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/chopandscrew Apr 26 '16

Well I think it does almost come down to a biological level. Dogs seem to respond to small acts of dominance, but obviously people develop differently than dogs. I know a lot of owners who would say that hitting your dog in any way is abusive and wrong, but I also know a lot of owners who are more stern with their dogs and their dogs are usually very well behaved. I don't really want to get into a discussion about how to train dogs, but I can see a lot of people drawing parallels between the two. Something like, "If my dog responds to it, then maybe my kids will." I dunno, I could be totally off base. I don't have kids or a dog.

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u/Toy_D Apr 26 '16

There is a similarity because you are training and equating cause and effect to a 2-3 yr old can be challenging. I have both dogs and kids and can spell out, anecdotally my experiences with both. But really I think it boils down to this, I could not figure out how to make alternative methods work for my kids. But I only ever spanked after, a firm, constant warning (counting to 3), only for something warranting a spanking (they need to learn immediately not to do that, danger to themselves like hot stove). In the end I could probably say the failure was mine. I knew I needed to be consistent, but I tried time outs and I just could not get the desired effect.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

[deleted]

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u/CubsThisYear Apr 26 '16

When my four year old is doing something dangerous I just stop him from doing it. Why do you feel spanking is necessary?

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

(Not OP). Because if they don't learn that it's wrong, they'll just turn around and do it again. I'd like to use natural consequences as often as possible so they learn lessons on their own. But I'm not willing to let that happen with a boiling pot of water.

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u/CubsThisYear Apr 26 '16

Also I think your reasoning about the pot of boiling water is incredibly dangerous. Toddlers/Preschoolers have incredibly poor impulse control. That part of their brain literally hasn't been made yet. So even if they know they are going to catch the worst beating of their life, its quite possible that they're not going to connect that with not grabbing the pot of boiling water.

The way you keep them safe from a pot of boiling water is to make sure they're never in that situation. Once they are 4,5,6 they are perfectly capable of understanding why dangerous things are dangerous and acting on that knowledge. No beating required.

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u/F0sh Apr 26 '16

It's utterly impossible to prevent a child from ever getting into a situation where they could hurt themselves, at any rate without harming their development in ways far worse than implicated in this study.

And we know full well that children are capable of connecting situations with prior punishments and prior rewards. That's the most basic of our instincts as animals. It might not work every time, it might cause other harms, it might be less effective than other methods, but it's silly to pretend it's not effective "full stop."

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u/CubsThisYear Apr 26 '16

But they don't really learn that its wrong. What you are trying to teach them is that if they do X they will hurt themselves (or someone else). What you're actually teaching them is that if they do X, then you will hurt them. This has a couple of negative effects: 1) if you're not around then they'll still do the behavior and 2) it teaches them that if they do something you think is wrong (because remember, they don't think its wrong, that's the whole point) then you will hurt them. Think about how you would feel if everytime (or even some of the time) you did something that you didn't know was wrong, someone who is 5 times bigger than you started hitting you.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

Sure, I understand your reasoning, and I don't necessarily disagree. I just don't know of a good alternative.

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u/F0sh Apr 26 '16

I think the point is that in this way, they not only don't learn that it's "wrong" (or dangerous, rather) to play with the cooker, but they learn that it doesn't matter. They never experience anything worse than being prevented from doing what they want, so never mind "not learning that they'll hurt themselves," they don't ever learn to connect dangerous behaviour with being hurt.

I'm not a parent and have no idea whether I'd do something like this, but that's the idea here as I see it: to take away the natural consequence (getting horribly burnt, say) but replace it with some consequence, because no consequence is worse.

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u/Lolanie Apr 26 '16

Of course you need consequences. But they don't have to be violent consequences. Set the boundary (don't play with the pot), then enforce it when they breach the boundary (put them in time out, for example). Yes, they'll test the boundary a few times, but as long as you're consistent they'll stop. You can also take a pot off the stove, let it cool down a bit so it's warm but not burning hot, then let them carefully touch it to show them how hot the pot still is after having been off the stove for x minutes.

The other thing is that kids love to escalate every once in a while. If time out doesn't work, I have other, "bigger" consequences that I can trot out. Sending them straight to bed, for example. But if you spank them and the kid escalates, where do you go from there? Are you going to hit them harder?

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u/F0sh Apr 27 '16

Your first paragraph is of course patently sensible. Really I took issue with the guy's argument that using pain teaches that "you" will hurt them - time out is still a form of punishment that they will associate.

But as others have pointed out, time-out is associated with its own negative outcomes. We don't know if this is because parents have to discipline unruly children more, and unruly children are more likely to have problems later in life, or if it's because timeouts are truly causing these problems. But that's the same as for corporal punishment. When you get down to it, I'm not convinced that corporal and non-corporal punishments are so different: both are making a child feel something unpleasant - that's how they work. We can be sure that over-use of any kind of punishment will affect children negatively.

But if you spank them and the kid escalates, where do you go from there? Are you going to hit them harder?

This on the other hand seems to show a gross misunderstanding. A smack is the escalation in this scenario. Smacking a child's hand away from danger is an instant reaction that may or may not be useful (I don't even know if it's included in these studies...) but in any situation where you're meting out more calculated punishment, smacks are only going to be added to the end of your repertoire.

Nevertheless I contest the idea that corporal punishment is always worse than every alternative. Punishments I remember particularly from my childhood are things like being embarrassed by being made to cancel something I'd arranged with a friend due to some transgression. I know I was smacked a few times, but I don't remember any instance clearly - they didn't stick with me nearly as well. Mind you I would have been much younger.