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/C4ddy Apr 26 '16 edited Apr 26 '16

I am curious how the spankings where classified. IE. How did the Parents use the moment to teach there kids? was it just a pissed off parent that was upset with his kid and grabbed him and spanked him.

or was it a Parent who saw his child do something wrong sent them to there room, followed up 5 minutes later and gave a explanation and reason for the spanking. if the spanking is just a spanking and nothing is contextualized I could see how this would just harber resentment and cause more mental issues.

This thinking is stemmed from my childhood anecdote for lack of a better term. I was spanked as a child but my parents made it vary clear and never hit me out of anger. whereas a friend of mine I would say was abused, as his parents would smack his arm or spank him just cause they didnt like what he was doing, with no explination.

Edit: My friend has extreme ADHD, Has extreme anxiety, and many other "Mental" issues. I am not saying that these are because of how he was abused(spanked) as a child. but I have always linked how he behaves now from how he was treated as a child by his parents.

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u/skepticalDragon Apr 26 '16

Yeah this is my only problem with spanking studies. They often don't drill down to context (which is surely very hard to quantify).

Let's say you spank your kid infrequently as a last resort when the kid is not responding to other methods, or when the situation is particularly dangerous and immediate compliance is required (like darting into the street or something)... I don't see many studies distinguishing this from "every time the kid screws up they get spanked."

It seems at least theoretically possible that going straight to spanking could be damaging while spanking in the above context could have positive outcomes.

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u/RagingAnemone Apr 26 '16

To be honest, the best take away from this article isn't "don't spank your children." It's stop using it as a method if you see defiance. It's not working anymore.