, the
question still remains: when all other disciplinary options are exhausted,
what can a parent do to stop truly intolerable behavior? The article suggests
using other options, but does not list any.

~~~
dragonwriter
> On the other hand one I've heard from many parents that spanking was the
> only disincentive that could stop certain seriously bad behavior - revoking
> privileges, assigning chores, etc. did not solve the problem.

Bad behavior is often not a root problem, but a symptom. Spanking may be the
most effective way of treating the symptom (but even that is probably a post
hoc rationalization that is not factually supportable), but it mostly adds to,
or at best ignores, the underlying problem. Other punitive measures also tend
to ignore the problem, though they tend not to make things worse in the way
that the use of physical violence does.

~~~
bjoli
Anecdote time: every time me and my wife have been busy and not had enough fun
family time for a couple of days, my 2 year old starts breaking things and
having tantrums. Sure, small kid, small problems, but actually spending time
with him is waaay more productive than getting angry. It becomes a positive
spiral.

Sure, i am tired and stressed out sometimes and that makes actually being
above thinking he's just a shit kid very hard.

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xupybd
I'm happy to say these guys are the experts and know better than me but this
really flies in the face of all the anecdotal evidence I've seen.

From my peers those that grew up in strict Muslim and Christian homes, where
they did get corporal punishment, they were much better behaved. That has also
translated into their success now they're in their 30s.

But those who also got corporal punishment in more dysfunctional households
have had terrible outcomes. Their "punishment" was probably much closer to
child abuse that those from the other group.

I was not spanked my self so I have no personal reference, only that I was far
worse in self discipline than the first group. I'd have expected this study to
show some correlation between self discipline and spanking. I can't help but
think they've conflated child abuse and hitting out of anger with spanking.

That said, I'm no expert.

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eridius
All spanking is child abuse. Full stop.

From what you've described, there is zero reason to believe that the spankings
your peers in the strict Muslim and Christian homes was a factor in their
later success.

~~~
xupybd
>All spanking is child abuse

I hope you understand the distinction I was trying to make.

I’d have expected a correlation to show up.

~~~
c22
Do you think when Christian or Muslim parents are spanking their children that
they are not angry?

~~~
xupybd
I’m not assuming they are good at it but my understanding of traditional
Christian doctrine is that it should never be done in anger. I’m not sure
about the Muslim teaching on it but thought Jewish, Muslim and Christian
teaching on this was similar.

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iron0013
This is just another data point in a long, long line of research demonstrating
that spanking and corporal punishment in general is harmful. It is very
frustrating to watch people (in this thread and elsewhere) blithely continue
to believe what they want to believe contrary to the large bulk of evidence--
it's as if, confronted with truth and reality, they think that there can be
some argument or rhetorical gambit that makes the conclusions that they would
prefer correct. That's not how truth works.

~~~
xupybd
Do you have any links to this long line of research?

~~~
iron0013
I see this kind of response a lot, and unfortunately it's difficult to respond
to you without taking what I feel you would interpret as a patronizing tone.

If you read the article, you would find links to research articles and
additional literature related to the topic at hand. If you were in turn to
read each of those articles, you would find that they are thoroughly
researched and contain a large number of citations themselves. If you truly
did not understand that you can educate yourself about a topic in this manner,
I hope you are ecstatic upon learning to follow this great chain of research,
as this is how every scientist educates themselves.

So, here's a link to the article that we are all discussing, go ahead and read
it if you haven't already:

[https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/10/25/6601918...](https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/10/25/660191806/what-
happens-when-a-country-bans-spanking)

Here are some sources linked in the article. Some are peer-reviewed research
articles, while others describe and cite peer-reviewed research:

[https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/8/9/e021616?int_source=trend...](https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/8/9/e021616?int_source=trendmd&int_medium=trendmd&int_campaign=trendmd)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3768154/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3768154/)

[https://www.unicef.org/publications/index_101397.html](https://www.unicef.org/publications/index_101397.html)

Now here's the key insight into this process of learning--if you read the
articles linked above, you will find citations of additional research in this
area. These publications are usually not too difficult to find. Here are a few
pertinent publications, but there are many more cited in the publications
linked above--which I remind you were themselves linked from the original NPR
article that we are all discussing.

Gershoff ET. Corporal punishment by parents and associated child behaviors and
experiences: A meta-analytic and theoretical review. Psychological Bulletin.
2002;128:539–579.

Gershoff ET. More harm than good: A summary of scientific research on the
intended and unintended effects of corporal punishment on children. Law and
Contemporary Problems. 2010;73:33–58.

Sheehan MJ, Watson MW. Reciprocal influences between maternal discipline
techniques and aggression in children and adolescents. Aggressive Behavior.
2008;34:245–255. doi:10.1002/ab.20241.

Hoffman ML. Affective and cognitive processes in moral internalization. In:
Higgins ET, Ruble DN, Hartup WW, editors. Social cognition and social
development. Cambridge University Press; New York: 1983. pp. 236–274.

Eron LD, Walder LO, Lefkowitz MM. Learning of aggression in children. Little,
Brown, & Co.; Boston: 1971.

Durrant J, Trocmé N, Fallon B, Milne C, Black T, Knoke D. CECW Information
Sheet #41E. University of Toronto, Faculty of Social Work; Toronto, ON: 2006.
Punitive violence against children in Canada. Retrieved from www.cecw-
cepb.ca/DocsEng/PunitiveViolence41E.pdf.

Obviously this is just a tiny selection based on a few minutes of research
(which I remind you you could have easily done yourself!)

Now, I leave you with a question: did you really not know how to do this
yourself, or were you trying to imply that because this "long line of
research" was not handed to you on a silver platter it does not exist? Am I
right in thinking that you might also be a little pleased that I wasted my
time educating you when you transparently have no interest in being educated?

To conclude, I can't read for you, I can't learn for you, I can't think for
you (and I don't mean thinking of clever little rhetorical gotchas, I mean
real thinking with the aim of comprehending truth and reality), and unless you
have at least attempted to read and learn and think for yourself, you have no
foot to stand on when you argue against research that you (for some reason)
disagree with.

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kwhitefoot
> Although spanking is traditionally supposed to teach a lesson to correct bad
> behavior, children who were spanked were neither more compliant nor better
> behaved.

This accords with my experience of primary school in the UK in the early
1960s. It was nearly always a specific small subset of the pupils who were
punished and they continued to misbehave while those who were generally well
behaved anyway but once did something stupid became more careful.

