"Darla was a prude and dumped me for Alfalfa"
Posted on 02/29/2008 12:48:16 AM PST by guitarist
Spanking Raises Chances of Risky, Deviant Sexual Behavior
Review found physical punishment of kids linked to unprotected, masochistic sex as adults
By Amanda Gardner Posted 2/28/08
THURSDAY, Feb. 28 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers have uncovered another damaging consequence of spanking: risky sexual behaviors, or even sexual deviancy, when the child grows up.
"This adds one more harmful side effect to spanking," said Murray Straus, a spanking expert who was expected to present the findings of four studies at the American Psychological Association's Summit on Violence and Abuse in Relationships in Bethesda, Md., on Thursday. Related News
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"I think that it's pretty powerful," said Elizabeth Gershoff, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan's School of Social Work. "It's across several studies and across different forms of either risky or deviant sexual behavior."
Straus, who was the author of all four studies, hopes the findings will raise awareness among child development experts.
"My hope is to convince my colleagues that they ought to put this in their textbooks," said Straus, co-director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire, in Durham. "It's amazing. Something experienced by all American kids gets an average of half a page in child development textbooks, and not a single one comes to the conclusion that parents should never spank."
Even the revered Dr. Spock, who was anti-spanking, never came right out and advised parents outright not to do it, he added. Instead, Spock advised "avoiding it if you can."
A meta-analysis of spanking studies conducted by Gershoff found 93 percent agreement among studies that spanking can lead to such problems as delinquent and anti-social behavior in childhood along with aggression, criminal and anti-social behavior and spousal or child abuse as an adult.
"There's probably nothing else in child development that has 93 percent agreement in results," Straus said.
Five percent of people who have never been spanked hit their partners, versus 25 percent of those who were spanked frequently.
However, some 90 percent of U.S. parents spank toddlers, according to Straus.
The review being presented at the meeting are the first to look at the relationship of spanking to sexual behavior.
They found that spanking and other corporal punishment is associated with an increased probability of verbally and physically coercing a dating partner to have sex; risky sex such as premarital sex without using a condom; and masochistic sex such as spanking during sex.
There is a "dose response" at work here. "The more parents spank, the higher the probability of harmful side effects," Straus noted.
Of course, there's a similar dose response for smokers. But if someone reaches the age of 65 without developing lung cancer, it doesn't mean that smoking isn't harmful. It means the person was one of the lucky ones.
It's the same with spanking, Straus said. "If a person says, 'I was spanked, and I don't have any interest in bondage and discipline sex, that's correct, but it's not because spanking is OK, it's because they're one of the lucky ones."
And spanking a child once may be like picking up that first cigarette. "The trouble is, if you have a 2-year-old, you pretty soon decide you can't avoid it. The recidivism rate for whatever 'crime' you correct a 2-year-old for is about 50 percent in two hours."
"I've been researching corporal punishment for 30 years and, in the course of that time, the evidence has accumulated that it doesn't work any better than non-corporal punishment but has harmful side effects. I have come to the conclusion that parents should never, ever spank because, although it does work, it's no better than non-hitting methods that don't have harmful side effects. If there was an FDA for spanking, they'd say use an alternative that doesn't have harmful side effects."
Total BS article.
My boys will do things to annoy the heck out of me. Just the everyday nonsense and I’ll get mad. They seem to shrug off my anger but the few times my husband and I have told them we were disappointed in their behavior, they just went to pieces. Though it is not politically correct, I believe in the boys will be boys mindset, they are going to do things and behave sometimes in ways a girl never will. I grew up with brothers so my boy tolerance is high. I think my boys would throw themselves under the bus than to outright disappoint us.
I would like to add one thing, my children know they are loved and they are blessed to have so many fine male role models involved in their lives, so I think that probably makes it easier. Unfortunately all of these super smart scientists now think that fathers and men are irrelevent.
I think most honest people will admit that there are some significant differences between boys and girls. Some are good, some not so good.
I say vive le difference...it is part of what makes us so interesting to each other.
According to Barney Frank, that's the whole point.
LOL..and I’ll bet you drink Chase & Sanborn coffee too...:)
But that pic sure looks like black on white abuse.
[Mr] T
13 Do not withhold correction from a child, For if you beat him with a rod, he will not die. 14 You shall beat him with a rod, And deliver his soul from hell. (Proverbs 23:13-14)
When our children were small, I thought about how different children were a hundred years ago compared to today - how the pathologies that kids have now just did not exist long ago and it occurred to me that the two major differences between then and now were that, for the most part, parents stayed together and did not divorce for frivolous reasons and parents disciplined their children from an early age, with spanking if necessary, and did not tolerate bad behavior and did not justify it.
All three of our kids were spanked when they were little, and it was only after willful disobedience and bad behavior. After the spanking, they were hugged and told that they were loved and were made to admit that the punishment was due to their own behavior so that, in their own minds, they could never assign blame to anyone but themselves.
My children are now grown. I have never had any problems with rebellion, my kids are leaders, not followers, they are emotionally and psychologically healthy and happy, are productive members of society, and suffer no ill-effects whatsoever from the fact that, at a young age, they were taught by people who love them that bad behavior brings bad consequences.
The problems that kids of today have are not because of spanking but because the parents of these kids do not have the sense of responsibility to their children and society it takes to raise their children to be decent people and respect others and authority. It's easy to just let your kids run wild, defy you as a parent, and do whatever they please. It's difficult and exhausting to take the time to shape and mold your children into civilized human beings.
I see, all the time, appalling displays of small children screaming at their parents, refusing to obey, demanding toys and candy at the store- and through it all, the parent baby-talks the child and ends up caving in to the tantrums and demands. This is the sort of irresponsibility on the part of parents that produces emotional and behavior problems in children- not discipline and not spanking.
Who would you rather run into in a alley late at night? A group of sixteen-year olds who have been spanked and taught right from wrong and who know that the universe does not revolve around them, or a group of sixteen-year-olds who have been indulged and never disciplined and given the message that they are special little angels who can never do any wrong?
Not sure that when spanking a child the child is supposed to think “Mommy/Daddy LOVES me.” He/she is supposed to think, “Yikes! I had better not do THAT again!” Because a parent is the first line of defense for society when it comes to their child behaving badly. Spanking teaches them what is right and what is wrong. Hopefully it is used sparingly and only when absolutely necessary. But a parent should always be willing to use corporal punishment if he/she deems it to be necessary.
If there was a genetic disposition to bad behavior, wouldn’t you expect that to manifest at a young age, and that those children would be spanked more because they did more bad things?
If 90% of americans spank, doesn’t that mean a study in the United States wouldn’t be that helpful?
How do they verify the information? Do they just ask the criminals whether they were spanked, and the nice people if they were spanked? Maybe the nice people don’t remember being spanked, and the criminals are looking for somthing to blame for their evil ways?
I do think that a lot of parents spank “wrong”, and send the message that physical response is appropriate when a person isn’t doing what you want them to do. That message, reinforced over the years, would tend to lead to adults who would use physical force to make people do what they want.
But that doesn’t mean spanking itself was bad, just that there were bad parents.
Somehow I think you would need body armor and an M1A1 Abrams Tank to administer that corporal punishment to Mrs Trooprally...:)
“All people who eat broccoli eventually die”. If I’d been a more clever kid, I might have tried that on my parents. It would have been a toss-up with my Dad - he’d either have rolled on the floor laughing or smacked the crap out of me for being a wise ass, depending on his mood.
I wish my wife would have gotten spanked more as a child :-)
Anatomy of a spanking:
1. Discuss why the child is getting a spanking.
2. Spank.
3. Reassure the child that you’re not angry, that no matter what he does you will always love him, and discuss how spankings can be avoided in the future.
IMO, a twenty second spanking, done properly, is less detrimental to a child then half an hour of screaming and an hour of time out.
I think there’s causation here, but as is typical with liberal excuse-making for deviant behavior, they’ve reversed cause and effect. (It’s the typical big lie technique - say something so shocking and unintuitive that it *has* to be true, even though it is not only untrue - it remains patently absurd on its face). The fact is that children who misbehave are more likely to be spanked. Spanking doesn’t lead to misbehavior - misbehavior leads to spanking. Prisons don’t lead to the existence of criminality - criminality leads to the existence of prisons.
They've reversed cause and effect. Misbehaving children are spanked. Obedient children are not. Blaming spanking for deviant behavior is similar to social scientists blaming prisons for criminality. Spanking doesn't create deviants - misbehaving children are spanked to persuade them to give up their unhealthy habits.
Yep. We are in the superhero phase right now with my boy now. His Captain Hook/Peter Pan phase lasted a good several months! I too believe setting boundaries and employing common sense is jobs of parenting, while it’s the just the opposite for being a kid! As for the article, my wife and I just had a laugh about it. She wonders who funded it and believes the anti-spanking crowd is behind it.
Thank you for that.
Where did you find it? Or did you do it yourself?
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