Have you watched the video?
Of course not, the title is enough. Most of us have enough life experience to be able to judge for ourselves. And yes, if we’re honest, decent, polite, well-adjusted people, why shouldn’t we think that’s how civilized people should act?
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence...far more than a Molyneux video can account for.
Ok, now I watched it. And I question this kind of studies. First, she did not do the study. She looked at results from several other studies that may have been studying something else. Researchers love this because its the cheap way to publish a result with lots of cases. But to really rely on the research you have to design a study and run it. She did not.
I have a few questions about the study that make me not trust the outcome. Firstly she is biased. She is a parent who believes strongly that kids should not be spanked. So when reading anecdotal evidence I would say she is going to interrupt it with a bias against spanking. Second, she can’t really correct for bad kids and bad parents. Had she done a study where kids with poor parents who spanked and poor parents who did not spank. Or do ineffective parents spank more than effective parents.
I recently saw a report that says that black parents spank far more than white parents. So how can you say that spanking alone explains the outcome of the child.
I do agree with some of their points. Structure and rules firmly held and consistently applied works best for most children. They also said that explaining works better than punishment when possible. I agree. But they also are firm believers in negotiation. I am not. In some cases I will accept a little. But when it comes to rules, I don’t bend. Or at least I don’t let it be known if I do bend.
And lastly, I do believe that they are right when it comes to escalation. Spanking is your last card. So it should be played rarely if at all. If you think that you spanked and it did not work so you need to spank harder. Than you have already lost. Spanking should be so rare that it shocks the child into thinking that something is very wrong and it can’t happen again.