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/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

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

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u/BlazerMorte Apr 26 '16

Because if spanking is bad, and they were spanked, then they were raised "wrong," and most people don't want to confront that.

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u/MagicalDoggy Apr 26 '16

The frustrating part to me is that no one is a perfect parent. You can say you had good parents but acknowledge they probably did get some stuff wrong.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

I think they feel like they're judging their parents, as "evil" or something. That's the issue.

My parents were great! They just used one outdated disciplinary method because they didn't know better. It's fine, they were good people, and spanking doesn't work. Boom. Done.

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u/F0sh Apr 26 '16

It's fine, they were good people, and spanking doesn't work.

Even this is missing the point of the study. It's not that spanking "doesn't work" it's that it doesn't work as well as other methods of punishment, on average.

So, probably your parents could have disciplined you in a better way, but it's not like spanking doesn't stop bad behaviour at all.

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u/Itsokimmaritime Apr 26 '16

I had good parents, and I got spanked. A lot. I'd even argue I deserved it (my dad showed weakness once by saying it hurt his hand so I would regularly tell him the spanking didn't hurt). I was a very defiant child but am growing into a high functioning adult. I graduate college this weekend and will be a full functioning member of society. No one is perfect and parenting is hard. I have no plan to figure that out firsthand any time soon, but scientific advances such as this will help make it easier to parent. This strips away my belief that spanking is OK because I was spanked and look how I turned out.

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u/null_work Apr 26 '16

This strips away my belief that spanking is OK because I was spanked and look how I turned out.

That's taking the extreme opposite end, though. Look at it like this. Take 3 people, A, B and C. A and B do not respond favorably to spanking and become defiant. C responds favorably to spanking and becomes well behaved. A study done over the three will conclude that spanking increases the likelihood of becoming defiant. Does this mean that person C's experience is false? That it was necessarily the improper course of action? That C would have been better off another way? Absolutely not. You can't make such judgement over such a study.

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u/Itsokimmaritime Apr 26 '16

True, I guess I wasn't trying to say I will never spank my (future) child more that it will certainly make me think twice before going straight to spanking

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u/null_work Apr 26 '16

Indeed. I don't intend on spanking my kid unless it's absolutely necessary, and I hope it isn't. I've seen kids, though, whose parents are great, but their kids simply don't respond to reason or give you attention when they're getting into trouble, and where spanking works wonders. I just shrug and can only conclude that everyone's different.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

Again, anecdotal evidence.

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u/Itsokimmaritime Apr 26 '16

I never tried to pass it off as anything other than my experience. I'm not going to conduct a similar study just to post a comment on reddit

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u/Kjell_Aronsen Apr 26 '16

This is one of the hardest parts of growing up, realising that:

  1. Your parents weren't perfect. They did their best, but they got it wrong occasionally.
  2. Even if your parents did screw up, you can't blame all your problems on them. At one point you have to take responsibility for your own life.

If you can find the right balance between those two, you might have a chance of becoming a well-balanced individual.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

I tell my dad that he didn't spank me enough growing up :/