Posted on 01/03/2010 8:43:20 AM PST by Steelfish
Smacked Children More Successful Later In Life, Study Finds
Murray Wardrop 03 Jan 2010
Research suggests children who are smacked when young are more successful later in life A study found that youngsters smacked up to the age of six did better at school and were more optimistic about their lives than those never hit by their parents. They were also more likely to undertake voluntary work and keener to attend university, experts discovered. The research, conducted in the United States, is likely to anger children’s rights campaigners who have unsuccessfully fought to ban smacking in Britain.
Currently, parents are allowed by law to mete out "reasonable chastisement'' on their children, providing smacking does not leave a mark or bruise. These limits were clarified in the 2004 Children’s Act. But children’s groups and MPs have argued that spanking is an outdated form of punishment that can cause long-term mental health problems.
Marjorie Gunnoe, professor of psychology at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, said her study showed there was insufficient evidence to deny parents the freedom to determine how their children should be punished. She said: “The claims made for not spanking children fail to hold up. They are not consistent with the data.
“I think of spanking as a dangerous tool, but there are times when there is a job big enough for a dangerous tool. You just don’t use it for all your jobs.” The research questioned 179 teenagers about how often they were smacked as children and how old they were when they were last spanked. Their answers were then compared with information they gave about their behaviour that could have been affected by smacking. This included negative effects such as anti-social behaviour, early sexual activity, violence and depression, as well as positives such as academic success..
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
If it didn't account for this difference then the study doesn't prove that smacking is a superior form of disciplining your child. It only suggests that smacking is superior to neglect.
I only spanked one of my children once.
My son has over a 4.0 in high school at a Christian high school. He’s a good kid and well-liked. He’s never cussed in front of me or his sisters. He won’t let his younger sisters watch innappropriate shows on the TV or computer. He watches out for them. After going to public school for middle school, he was the one that wanted to go to a Christian school.
His younger sister is also very smart, and she is very, very sweet. She’s an over-acheiver (band, drama, high grades). She’s very helpful at home. She loves God, and that is very important.
My other daughter I spanked once. She’s tough because she has a brain injury, and she didn’t talk until she was 5. She can have terrible meltdowns (downright tantrums), some caused by medications. The psychologist says the tantrums are neurologically based. She says that bad kids are consistently bad. My daughter is good most of the time, and things (tired, hungry, sick) trigger her meltdowns.
I had the fly swatter, belt, and in a bit of irony when I was four, a wooden spoon the two of us had put a happy face on during an arts and crafts session at an earlier time.
I don’t spank my children frequently. My Daughter almost never required any. My sons on the other hand but even they are fairly well behaved. However I do know that my one son in particular who likes to push his limits would’ve been horrible had we never spanked him. I’m sorry for your daughter, that is a different case altogther and pray she gets better with time.
Spanking instructions:
At age three, a child exhibiting insolence or anti-social behavior should be taken quietly by a parent to a private area. Child’s pants should be pulled down to expose bare butt and child should be laid across the parent’s knees. One sharp smack should be administered to the bare butt using an open palm, with more of an intention of creating a loud smacking sound, more than hurting the child. After one smack, the child should be grasped by the shoulders and quickly brought upright and standing. The parent should get down to face level with the child and wag an index finger close to the child’s face while sternly saying “I don’t want you to (describe the transgression). Then pull up the kids pants and walk away. You are basically done. If the child is feeling poorly later, you take him or her aside and gently tell him or her that you still love them, and you only spank them to teach them a lesson.
That’s it. It’s so easy. And you will only have to do this maybe four or five times for a short period of time. We spanked both our kids — a boy and a girl for only about a six week period when they turned three. They’re both in their 20s now. They are great, level-headed humans, loved by their peers (class-president-types) who basically have no worrisome psychological traits.
PS: They don’t even remember ever being spanked.
It works for me. I don’t like having to do it but it is necessary. I don’t have time for playing silly mind games with them.
That’s what I wonder. We disciplined our children, but didn’t spank. For example, once my kids were being noisy and awful at a movie theater. We left. Never happened again.
Always follow the advice of the Expert: “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.” - Proverbs 22:15
“...in a bit of irony when I was four, a wooden spoon the two of us had put a happy face on during an arts and crafts session at an earlier time.”
Ahh, cruel, cruel irony. And hilarity, of course.
My mom once used a belt of hers that had studs on it...once. I bided my timed and then I destroyed that belt, I separated the layers of leather, and threw every stud in the woods...then I buried the remains of the belt in my dirt hill...graveyard of many household items.
I destroyed the talisman, you see. Beat me with a spiked belt once...shame on you. Beat me with it twice...shame on me. For decades she denied spanking me with a “spiked belt(my term).” Recently, under questioning, she admitted in the presence of my wife that she just might recollect the event.
I’ve gotten 25 years of mileage out of that story, I still chuckle when I think back to that craziness.
My dad would occasionally spank me for serious screw ups, but his game was to toss me into the bathroom for an hour to meditate on what was to come. To this day I hate waiting for anything and have become proficient at cutting through red tape, demolishing a rival’s argument with direct logic, traveling from point A to point B with as few stops as possible, speaking my mind, being intolerant of stupidity and many other concept-to-direct-action behaviors. He also used to play his swing era 78’s real loud on weekend mornings like revile and I grew up with a talent for music. I guess that’s how psychology works.
As this article points out, smacking needs to be administered by a loving parent. There’s a big difference between disciplining a child out of love and being mean to your children all the time.
I was occasionally smacked as a child, and I certainly think it did some good. It taught me a basic sense of justice. And oddly enough, the few times I was spanked for something I didn’t do also taught me an acceptable lesson. I understood that the “injustice” was not purposely inflicted on me but was meant for the best, and I also came to understand, “that’s life.”
Besides, as someone once pointed out, if you didn’t do THAT, you certainly did something else!
>>but his game was to toss me into the bathroom for an hour to meditate on what was to come. <<
Bingo.
My dad would tell us that he was going to give us a spanking at noon on Saturday. By Saturday morning, we were blubbering idiots. He would call us at noon, make us sit on a chair, snap a belt and ask if we were sorry for what we did. Normally, If one could actually pull breath, one would beg for forgiveness.
He would then tell you to “assume a position” (which meant bend over and grab your ankles) then gently pop you with the belt through full clothes.
Each of us got it once except my stupid oldest sister who got smarmy and would start screaming. She got the full belt on a bare butt.
Now my mother was not as controlled and she would smack you in the face for backtalking. The oldest sister got a cup of coffee thrown at her once. We younger ones learned from her stupidity.
Even from a secular, common-sense perspective spanking is required.
People at a young age experiment with playing games on their parents; “pushing buttons”, trying to manipulate to get what they want when they want it, etc. Can be mild to severe games. These are all simple little things that if the parent just spanks and goes on with life, wind up being the child’s difficulty, not the parents, hence, game over, parent wins. This is vital to learn as a child. Spanking teaches us that we have a place in society, that we are not the boss of everyone, that we can’t always have our own way, that we can’t steal from or hurt others without repercussions of our actions eventually coming back on us via jail, violence from those wronged or at the very least the frustration at the end of a misspent life.
That’s why they say it is out of love that children are disciplined, since to omit these seemingly difficult (though in reality so easy) lessons early in life, the liberal parent is sentencing their own children to a life divergent from reality.
I always joke that my parent’s spanking equipment worked so well that it was obsolete after the first time it was used; after which the link between backside and ears and brain was so securely put in place that any raising of the parental voice brought swift attention and compliance.
Yes, I think the problem in many cases is that there’s no communication at all going on, and in addition, the parents for some reason seem to see virtually any normal child behavior that annoys them as something that requires the parental equivalent of a nuclear bomb. This could be because in many cases, there’s only one parent (the mother or sometimes even the grandmother) and she’s tired and burned out.
Of course, parenting styles are learned, so once the pattern is set, it’s very hard to move to a different one.
Why the anti-spanking types are so confused and clueless about the issue is that they are unable to differentiate between corporal punishment administered by a loving parent in order to correct and train and out of control violence by a merely angry parent. I shudder to think what would have happened to me if my parents had not cared enough for me to administer corporal; punishment when I needed it.
Never got the extension cord, but we had a cherry tree outside and more than once, I felt a small branch on my backside, after the leaves had been removed.
Recieving such from her “switch” did not make me go out and murder, rob or rape.
Although I felt my Dad’s shoe upside my head from across the room was a bit excessive, I still did not turn into a criminal because of it.
Nothing wrong with a good old fashioned spanking so long as it is not over used.
The main thing is, the child must know the parent means it when they stop or else!
After a few times of this, all you have to do is say one and they will mind you. This only works if you give realistic commands that are age appropriate and when they do mind (without you having to count) then you shower them with praise, “Mommy just loves it when you mind so well!” or “Thank you so much for picking up your toys.” The kid wins big when he minds and loses big when he doesn't.
All kids should have a healthy fear of authority and it starts with parents being that authority.
I used to get spanked for stupid reasons, and I never got any other kind of punishment (never grounded, never limited TV, etc).
One time when I was around 7, I got spanked because I had made my mom a Mother’s Day present at school, and I didn’t want to buy her one. I have never forgotten that, and I think it’s why I never spanked my kids. I think my parents took the easy way out on discipline, and I refused to do that.
I learned when i was 13 years old and babysitting. The children whose parents made a point of saying loudly as they walked out the door “you have our permission to spank them!” never gave me an ounce of trouble.
the children whose parents said “we don’t spank our children” hit me , slapped me, jumped on the furniture...it was like trying to control monkeys! NEVER AGAIN! I knew then I’d spank my children someday...and I did...and their very well behaved and respectful young adults now.
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