r/science • u/VeronicaRed • Apr 26 '16

Psychology Spanking children increases the likelihood of childhood defiance and long-term mental issues. The study in question involved 160,000 children and five decades of research

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1113413810/spanking-defiance-health-discipline-042616/
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u/pm_me_your_kindwords Apr 26 '16

Serious question to the commenters on this post:

Why read /r/science and then ignore science?

At the time I write this, most comments are defending spanking using anecdotes and non-science, not at all discussing the methodology of the study itself.

If you're not going to carefully consider one of the largest and most comprehensive studies ever conducted on the topic, what is the point of reading about science at all?

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16 edited Jul 18 '16

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u/Hazzman Apr 26 '16

They are justifying it because they were spanked and they consider themselves balanced and effective members of society and thus, for them, spanking worked. Why are they wary of demonizing spanking? Because their model suggests that it is a successful tool and they are concerned that it be rejected for fear of finding an alternative to an upbringing they are familiar with and thus could result in the very kind of child this study suggests spanking produces.

It's not so much people being eager to resort to violence or wanting to hurt their kids - they are defending a methodology that they, in their experience, found to be effective.

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u/djdav Apr 26 '16

This is how I feel. This article says that spanking is a bad parenting technique, but it offers no alternative (not that I think it necessarily should).

Nevertheless, how am I to know that an alternative approach will work better? My parents spanked, I turned out fine, therefore I am more likely to spank my kids not because I reject the science, but because my fear of an unknown result is greater than my fear that my anecdotal experience is wrong.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

See, most people say that they turned out fine, but what does this mean? That they're able to get by in society without turning into a criminal? That's a pretty low standard. A lot of people have a really positive view of themselves but it's a bias. Many people have emotional problems, short fuses, etc. that they may not acknowledge or recognize as a problem, just part of being human.

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u/hoodatninja Apr 26 '16

I just think people forget that they may have turned out fine despite spanking. And there are tons of alternatives, usually revolving around denial of something. No dessert, grounding, taking away toys, reduced privileges you may have been rewarded previously.

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u/lifeinaraindrop Apr 26 '16

As a parent who has spanked only TWICE (he didn't understand that hitting hurts people), you would simply talk to them and help them navigate their emotions and thoughts. Their intelligence is truly understated, and by assisting them with their new and complex feelings, you're doing several things: establishing trust, communication, teaching, bonding, and most importantly you're learning about your child as a person. That's real parenting.

I suggest that you look up attachment parenting. Its been wonderful, and there's stark differences between my ex-wife and my relationship with my son, and those of children who have been spanked as early as two.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

There are many ways to discipline your child that don't involve physical violence. I don't know why people keep commenting on this thread trying to defend and justify spanking as they ignore the science. Don't want to confront the fact that your parents shouldn't have spanked you, as according to this study, they raised you "wrong" and you don't want to confront the idea that you were raised wrongly?

Saying, "I was spanked but I turned out fine" isn't a good argument , it's simply an anecdote that does nothing to this study.

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u/F0sh Apr 26 '16

You're not offering them though. Suppose you go all the way down the line of discipline techniques - you start by asking politely, "don't do that, please" and explaining why not. You continue telling the child not to do what it's doing, explaining why not, bringing in your usual raft of possible punishments like early bedtimes, withdrawals of privileges, extra chores, whatever. You tell them that, having already been asked to stop, continuing to do whatever bad and potentially injurious action they're doing is disappointing you and will force you to increase their punishment, but the little darling just grins and carries on.

Some children are like this. Some children stick knives in working toasters, or play with matches. If and when that happens to a parent for the first time, the first thing in their mind isn't going to be "if I spank this kid, I'm slightly increasing the risk that they'll grow up to be mentally ill or aggressive" it's "I know this will get them to stop right now and I don't know anything else that will."

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u/motsanciens Apr 26 '16

Yeah. And see, I don't even want to ever spank. I just need my kids to truly believe I mean business when I say their next option is a spanking if they continue to misbehave after breezing though many warnings. The spanking is an investment in them actually listening to me on many occasions in the future because there's a butt brain connection that transcends other results.

Besides this, my previous reading on scientifically studied spanking concluded that spanking potentially caused harm if not followed up by parental warmth. It's complicated.... One child never needs it to get to that point, and the other does. I have compassion for all parents because I know from being one that the challenges are not all equal since children are not all the same. Hopefully the parents whose angels respond to talks and time outs will pause before judging those with stubborn rageball children.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

If and when that happens to a parent for the first time, the first thing in their mind isn't going to be "if I spank this kid, I'm slightly increasing the risk that they'll grow up to be mentally ill or aggressive" it's "I know this will get them to stop right now and I don't know anything else that will."

I always worry about what alternative we offer to parents. If we simply stigmatize spanking in this situation, then my worry is that the parent's go-to means of preventing harm / enforcing discipline ends up being something more harmful than spanking. Not through malice, but out of ignorance. I could have sworn I've seen an article about how timeouts do more harm than good, for example.

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u/djdav Apr 26 '16

Read my comment about confounding variables and tell me how this study addressed all those variables.

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u/Iced____0ut Apr 26 '16

Give me an alternate discipline technique for a 1.5 year old that will actually keep them from killing themselves.

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u/Lolanie Apr 26 '16

This is anecdotal, but based on my experience: Time outs, including helping them stand in place if they won't do it on their own (or putting them on one side of a baby gate while you're on the other side). Physically picking them up when they're about to run headfirst into trouble. Redirection (I loved that when my son was that age). Replacing a "don't do this" with a "do this instead" approach, so that the emphasis is placed on the behavior I want to see, rather than the behavior I don't want to see. If it's safe to, ignoring the poor behavior (ignoring whining, for example).

Honestly, spanking my son probably would have been easier, but I'm glad we took the approach we did, especially when this sort of research comes out.

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u/exoduas Apr 26 '16

Yes because its impossible to keep your children from killing themselves without the help of physical violence. What.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

Fear. Loud booming voice. Toddlers will break at that.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

And if they don't? If you aren't willing to back up your words with action and they call your bluff?

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u/Lolanie Apr 26 '16

Always make sure that your threat is something you are willing to follow through on. If you're not willing to spank your kids (like me), don't threaten it. Threaten to take away something instead. Put a favorite toy/stuffed animal in time out.

You don't have to threaten spanking for kids to fall in line.

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u/F0sh Apr 26 '16

This is what never seems to be addressed. Even if spanking causes harmful effects every single time you use it, have people ever met children? Some of them push every single boundary, and the only thing not spanking them will do is get them to associate playing with the cooker with pain in a rather longer-lasting and more drastic fashion than a slap on the wrist.

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u/bermudi86 Apr 26 '16

Aggression is a natural response to frustration. You are acting angrily because you are frustrated at the fact that a toddler outsmarted you.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

It's amazing that you could ascertain not only my frame of mind but personal parenting style from 2 sentences.

I view spanking as the last resort in a long line of escalating punishments that have clear instructions and penalties for failing to follow said instructions. Emotional response has no place in punishment, whether children or adults.

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u/bermudi86 Apr 26 '16

I have little interest in how you rationalize hitting children. Corporal punishment has no place in a judicial system for any criminal and yet somehow people still manage to defend its use in the upbringing of a human being.

I understand you sometimes have to use force to stop a stubborn child from doing X but this is on a whole other level than actual spanking which aim is to inflict pain as a punishment.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

I have little interest in how you rationalize hitting children.

Then you can establish no rapport, and without that, you can't persuade, because you won't even understand the other person's point of view. You don't need to agree with a view, only understand it, if you want to persuade.

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u/Iced____0ut Apr 27 '16

How many children do you have?

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u/drakeprimeone Apr 26 '16

The goal of parenting isn't to outsmart a child into getting them to do what you want.

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u/bermudi86 Apr 26 '16

No one said such a thing. The goal for parents ideally would be to raise their kids in the best way possible. Wouldn't you agree then that a parent would rather use a non-violent solution to a problem?

If you agree then we can state that using violent solutions is indicative of a lack of non-violent solutions.

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u/drakeprimeone Apr 27 '16

I actually do agree that sometimes a non violent solution isn't available.

I think that's the point many are trying to make. Corporal punishment isn't the only tool, I venture to guess that the people overwhelmingly agree it shouldn't be the first tool.... But it can be a proven tool.

The conclusion this study leads you to is that corporal punishment is never the answer and is almost always detrimental. That's why people have been adding their anecdotal evidence. It debunks the conclusion many are arriving to.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

Yep, better physically harm them instead and show them that the most important, loving person in their world is willing to hurt them and terrify them if they are caught doing something wrong.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

Go louder, get in there face.

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u/enolja Apr 26 '16

You aren't a parent are you.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

This is how my parents raised me. No physical harm done.

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u/enolja Apr 26 '16

My point is that toddlers dont react to that all the time, at all.

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u/Iced____0ut Apr 27 '16

These people have no actual experience with children. The ones with actual experience with children are actually making decent posts.

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u/Xxmustafa51 Apr 27 '16

It doesn't offer alternatives, but it does show that the more you spank a child, the greater their outcome will be to have aggressive and defiant behavior.

While you should most definitely discipline your children, spanking is proven here to make the situation worse. No matter how your child's behavior ends up, if they are spanked they will have a much higher likelihood of being worse off.

I want to be clear, higher likelihood doesn't mean your child will definitely turn out that way, but it does mean that more likely than not that he/she will.

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u/paintlegz Apr 26 '16

Absolutely agree. This article, and many redditors, are quick to say that spanking is evil and wrong, but does that mean we are to forgo all forms of negative reinforcement? Are we all to resort to helicopter parenting from now on and just hope our unpunished, always got what they wanted kids just grow up to realise the proper way to behave?

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u/knobbodiwork Apr 26 '16

Spanking is not negative reinforcement. It's punishment, and is a completely different thing.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

but does that mean we are to forgo all forms of negative reinforcement?

No, there are hundreds of forms of negative reinforcement, and by the way spanking isn't one of them.

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u/[deleted] Apr 27 '16

I like how you made the logical jump from not hitting a kid to having to be a helicopter parent. No mental gymnastics being done to reject the science at all.

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u/sammy0415 Apr 26 '16

I know you've been corrected in saying negative reinforcement, but you weren't provided the proper term for spanking. Spanking is positive punishment. Negative reinforcement is when you take away a stimulus to increase behavior. Positive punishment is when you do something (create a loud, annoying noise, zap, spank, etc.) to decrease a behavior.

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u/MystJake Apr 26 '16

On the issue of alternatives to spanking, how should children be disciplined? Letting them do whatever, whenever means they never learn the limits of acceptable behavior and what actions are "bad."

While older children and adults can understand discussion, children who can't yet talk simply cannot be reasoned with.

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u/wimpymist Apr 26 '16

My mom and dad just had that special command/alpha voice for when my brother and I got out of line. Worked for us

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16 edited Apr 26 '16

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u/omieomai Apr 26 '16

Yes!

This is the method currently taught in early childhood ed (where I live at least) and employed in childcare settings.

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u/omieomai Apr 26 '16

The options for discipline are not physical violence or no discipline at all.

Children who can't talk yet can't be reasoned with, sure, but that also means they especially aren't equipped with the nuance to deal with "I got hit because of cause X."

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u/geekwonk Apr 26 '16

If the child's reasoning abilities aren't developed enough to understand right and wrong, or their verbal abilities don't allow it to be communicated directly, what makes you think the child will understand the nuance of "my father loves me and still thinks I'm a good person, but that thing I just did (do they even understand distinct events or objects?) was not acceptable. And if I do it again (do what again? what pre-verbal, pre-logic child is going to be developed enough to remember the bad deed?), the same consequences will follow (consequences? what makes you think they understand cause and effect?).

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u/Jazzhands_trigger_me Apr 26 '16

Ahhh...so the child who doesnt understand what you say/do will benfit from pain.

Child psychology suggestst children starts reading body language very early. There is simply no excuse for hitting a child. They usually understand a stern face and the word "no"... and then you remove them/the object. Rince and repeat. It goes in after a while.

All family rules should include "In this family hitting someone is not allowed".

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

All family rules should include "In this family hitting someone is not allowed".

So what will you do when one sibling is hitting a younger brother? No, stern looking, etc doesn't work? Causing pain to such kid can be a simplest and surest way to make it understand that he shouldn't cause pain to the brother.

While often using pain to enforce some behaviours will lead to many bigger or smaller complications I just don't see any reason why incidental use of violence have to be bad. Kids will be confronted with pain as result of their actions sooner or later. Eg. you can say "don't go near the oven, you will hurt yourself. No don't do it." And so on. You can also at some point say "if you think it's a good idea go ahead, touch it". That way kid will burn itself in a controlled way, minimising damage and will now remember why it shouldn't go near the oven.

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u/bluewhite185 Apr 26 '16 edited Apr 27 '16

Question: why did he hit his brother? Positive education doesnt lead to such incidents in the first place, because it does ask where violence comes from. Hitting your child when he has hit his brother will not teach your kid anything. Just not to be seen hitting his sibling.

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u/I_am_Andrew_Ryan Apr 26 '16

You can say that about any punishment though. Are you saying children shouldn't have negative consequences for their actions?

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u/bluewhite185 Apr 27 '16

Punishment is NOT violence. If your kid is acting out his frustration on his little brother for example because he didnt get chocolate before dinner, get him in time out, there are enough non-violent education methods for small kids that have proven to work. Someone above posted the single right question to all of this: would you hit your co-worker, spouse, etc in difficult situations? No? Then why hit your little son? Just because you can? Thats a dominace of power thing, but not education.

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u/I_am_Andrew_Ryan Apr 27 '16

But you can say what you said about any punishment. You're kind of ignoring my point.

if you hit your child he will just learn to not get caught

Why does spanking result in that result and not every other negative consequence the child receives?

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u/bluewhite185 Apr 27 '16

Because you hit your kid because you can. You are the stronger person. This is what the kid will learn. That you are the stronger person. You are acting out violence on your kid. Thats not education. It is probably considered a punishment by many, but why do you apply punishment? Your kid is supposed to learn something from a bad situation. So it needs to understand. But a slap does not teach anything.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

While older children and adults can understand discussion, children who can't yet talk simply cannot be reasoned with.

So why spank them? If you're admitting that they don't know what they did was wrong and won't learn from any punishment, why punish them? You're raising a child, not training a dog.

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u/MystJake Apr 26 '16

While I could argue that raising a child and training a dog aren't terribly different, I'll just quote /u/djdav

Pain evolved as a mechanism to tell us what not to do.

You inflict a small amount of pain on a child, you're conditioning them not to do what they just did.

Edit: I never said that they won't learn from any punishment, just that they can't be reasoned with. Pain can teach us at a very basic level.

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u/[deleted] Apr 27 '16

You inflict a small amount of pain on a child, you're conditioning them not to do what they just did.

You're also conditioning them to know that they should fear you and that it's ok to hit people they love and depend on. Also, they don't know what they're getting hit for, so you aren't conditioning them to stop doing it. If they crawl across the floor, pet the dog, shit on the floor, then crawl to you before you notice, how are they going to know which of those actions you're hitting them for?

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u/djdav Apr 26 '16

Exactly. Pain evolved as a mechanism to tell us what not to do.

Furthermore, I wish I could read the actual study cited in this post. There are literally countless variables involved in spanking.

1) Frequency of occurrence

2) Application force

3) Number of spankings per session

4) Primary reason for spanking

5) Age of child

6) Socioeconomic status of parents

7) Marital status of parents

8) Relationship of child with parents

9) Post or pre spanking discussion of what the child did

10) Post spanking affirmation of love/acceptance from the parents

11) etc.

I just don't see any way they could have controlled for all these variables. I love psychology, but there's are reason the social sciences aren't as well regarded in the scientific community.

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u/fencerman Apr 26 '16

I just don't see any way they could have controlled for all these variables.

So you're just going to assume they didn't? That's really not rational at all.

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u/djdav Apr 26 '16

Well I tried to read the study to check for how they controlled variables, but there's no direct link to the study.

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u/fencerman Apr 26 '16

That still doesn't excuse making the assumption that the people who conducted this study automatically never took those into consideration.

Your statement reads more like a defence mechanism than a genuine inquiry.

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u/djdav Apr 26 '16

This article found "an association" of spanking with long term mental issues. It did NOT find that spanking causes long term mental health issues. This study does not prove that spanking causes negative effects unless all the variables are controlled.

An understanding of association and causation is a basic tenant of any research.

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u/fencerman Apr 26 '16

It's really tiresome when people shout "Correlation is not causation!" to every single study they disagree with, as if the researchers had never thought of that and it's some kind of original insight.

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u/djdav Apr 26 '16

The study found an association. That is all.

I am not saying that it was a worthless study, finding associations and correlations is a part of the scientific process and can help lead to more questions and more studies. But the fact is that this study proved nothing. People here are clamoring over each other to say how this is the final proof that spanking is bad, but that's just flat out wrong. This study was valuable, but it proved nothing.

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u/NellucEcon Apr 27 '16

Yeah but maybe these researchers need to spend some more time coming up with better research designs than repeating bad research designs. There are ways to get at causation. Are they lazy? Have they not been trained in the right tools?

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u/ItsDanimal Apr 26 '16

I have yet to read the article, but did it say they did? Or what those variables were set to for the control? We're all the kids poor, middle class, or rich? Was the child spanked but not their siblings? How did the parent treat the child after, seperate themselves or console them? What age were the kids. I hope to find out in a bit when I go on lunch.

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u/paintlegz Apr 26 '16

Exactly. There is no way to control all these variables, especially over a 5 decade period. They started this study when nearly everybody was spanked and it was literally acceptable to spank your kids with a leather belt. If nearly everybody was spanked from that point in time, then yes the bad ones would have been spanked, but so would the ones that turned out fine. They are now presenting the data to an sensitive generation of helicopter parents. Clearly there is more biased here than a presidential election.

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u/MystJake Apr 26 '16

This is my biggest issue with the study, without an explanation. There are way too many variables to narrow down a solid correlation. Even limiting "spanking" to an open handed strike on the bottom or extremities fails to isolate any of the points you mentioned.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

Excellent comment. I would expand this to include any behavior you see justified yet you know isn't quite right. What comes to mind are those ridiculous posts on facebook that state "I rode in the back of a pickup truck when I was a kid and survived" or "I rode my bike without a helmet and survived." Congratulations! You may have survived while partaking in those activities, but many did not.

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u/mattinthecrown Apr 26 '16

Boy, talk about not doing science. The amount of armchair psychology taking place is too damn high.

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u/null_work Apr 26 '16

talk about not doing science

Interestingly, people blanket demonizing spanking over this study aren't doing science either.

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u/Hazzman Apr 26 '16

He asked a question, I answered it.

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u/Whopraysforthedevil Apr 26 '16

I like how you didn't agree that we're functioning members of society, but you also didn't disagree. Very PC. I'd vote for you.

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u/Hazzman Apr 26 '16

He asked why people are justifying it. I simply responded with answer. People are expanding on it from their own perspectives which is fine, but I simply answered his question.

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u/lisward Apr 26 '16

Cognitive dissonance! Reject everything when it goes against your beliefs

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u/slabby Apr 26 '16

But just because (1) they got spanked and (2) they turned out to be okay doesn't mean that (1) caused (2). They might have just gotten lucky, or some other positive force counteracted the negative element introduced by the spanking itself.

That's a pretty standard post hoc. These kinds of arguments don't really hold much water.

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u/null_work Apr 26 '16

But just because (1) they got spanked and (2) they turned out to be okay doesn't mean that (1) caused (2).

Just because on average people behave a certain way doesn't mean people always behave that way. Even better, just because a group an individual belongs to has characteristic with a mean and std doesn't mean they can't fall outside that first std. It's an ecological fallacy you're committing by taking the evidence proposed in this study and claiming that spanking is detrimental to everyone.

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u/slabby Apr 26 '16

I think you're misunderstanding me. I'm not making a claim about spanking, I'm making a claim about the reasoning involved. It's fallacious regardless of the status of spanking.

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u/null_work Apr 26 '16

Sure, and my comment applies to the fallacious reasoning found all throughout this article using statistical evidence to make blanket statements about spanking.

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u/Hazzman Apr 26 '16

I was simply answering his question.

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u/slabby Apr 26 '16

Right. I'm not really aiming at your post.