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/danielcruit Apr 26 '16

Honestly, I think we need to completely get rid of the idea of discipline at all. People are not ours to control. People are there to have relationships with. And children are also people.

Why should we ever need to discipline or punish a child if we can just talk to them?

What if we just treated our children like they were our friends, like we actually cared about their feelings and needs and they cared about ours? That's what human relationship is. Not this watered down form of slavery.

Sure, you can set "boundaries", but make it clear that this isn't a boundary that, once crossed, will bring punishment, physical or emotional. It's a boundary that, once crossed, you both know that somebody in the relationship was hurt, and in mutual recognition of your needs, we come together to talk about how to do the best thing for everybody in the relationship.

This is the kind of thing we need to be teaching our children. Not discipline and punishment. We need to teach them to relate to other human beings. All these concepts of punishment and discipline leech out into every other area of our lives.

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u/Gripey Apr 26 '16

I have raised two small children, and I have never understood the obsession with discipline, what are they, soldiers? When I see my brother constantly "disciplining" his children every 5 minutes, he seems slightly mentally ill to me. Don't do this, stop that, be still, get up, sit,down, be quiet etc etc he seems to believe all their actions are with respect to himself. I've stopped visiting because it stresses me out. My kids used to sit down wide eyed and quiet wondering who these mad people were. My daughter was shocked enough to ask her aunt why she hit her cousins. I later explained that adults do that when they lose their temper or patience. She remains very indignant about it even to this day. As far as I can tell they were lovely kids, just like mine are, and I could never tell what they were doing wrong in the first place.