-These psychologists and shrinks don't distinguish between beating your kid in anger and lovingly disciplining him (with spanks of medium force, and without parental rage). I would guess most parents mostly do the latter. Those who do the former, we would agree, are bound to have a psychopath on their hands when their kid grows up. I'm sure if you could divide the spankers into these two groups, you would easily see that the careful spankers get much BETTER results than the non-spankers. And the "flying into a rage" beaters get the worst results of the lot.
-The whole idea of measuring social phenomena with "scientific" studies is a bit ludicrous. The BEST they can do is suggest a link. They don't prove a link. Do the authors of these studies not understand the difference between causation and correlation? Maybe the 10% of people who never spank have (supposedly) better kids because they are richer, or better educated--and turn out better kids due to these factors. Maybe their kids would turn out even better if they did spank them occasionally for willful disobedience, or some of the spanked kids would have turned out even worse if they had not been spanked.
Sheesh! We know the non-spanking secularists want to take our kids away from us or throw us in jail for spanking them. Can't we just throw them in jail for professional malpractice instead for foisting bogus articles like this on the public??
Have at it!! Guitarist.
I'm not against parental discipline but let's be honest--how many kids, when being spanked, think "Mommy/Daddy LOVES me!" ?
I bet Barney Frank was spanked a lot. And when he was a kid, also. (rimshot)
Not too long ago, I read how terrible it was to tickle you child.
You left out the Barf Alert.
... said Murray Straus, a spanking expert ...
ha ha
On one had we have these people telling us that there is no such thing as deviant sexual bahavior. On the other, we have them telling us that spanking us can lead us to it. Well...
All I can say from my experience growing up is that:
1) Spanking worked and worked well. And it was generally the un-disciplined, un-spanked peers of mine who ended up going down the wrong path, particularly when we were of the same socioeconomic status.
2) No such deviance on my part.
3) I will spank my children, the anti-spanking crowd screetching as they may.
ROFLMAO
Dang, where's my wife? I'll get the belt...
"He that spareth his rod hateth his son; but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes (early and while young)." Proverbs 13;24.
Failure to discipline is child abuse, loving "chastening" to which you are referring is an expression of genuine love to protect the child from danger (the stove is hot) and to protect them from evil (violence against your sibling is evil -a form of the impulse to murder).
God, who created the womb, forms the child in it, Psalm 139, and explained child rearing by Solomon knows infinitely more about it. The people with the highest "self esteem" are prison inmates.
After all, who would want their kids to be less deviant than their friends?
if 90% of toddlers are spanked, how large would your sample size have to achieve a power to determine such how much such a vaguely described procedure would have on such a murky endpoint? It certainly would be likely that spanking was at least as universal, if not more so, in past generations, but there is some at least anecdotal perception that this kind of sexual activity is increasing. Maybe there are a lot of other, more important factors?
I think the more pressing question is whether these folks have even taken (and mastered the contents of) a proper, rigorous probability and statistics course.
Ping for later commentary
(I posted this in a related thread the other day.)
My mom used to use the belt when she administered corporal discipline. We were all sure that she would do it if she threatened, since we all thought her sanity hung by a thread anyway (six kids, all a year apart, father at sea for eight months at a time)
My father, when forced to discipline us by our mother (”Go to your room...you father will deal with you when he gets home...”) would use psychological warfare on us.
We could hear him come home...the adult voices talking downstairs, then...the long, slow footfalls up the stairs accompanied by the noisy unbuckling of the belt and the slooshing sound of it being withdrawn from the belt loops.
Then, for added effect, he would double the belt on itself and snap it. He would do this two or three times, it would emit a loud snap, not unlike that of either a belt hitting flesh, or a hangman’s trapdoor slamming open (in my juvenile mind).
He would come in, lecture us in a deep,threatening voice about the transgression, all the while advancing towards with the belt.
He would usually take about four or five swings as you squirmed around, mostly landing glancing blows. Rarely did he make real stinging contact. My mother was much more accurate and painful. She was very quick to anger, but very quick to cool as well.
But we feared my dad the most. It was not The Belt we feared, it was The Ring. He saved the ring for those times when the punishment was on the fly...when the transgression occured under his watch, usually after repeated warnings.
He would advance closely...speaking low and threateningly, sometimes with his hand pulled back as if he was going to backhand you, which he never did.
The discipline would go something like this...
DAD: “What did I tell you about hitting your sister...?” (advances slowly)
ME: “T..to not to...” (backing slowly)
DAD: “Did you hear what I told you, you dumb bunny...?) (Hand is now raised slightly facing you...clearly visible is the back of his hand and...the red stone on his Holy Cross Class Ring that he got when he graduated from his V12 program as a young ensign in the spring of 1945. That was The Ring.)
(Additional note: My dad very, VERY rarely swore at us...we laugh at the “Dumb Bunny” thing and we don’t understand it and it seems hilarious now, but...faced with the ring, it sounded like the Declaration of Doom.)
ME: “Yes...yes...”
DAD: “Yes WHAT?”
ME: “Yes SIR.”
DAD: “When I tell you what to do, you LISTEN to me.”
This was followed by two or three ineffectual and easily dodged cuffs by him that completely missed the mark. Then he would stand off to the side and allow you to pass while he stood still.
It was at this point when danger was highest. There was nothing you could do but walk by and not look back. You knew it was coming. Sometimes he didn’t do it, just to throw you off. But usually he got you with The Ring.
As you walked by and exposed the back of your head, he would whip out his hand in a light backhand motion and ping you on the back of the skull with the stone of that ring...and sometimes it really smarted.
My dad was a gentle man, and I know he loved us dearly. We were all petrified of him, of disappointing him or crossing him was something we all avoided at all costs. He was all bluster...we looked at my mom out of the corners of our eyes when she was on the warpath, but...we knew he would never deliberately hurt us. He just wanted to scare us.
When my dad passed away, I had custody of the ring. When we went down to Arlington National Cemetery to bury him, I wore that ring, just that once. In my grief, it must have slipped off of my finger. I lost it and never found it. I searched my house and belongings for a year, but never found it. I suppose someone down in Arlington will find a Holy Cross class ring with a red stone someday, and they will wonder about the man who wore it.
If I could have one thing, out of all the things that I have that were his, I wish I had not lost his ring.
I’d put money on these “researchers” not being spanked as a child.
Is there anything these people can’t twist into a sexual encounter?
Sometimes a train is just a train.
What a load of bullsh*t!
Look at kids today, no discipline, no morals, no sense of responsibility.
And people wonder why this generation have more mental and emotional problems.
I am convinced pyschology is another strain of liberalism run rampant.
I agree with you completely. This article does not prove that spanking causes deviant behavior later in life. It’s just another attempt by the so-called experts to take over the rights of parents.
The problem today is not that too many parents spank their children but that too many don’t. Parents who occasionally spank children when they are young will not have to use any kind of corporal punishment on them when they get older. Threatening a young child, who is being willfully disobedient, with a time-out does not work. And trying to bribe the child with some kind of reward just to distract him or get him to behave just encourages the child to misbehave. Spanking is a time-honored, traditional method of disciplining children that works, which is more than I can say for some of the methods that the experts recommend.
> ...said Murray Straus, a spanking expert
OK, my mind has now boggled. I have to wonder exactly what-the-devil is a “spanking expert”, how one goes about studying and practising that trade (or more to the point “why”?), and precisely what sort of kid would aspire to grow up to be one instead of, say, a fireman or an astronaut or even a rock star?
I dunno, but it all sounds rather dodgy and suspect to me...