No Evidence Supports the Spanking Hysteria
The notions that
spanking confuses children, teaches children to hit, and the like are
demagoguery. There's no credible evidence, obtained by people with no
ideological axe to grind, that would lend a shred of truth to these claims. The
media laps them up, however, so the hysteria-mongers keep it up. They figure,
perhaps correctly, that if they can get the media to help them repeat these
nonsense syllables enough, more and more people will become convinced they are
true.
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Do you feel you have more information on the subject than just a few mentioned here? Personally, I am curious as to why you feel the need to safegaurd such a bad habit?
American Acadamy of Pediatrics
Straus,Murray Co-Director of the
Family Research Laboratory at the
University of New Hampshire
UNESCO
Alvin Poussaint, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School. From "Spanking Strikes Out" , 1999.
The United Nations (Convention on
the Rights of the Child)
MedHeadlines
Spanking Kids Causes Sexual
Problems, February 29, 2008
Greven,Philip,Professor at
Rutgers University,Aggression and
Delinquency,(1990),
Global Initiative to End All
Corporal Punishment of Children
To name just a few
While I have read the research and am impressed by the very clear connection between corporal punishment and a variety of negative outcomes, the single most compelling evidence against spanking comes from a questions my then three year old asked the first time he witnessed corporal punishment. One day in a museum he saw a parent spank a child and scold them for climbing. He was utterly shocked and made comments for the rest of the day. "How could that mama hit her baby?" "why wouldn't she just explain to him what he did wrong?" "parents aren't supposed to hurt their kids" "that mommy was mad and she should have taken a break, she made a mistake".
So much for kids not seeing spanking as a form of hitting. It was entirely clear to our son that hitting is hitting. It is mistaken, lazy parenting and kids deserve better.
Children are very different in many ways. They have different thoughts from us. What they understand and what we understand are totally different. Parents know the reason why they spank their children, but only some higher-ability children will link up the spanking to what they had just done. Some children do not understand, and thus resulting to misunderstandings between the child and the parent, resulting in the child thinking that the parent spanks for nothing, creating a fear for the parents.
Some parents also need to control their feelings when they spank. Some do spank too much. Being an expert debating about accepting spanking children, you do know better how to spank your children and what is enough for the child to understand. Therefore, your observations of your own children may not be reliable. The best way, without taking the risk of the child fearing the parents because he cannot understand why, is to explain to the child that he should not do that, instead of spanking.
The problem here is that parents should not leave it up to the child to "link up the spanking to what they had just done." Spanking a child and not telling them why they were just spanked IS confusing and wrong. One does not have to be an expert to know to spank a child, and spanking is not a substitute for explaining what a child did wrong. Any time my father spanked me, he asked, "Do you know why I had to spank you?". Then he would explain what I had done wrong and why he had to punish me. I may not have understood why I was being spanked at first, but after he explained, I not only knew what I had done wrong, I also knew what the consequences of my actions were. If children's minds are capable of understanding why not to do something, they are capable of understanding that spanking is the consequence of their action.
While I think that the truth is a tad bit more nuanced that Harvey protrays it, he is pretty much right. There are far too many genres and songs to do an exhaustive search to see what lyrics in white songs are degrading to women , but judging from all the popular music at least, the vast majority of black rap videos degrade women, whereas R&B and especially Pop music is moreso positive.
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You are right. It does depend. I have two children and both have been spanked as a means of punishment. Neither of them were ever spanked until they could understand that the spanking was connected with what they did wrong. They are never spanked in anger and never spanked for something they did wrong hours and hours ago. They are also not ever spanked for just any thing they do wrong. I said that to say this, Both of my boys are of the higher ability children that you speak of. My 5 year old functions on the level of a 4th grader and my 7 year old funtions on the level of a 6th grader. I attribute that to the fact that they have the uttermost of my wife and I's attention to them and to the fact that they are taught in a Private School. They have in no way been damaged by the fact that they have been spanked.
Rosemond claims that there is no evidence of the negative effects of spanking. Yet every single national pediatric, psycholoical, psychiatric and medical professional association in the entire western world disagrees with him. Don't take my word for it - look up what they say online. Are all these orgnaizations stacked with individuals with idealogical axes to grind? Or might Rosemond have an ideological axe to grind?
The vast majority of research shows serious problems associated with hitting children, especially increased aggression and anti-social behavior.
Dr. Straus is a very principled researcher who has studied the effects of corporal punishment on tens of thousands of children. Check out his website at the University of New Hampshire at Durham if you doubt his integrity. There are many other fine researchers as well, such as Dr. Harriet McMillan, Dr. Elizabeth Gershoff, Dr. Roy Herrenkohl, and Dr. Joan Durrant. Here's a study by McMillan Rosemond should look at, entitled "Slapping and spanking in childhood and its association with lifetime prevalence of psychiatric disorders". This study shows increased anxiety and alcohol abuse among teenagers and adults who were physically punished as children. Rosemond, in order to justify his claim of being a psychologist, needs to face the truth of this and other important studies.
Rosemond dismisses all the research that faults spanking with a wave of his hand, saying the researchers are biased or by labeling them as "liberal" or "ersatz." Yet Dr. Elizabeth Gersoff, a highly respected professor at the University of MIchigan, has published, in a respected peer-reviewed scientific journal, a "meta-analysis" of spanking studies. This is an analysis of hundreds of previously published research studies on the topic, done to see if there is a coherent, conclusionary finding. The answer, the research does indeed show harm from spanking. Here is the evidence: Gershoff, E.T. (2002). Parental corporal punishment and associated child behaviors and experiences: A meta-analytic and theoretical review. Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 128, p539-579. Game over. The most solid studies out there are consistent, we should not be hitting kids, ever.