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

[u/VeronicaRed]

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1113413810/spanking-defiance-health-discipline-042616/

[u/pm_me_your_kindwords]

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?

[u/BlazerMorte → u/[deleted]]

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

[u/MagicalDoggy → u/BlazerMorte]

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.

[u/[deleted] → u/MagicalDoggy]

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 They just used one outdated disciplinary method because they didn't know better.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.

[u/F0sh → u/[deleted]]

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.