On Spanking

I am not certain how controversial this is in this forum, but it has been getting a lot of play on different Facebook pages I frequent. It looks like reams of research on the subject of "spanking" shows that it is indistinguishable from abuse and that parents continue its practice because they feel it is functionally different. Mostly, the justification for this is the anecdotal statement made by many that "I was spanked and I turned out okay".

It is hard for folks to admit that something as integral to their upbringing seriously limited their potential. It is viewed as a personal failure that an individual allowed hardship to hold them back. This is especially true when you have choruses of folks swearing on stacks of bibles that they had it worse and it didn't affect them the same way as it did you.

I can say with near certainty that a great deal of my struggling through my adolescence and early adulthood was directly attributable to social anxiety created and reinforced by pretty savage beatings received at the hands of my parents whose motivations were all too often just frustration and feelings of powerlessness of their own. It didn't make me a better person. It wasted decades of my potential.

To their credit, years ago, they admitted to recognizing their error. And in fairness, it was a lot more "normal" back then.

I discussed this with my partner late last week. I had already been on the fence about spanking for many years, but the latest research results clinched it for me; spanking is simply not an option.

She remains very skeptical, despite the breadth and depth of the most recent data, for the same reasons many people in the US (can't speak to other cultures) cling to. Fortunately, spanking hasn't been on the table for her since her daughter outgrew toddlerhood.

I'm sure my anti-vaccination anti-pasteurization anti-modern-medicine anti-government religious zealot sister and her husband will sniff disdainfully at this study and continue to abuse her children, as will the many others like them.

Another writeup on the same study.

Gershoff and co-author Andrew Grogan-Kaylor, an associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work, found that spanking (defined as an open-handed hit on the behind or extremities) was significantly linked with 13 of the 17 outcomes they examined, all in the direction of detrimental outcomes.

"The upshot of the study is that spanking increases the likelihood of a wide variety of undesired outcomes for children. Spanking thus does the opposite of what parents usually want it to do," Grogan-Kaylor says.

Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor tested for some long-term effects among adults who were spanked as children. The more they were spanked, the more likely they were to exhibit anti-social behavior and to experience mental health problems.

Disclaimer: I grew up in a household without much physical punishment, though I was spanked a couple of times. As someone who doesn't have kids, I'm wary about making proscriptive statements about the "right" way to parent, but think research like this is important as we collectively try to figure out what disciplinary approaches may work better / worse.

Farscry wrote:

I'm sure my anti-vaccination anti-pasteurization anti-modern-medicine anti-government religious zealot sister and her husband will sniff disdainfully at this study and continue to abuse her children, as will the many others like them.

Fear not. The time will come when people like that will lose their children, temporarily if not permanently. I'm not going to weep for them.

Dimmerswitch wrote:

Disclaimer: I grew up in a household without much physical punishment, though I was spanked a couple of times. As someone who doesn't have kids, I'm wary about making proscriptive statements about the "right" way to parent, but think research like this is important as we collectively try to figure out what disciplinary approaches may work better / worse.

When so much research clearly shows the negative impact of spanking, I think it's pretty justifiable to say that spanking is not a 'right' way to parent, and is in fact irresponsible and reprehensible.

Mostly, the justification for this is the anecdotal statement made by many that "I was spanked and I turned out okay".

Yeah, all of my local news stations did a Facebook poll about whether or not you agreed with the study, every single comment was about "whiny millennials" (What? 50 year study folks, means boomers were on the far end of this), "everyone has to be offended by something", and/or "I was spanked raw and I turned out OK."

Demosthenes wrote:
Mostly, the justification for this is the anecdotal statement made by many that "I was spanked and I turned out okay".

Yeah, all of my local news stations did a Facebook poll about whether or not you agreed with the study, every single comment was about "whiny millennials" (What? 50 year study folks, means boomers were on the far end of this), "everyone has to be offended by something", and/or "I was spanked raw and I turned out OK."

I imagine message boards in Subsaharan Africa regarding female genital mutilation have similar responses.

Demosthenes wrote:

all of my local news stations did a Facebook poll about whether or not you agreed with the study

Minor derail, but that may be about as concise a summary of everything wrong with our current media landscape as I've seen.

Dimmerswitch wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

all of my local news stations did a Facebook poll about whether or not you agreed with the study

Minor derail, but that may be about as concise a summary of everything wrong with our current media landscape as I've seen.

Yup.

I wonder what the results of a Facebook poll on whether or not cigarettes cause cancer would be.

I was thrashed as a kid and definitely didn't turn out okay. Neither did my brother. I don't remember what I was spanked for, just that I was. Which underscores Maya Angelou's point that people will never forget how you made them feel.

I've got 2 young kids and have a lot of anger problems stemming from pretty serious clinical depression. Holding my temper in front of my kids is number one on my list of therapy goals. I'm pretty certain in my head and in my gut, even without the results of a study, that spanking serves absolutely zero purpose other than physically venting the parents' frustration on a defenceless child.

I want my kids to see me as a source of love, not as a source of fear.

Dimmerswitch wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

all of my local news stations did a Facebook poll about whether or not you agreed with the study

Minor derail, but that may be about as concise a summary of everything wrong with our current media landscape as I've seen.

Indeed. Scientific fact is not the result of a vote.

I want to make a joke about how we should all just beat our kids instead of spanking, but I'm too depressed about these findings to want to make an actual joke.

Maq wrote:

I want my kids to see me as a source of love, not as a source of fear.

I couldn't agree more.

One of the things that surprised me in my foster parenting class was the number of people that really wanted to spank their foster kids. Forget this and other studies like it on how negatively spanking affects normal kids, but how bad can it be for kids who have been removed forcibly from their home, who may have already been abused?

Spoiler:

Ok, the fact that people wanted to spank their foster kids didn't surprise me, the fact that the state actively forbids it did.

Mormech wrote:

When so much research clearly shows the negative impact of spanking, I think it's pretty justifiable to say that spanking is not a 'right' way to parent, and is in fact irresponsible and reprehensible.

When you label something as irresponsible and reprehensible you immediately dismiss any circumstances that spanking a child may work. "I'm right and your way is wrong" isn't necessarily a constructive way to address a situation you may know nothing about. I also think it's pretty horrible to revel in the fact that someone may lost their children to "abuse". When perhaps what they are doing isn't having a negative impact at all. The study doesn't say that all spanking has a negative impact. And what type of spanking are we talking about here? A light swap of the bottom or a full out beating? What type of life have these children had? What other variables can play a part in this? Ive known numerous people who swatted their child or have been swatted and it had none of negative effects described. I also of course have seen what true abuse can do to a child.

I think it's incorrect to label all spanking as "abuse". Because when people now days think if spanking they get image if a person taking their children and beating the living daylight out of them. It all depends on the child and how the child reacts. Who better knows the child than their own parents?.

Spanking in my opinion, should never be the first thing you do as a parent. And absolutely never out of pure anger. But it should never be dismissed either. Each child is different and each child learns in different ways. Far to many variables that go along with this issue.

I think the better tack to take would be to start calling the light pat of the butt to get their attention something other than spanking. Spanking is generally considered to be smacking the bottom to the point that it causes pain. It's that last part that's important. If you're trying to discipline a child by inflicting pain you're in the "abuse" category.

Farscry wrote:
Dimmerswitch wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

all of my local news stations did a Facebook poll about whether or not you agreed with the study

Minor derail, but that may be about as concise a summary of everything wrong with our current media landscape as I've seen.

Indeed. Scientific fact is not the result of a vote.

+1

I have friends and coworkers who tried justifying to me the crap that Adrian Peterson pulled with his "walloping room" as if smacking the everloving snail snot out of your kids so often that they have a name for the place it happens is just a "parenting decision".

The Conformist wrote:
Mormech wrote:

When so much research clearly shows the negative impact of spanking, I think it's pretty justifiable to say that spanking is not a 'right' way to parent, and is in fact irresponsible and reprehensible.

When perhaps what they are doing isn't having a negative impact at all. The study doesn't say that all spanking has a negative impact.

No, but it does say 99% of significant findings show it has a negative impact so I'm not sure what wagon you're hitching to with that caveat.

What is a "good" form of punishment / deterrent? From actual studies, not anecdotes. The articles didn't say.

For a lot of us I'm sure it's the case that that spanking was a part of our upbringing and possibly part of how we discipline our children. I'm personally not here to say you're a bad person for doing that, or that your parents were bad people either. It's a hell of a thing to come to terms with the idea that your parents effed you up - I've got the therapy bills to prove it. But, as a parent, if you don't look into what that meta-analysis has to say and do some serious thinking about whether or not this is the right thing for your kids you're doing them and yourself a disservice. I know when I became a parent I went through the journey from "well it never did me any harm and I think it's probably a useful tool if used sparingly" to "actually it did do me harm and I don't think it's the right thing to do at all."

What the meta analysis concludes is that the difference between spanking and serious abuse isn't a question of type but a question of degree. All hitting of your children is psychologically processed by the child as abuse. The intensity and frequency are the deciding factors, not the reason you're doing it.

Maq wrote:
The Conformist wrote:
Mormech wrote:

When so much research clearly shows the negative impact of spanking, I think it's pretty justifiable to say that spanking is not a 'right' way to parent, and is in fact irresponsible and reprehensible.

When perhaps what they are doing isn't having a negative impact at all. The study doesn't say that all spanking has a negative impact.

No, but it does say 99% of significant findings show it has a negative impact so I'm not sure what wagon you're hitching to with that caveat.

Is this from the UoM study? Can't seem to find that number.

LeapingGnome wrote:

What is a "good" form of punishment / deterrent? From actual studies, not anecdotes. The articles didn't say.

I would imagine it depends on the child, like anything else will with parenting. For me, it was sending me outside. I couldn't play video games. Not being sent outside was a pretty good deterrent. For other kids, that would probably be fun instead.

The Conformist wrote:
Maq wrote:
The Conformist wrote:
Mormech wrote:

When so much research clearly shows the negative impact of spanking, I think it's pretty justifiable to say that spanking is not a 'right' way to parent, and is in fact irresponsible and reprehensible.

When perhaps what they are doing isn't having a negative impact at all. The study doesn't say that all spanking has a negative impact.

No, but it does say 99% of significant findings show it has a negative impact so I'm not sure what wagon you're hitching to with that caveat.

Is this from the UoM study? Can't seem to find that number.

In the article linked in the OP.

LeapingGnome wrote:

What is a "good" form of punishment / deterrent? From actual studies, not anecdotes. The articles didn't say.

Positive reinforcement. Instead of focusing on punishing the behavior you don't want, focus on praising the behavior you do want.

By and large, children really do want to please their parents, especially young ones. They just need to be told how to do it, and when they're doing it correctly.

The Conformist wrote:
Maq wrote:

No, but it does say 99% of significant findings show it has a negative impact so I'm not sure what wagon you're hitching to with that caveat.

Is this from the UoM study? Can't seem to find that number.

The study was done by researchers at University of Texas at Austin and the University of Michigan.

A relevant portion of the writeup over at the Atlantic (the link in the OP):

The researchers looked at the effect sizes from these studies, to see how strong their results were. There were 111 different effect sizes for 75 studies (some of the studies included more than one result). Of those, 108 found that spanking was linked to poor outcomes. Seventy-eight of the negative results were statistically significant. Only nine results indicated that there could be a benefit to spanking, and only one of those was statistically significant.

“Thus, among the 79 statistically significant effect sizes, 99 percent indicated an association between spanking and a detrimental child outcome,” the study reads. Those outcomes were: “low moral internalization, aggression, antisocial behavior, externalizing behavior problems, internalizing behavior problems, mental-health problems, negative parent–child relationships, impaired cognitive ability, low self-esteem, and risk of physical abuse from parents.”

Harsher forms of abuse were excluded from the analysis, so this paper shows that spanking alone puts children at risk for some serious problems. The authors also looked at a subset of studies that compared spanking with physical abuse, and found that both were linked to bad outcomes “that are similar in magnitude and identical in direction,” they wrote.

(If anyone is interested in the full study and/or has an APA membership, it's available here.)

[Edit to add: one of the most damning things in that writeup may be the final sentence in my excerpt, above. The researchers purposely excluded physical punishment that would not be characterized as spanking from their results - but in examining studies which compared spanking with physical abuse, they found the outcomes for spanking and physical abuse were similar.]

Podunk wrote:
Maq wrote:

I want my kids to see me as a source of love, not as a source of fear.

I couldn't agree more.

This.
I don't remember all the reasons or times I was spanked, but I remember a few. Mostly mouthing off and the like.
I definitely remember the last time. It was when I laughed in the face of it.

KaterinLHC wrote:
LeapingGnome wrote:

What is a "good" form of punishment / deterrent? From actual studies, not anecdotes. The articles didn't say.

Positive reinforcement. Instead of focusing on punishing the behavior you don't want, focus on praising the behavior you do want.

By and large, children really do want to please their parents, especially young ones. They just need to be told how to do it, and when they're doing it correctly.

Thanks for the link, it was an interesting article.

boogle wrote:
Podunk wrote:
Maq wrote:

I want my kids to see me as a source of love, not as a source of fear.

I couldn't agree more.

This.
I don't remember all the reasons or times I was spanked, but I remember a few. Mostly mouthing off and the like.
I definitely remember the last time. It was when I laughed in the face of it.

Yeap, that was a very similar experience for me. Except that laughing made it worse initially. It took laughing and actually attempting to defend myself to get it to finally end. It was a weird conversation to have with my dad on why spanking/hitting was never a proper response. It ended up as kind of a therapy session for him to coming to terms with the "I was raised that way" reasoning being flawed.

The scary part for me is having a kid now and recognizing how easy it can be for me to fall right into the same trap when my son (now three years old) is being frustrating. That's my own baggage that I have to deal with and I'm making damn sure he won't have to deal with this same crap that I did.

I had a 4th and 5th grade teacher who had a paddle with holes drilled into it. She kept a list of kids who said "ain't" and a few other poor grammar choices, and then at the end of some time period, we'd go out into the hall, and get licks. To this day I rarely say ain't, and if I do, I cringe a little bit.

Once I reached Jr. High and Sr. High, players on the football team would have to get licks for the number of classes they had worse than C's on. I never had to worry about this one, but it was always funny seeing the rougher sorts on our team having to line up the equipment room to get whipped by one of the coaches.

My parents would occasionally spank me. Usually it was my mother with a hand, but if my offense was particularly egregious (fighting with my sister for instance -- even when she DESERVED it), I'd get handed over to my father with the belt.

Except for discussions such as this, I rarely think about paddling now (except when I say ain't). We don't do it to our kids (the threat of NO DESSERT seems to carry just about the same weight in their mind), and if anyone in our school system paddled a kid, they'd probably be thrown under a jail.

One of the most worrying things I see regarding this is the epidemic of folks on social media claiming that problems associated with today's youth (which btw are nearly indistinguishable from the problems of youth of previous generations) are necessarily the result of being too "permissive" on one's children.

I guess if the problems they see are less crime, less pregnancy, less drug use, less smoking, and better responsibility...well I wonder what these people really want!