dk

The question is, "What does a kid learn from being spanked, timeout,,, etc,,, other punishments?" I submit, "A child should learn justice is an authoritative expression of love." Kids that are punished unjustly learn to fear authority and by extension love. The advantage to spanking is brevity. It takes 2 minutes to instruct, spank, forgive, and restore a disobedient child to an obedient child. A just parent will find spanking an effective deterrent, hence rarely has occasion to spank their child. However, children are not all the same, so spanking, timeout, TV,,, etc.. do not effective all children. An unjust parent spanks a kid out of guilt, frustration and anger. When a parent disciplines a child to satisfy their emotional needs or shortcomings then its child abuse.

Theli

Are other forms of punishment really morally better? I mean, if the goal of punishment is to either inflict pain or discomfort to the child in order to discourage him/her from repeating whatever action that led to the punishment, then how is one form better than the other?

wooo!!!! 1111 posts!!!

Alonzo Fyfe

Should . . . perhaps. But we need to be concerned with actual consequences, and accept that what 'should' be the case is not the case in fact.

Children who are spanked learn to personal affronts with violence. Children who experience "time out" or other non-violent forms of punishment learn that nonviolent reactions are more appropriate.

MollyMac

I think this has been partly answered by Alonzo:
I would add that IMO spanking children gives them the message that physical violence is an acceptable way of dealing with problems. I don't think it is.

Theli

But are we sure that spanking is the cause of a bad child-parent relationship, and not just a product of it? The results Alonzo Fyfe brought up could be interpreted both ways.

Sarpedon

I think that the point made about threatening to spank while not actually spanking makes for a bad child rearing. Also it bespeaks of character flaws in the threatener. To quote Musashi: "Never draw your sword unless you intend to kill your opponent." The same should go with all uses of force. Never threaten, do it, or don't do it.

Alonzo Fyfe

Regression analysis has been performed on these studies in an attempt to isolate and factor out other influences (e.g., perhaps children not spanked grow up in a higher socio-economic environment than children spanked).

There is always the possibility that they missed something, just as the possibility that an alternative explanation exists for the results of any experiment or set of observations. Yet, it is fallacious to argue, "there is a possibility that these results are in error, therefore they are in error," or "therefore we should act as if no answer is known."

Like I said, this possibility exists in every experiment/set of observations in every science, and such a way of thinking -- we should only accept those things about which we cannot possibly be in error -- would ultimately lead us into believing almost nothing.

The best evidence available suggests that spanking children has a tendency to increase the likelihood that the child will learn to respond to affronts with violence.

Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by Alonzo Fyfe
As a rebuttal against the harm done by spanking, this type of annecdotal evidence counts for nothing. I know of a person with Obsessive/Compulsive disorder who tried to kill himself by shooting himself in the head. The shot not only failed to kill him, it seems to have 'cured' his obsessive/compulsive disorder (apparently affecting the right sort of change to the right part of the brain).

Even more extreme, there was a guy who cured an inoperable brain tumor that way!

Loren Pechtel

Pretty much agree. Spanking is generally the refuge of the parent who doesn't know how to control their kid. It's a symptom far more than a cause.

Loren Pechtel

What's worse is that the parents in question all make all sorts of hollow threats, not just about spanking.