Quick argument against Biblical corporal punishment

[Sola]

With a chair they were able to get high enough to unlock the dead bolt.

The problem I have with this particular instance, is that a child who is wanting to do a runner like that is not, obviously, thinking through the consequences.

We know the consequences of doing that would be getting knocked down by an 18 wheeler. The child obviously is not thinking through those consequences. As a result I have to say if a child isn't considering the chance of being maimed or killed by an 18 wheeler is a deterrent from doing a runner, they sure as hell wont think a smack on the butt is a deterrent either.

In this instance I would consider a better way would be for the parents to prevent this happening in the first place by using security devices (door locks, removal of keys etc).

[2xx1xy1JD]

Personally, I would not hit a child with a wooden board. But I would not tell other parents (or schools) that they can't or shouldn't. Just a personal preference that I always felt my open hand was the best.

I don't think it is right for a parent to hit a child for any other reason than discipline and then it needs to be done calmly, with explanation, causing discomfort that lasts just for the moment, causes no injury, and includes reflection, more explanation, etc. afterwards. So parents who hit (spank) in a fit of rage – I would see that as wrong. Parents who hit and cause physical injury – I would see that as wrong. Parents who grab their kid's arm, swat them and give no explanation, warning, etc. – I would see that as wrong.

So your question about men hitting their wives really isn't valid in my opinion, it's comparing apples to oranges. It isn't an adult's job to discipline another adult, spouse or non spouse. So, legal or not, a man should not hit his wife, nor the wife hit her husband. Neither should any adult hit any other adult unless they are boxers or cage fighters by profession.

And I, personally, would be doing up court papers to authorize child protection authorities to intervene on an urgent basis.

This is a good example of how "spank" could mean different things to different people. In my mind, it means hitting with an open hand, usually on the bottom. Using a wooden board takes it to a new level of violence - I don't see how it's possible to do that in a mild way, without risking injury. That's part of the reason that the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that it would be considered assault.

The states that allow paddling in schools also seem to be ones that once allowed slavery. Coincidence?

[StarrieEyedKat]

I started disciplining my children from the moment I had them.

[Koala]

Cause she's batshit crazy?

[geniebelle6901]

Just to add my 2 cents. Even though sis & I got smacks on the butt as a last resort punishment. We didn't consider it abuse because it was very infrequent and a last restort (but still wrong in my book). But we still love our parents and don't feel like we were abused. Having said that, sis & BIL don't believe in corporal punishment. Even though I don't have kids, I feel the same. It burns my butt every single time somebody cherry-picks verses from the Bible t justify spanking, whipping, or hitting their kids. My advice... READ THE WHOLE BIBLE AND STOP THE CHERRY-PICKING. I can practically guarantee that for every verse giving reson for doing something, there is also a verse giving reason not to do something.

[StarrieEyedKat]

Cause she's batshit crazy?

Seriously, I really just want to know how she "disciplines" a newborn. Clearly She Who Laughs isn't going to get off her high horse about her superior spanking beliefs, but I can't even imagine trying to rationalize how it's ok to discipline a newborn baby.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Maybe "discipline" just refers to building a solid attachment and loving relationship, to provide the foundation for future non-punitive discipline?

I can hope, right? Cause if I'm wrong, I'm going to feel sick.

[Anxious Girl]

What I just wondered about spankers is why they think that it's ok to spank a child, but not ok for adults to spank somebody else when they're doing something wrong. Spanking is not ok for correcting somebody's behavior. It just creates fear and low self-esteem that they take out on others phsyically/verbally later on unless they strive to not be like the spanker and be a better person. Even though I'm not a parent and won't ever be, I would rather have my ma/dad pull me over to the side and explained what I did wrong, and show me how to do it right. Or if it's for unpleasant behavior, I would want to be warned next time that I would have something taken away for a period of time (electronics such as an ipod, nintendo systems, and tvs shut off for a certain amount of days such as a week). IMO, the punishments in the paranthesis worked so much that I knew when I was 8/9 that if I fought with my brothers in public, I would get something taken away, which would lead me to seething quietly (lol).

I would either forget about it, or finish the argument at home, though. Kids are like that, they're not perfect 24/7, and you shouldn't expect them to be. If your kids seem to be perfectly behaved like the Duggars are on the reality tv show, then there's something definetley wrong, because IMO (you may correct me on this) if kids are seen in public as perfectly behaved all of the time, there may be something going on inside immediate family life. *sorry if I'm off-topic and for my mini-rant*

[debrand]

To lighten this thread up a little.....I remember the night of the April 3, 1974 tornadoes. Daddy, and both my grandfathers were on the river fishing. My baby sis & I were jumping on our parents' bed. Mama had already told us countless times to stop. Then she comes running into the bedroom, grabbed my sis & ordered me off the bed. I thought for sure we're going to get a spanking (mind you spanking for us was always a single slap on the butt not a whipping) WRONG! She practically threw us in the bathtub and made us cover ourselves with the pillows & cushions she grabbed off the beds and couch. My sis and I were crying & screaming, not knowing what was going on. She said there's a tornado coming. Not only were we crying but Mama was practically having a nervous breakdown because Daddy & our Grandpas were on the river fishing in the bad weather. Anyway, about 10 minutes in the bathtub, Daddy and our Grandpas came threw the door safe and sound! Mama was both furious & happy at the same time. I won't forget that day for as long as I live!

Your mother's fear probably kept you in the tub far better then a smack on the bottom.

I adored my grandmother but she switched me. Now that I am older, I see using a switch as being abusive. It is difficult for me to attribute a negative action to a woman who was overall a positive role model for me. However, I keep in mind that there wasn't as much information against spanking as there is now.

OT I've been in severe wintery conditions,earthquakes and hurricanes. Tornadoes frighten me the most because they are so powerful and difficult to flee.

[Anxious Girl]

Don't get mad at me, but even though I hate My Little Pony Friendship is Magic *I tried to get into it but the show didn't work for me* I find the avatars on the internet so cute. *is brick'd for being slightly off-topic*

[StarrieEyedKat]

Don't get mad at me, but even though I hate My Little Pony Friendship is Magic *I tried to get into it but the show didn't work for me* I find the avatars on the internet so cute. *is brick'd for being slightly off-topic*

Cool, because I uploaded a shit-ton of them to use around FJ at my discretion. :D

[ladypuglover]

I still haven't recovered from the great peanut butter war and I have already told my story of changing from a spanking parent to a non-spanking parent, so I will just throw out this info. My 3rd son was a wild toddler who if you held his hand he would suddenly drop to the ground and you would pull his arm out of socket. If you didn't hold his hand he would be out playing in traffic. You could not reason with this kid at all as he had some learning issues the were still undiscovered. so what were we to do? Rip his arm out of sockett or let him play frogger in traffic? We put a chest harness on him and it worked perfectly for him. He felt like he was independent from us but yet we still had full control of him. We were often yelled at for treating him like a dog but you know what,it kept my baby safe when we were out of all other ways of keeping him safe.

Spanking is the lazy way of parenting, children hit because they have no other tools to express themselves. You are smatter than a toddler, right? Well you have to be smarter than a child in order to raise a child safely. When you hit then you have just proved you have no more skills of parenting than your toddler does.

[geniebelle6901]

Your mother's fear probably kept you in the tub far better then a smack on the bottom.

When she came running to the bedroom with a scared look on her face, I knew something was wrong, and that sis & I weren't in trouble. After I stopped crying I remember hearing the weather man say tornado warning. So it didn't take me but a second to realize why Mama was scared and was was trying to protect us. We were very fortunate. Our neighborhood was spared. The South is no stranger to tornado outbreaks.

Today is the anniversary of the 4/27/11 outbreak. My heart goes out to those who are still going through a rough time because of that terrible day.

[jaynie]

I noticed earlier that SWL dismissed the recommendations of the American academy of pediatrics on the basis that there might be other things going on in those homes that the researchers neglected. So I went over to psychinfo, which is a scholarly database of studies, scientific articles, etc, and searched "spanking" to see what degree of consensus there was and how well other factors had been accounted for. Below are quotes from all of the English-language studies on the first two pages that dealt with the long term effects of spanking, except for two which had unclear abstracts (I couldn't access the full text of either). One of those abstracts did mention that while many parents in the USA support spanking, it is nevertheless less effective than other punishments (it did not mention positive parenting).

I think it's telling that while some of these studies suggest that some spanked children turn out okay, NONE of them show a positive effect of spanking. So the best possible outcome of corporal punishment is that you don't screw up your child, and the worst possible outcome is that you do (assuming we are talking about swot-on-the-bum spanking and not the Perls). I also searched “positive parenting†and read the abstracts of the first page of articles (though I don't have time to copy paste those as well) and all of them listed positive results, such as less externalizing behaviour, better family relationships, better weight control, better self regulation in abused children (the positive parent not being the abuser, obviously), and a greater ability to deal with negative life events.

I ignored studies about why parents spank or which parents are more likely to spank. I also disregarded two non-study articles in the journal “Marriages and Family: A Christian Journal†because that screams biased source to me, and because they appear to have mistaken scriptures for science. However, even the abstract of an article in favour of light spanking says that the only other thing that works besides spanking is “nonphysical punishmentâ€. Wait, what?

Results: Children whose parents approved of and used CP were more likely to endorse hitting as a strategy for resolving interpersonal conflicts with peers and siblings. Frequent spanking was the strongest predictor of children’s acceptance of aggressive problem solving, above and beyond parental acceptance, parental experience of CP, and familial demographics...These findings support an additional “side effect of spanking;†when parents use CP it teaches their children that hitting is an acceptable means of dealing with conflict.

(Relationships between parents’ use of corporal punishment and their children's endorsement of spanking and hitting other children. Simons, Dominique A.; Wurtele, Sandy K.; Child Abuse & Neglect, Vol 34(9), Sep, 2010)

Children watched videos depicting a child being disciplined and then rated each discipline method. Reasoning was rated as most fair, spanking as least fair. Spanking was regarded most effective for immediate compliance but not for long-term behavior change. Children with medium high levels of exposure to spanking were more likely to regard it as the best disciplinary technique compared with children with low or high exposure levels. Younger children rated spanking as fairer than older children.

(Children's assessments of corporal punishment and other disciplinary practices: The role of age, race, SES, and exposure to spanking. Vittrup, Brigitte; Holden, George W.; Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, Vol 31(3), May-June 2010)

(I included this because I thought it was interesting that even children could see that spanking was wrong.)

Cross-lagged path analyses indicated that spanking (but not verbal punishment) at age 1 predicted child aggressive behavior problems at age 2 and lower Bayley mental development scores at age 3. Neither child aggressive behavior problems nor Bayley scores predicted later spanking or verbal punishment.

(Correlates and consequences of spanking and verbal punishment for low-income White, African American, and Mexican American toddlers. Berlin, Lisa J.; Ispa, Jean M.; Fine, Mark A.; Malone, Patrick S.; Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne; Brady-Smith, Christy; Ayoub, Catherine; Bai, Yu; Child Development, Vol 80(5), Sep-Oct, 2009.)

Findings suggest that infant temperament was associated with aggressive behavior at 24 and 36 months and that child aggression remained stable. Among the three ethnic groups, spanking was only associated with aggressive behavior for children who had Caucasian mothers and maternal warmth did not moderate the effect of spanking on aggressive behavior.

(The moderating effect of parental warmth on the association between spanking and child aggression: A longitudinal approach. Stacks, Ann Michele; Oshio, Toko; Gerard, Jean; Roe, Jacqueline; Infant and Child Development, Vol 18(2), Mar-Apr, 2009.)

Consistent with prior research, results of the current study yielded a significant association between spanking and child externalizing behavior problems, which was observed even after controlling for the effects of corporal punishment and a harsh parenting style. Additionally, a warm parenting style moderated the associated between spanking and attachment quality such that a combination of low levels of both maternal warmth and spanking were associated with insecure attachment. Maternal warmth did not moderate the effects of spanking on either externalizing problems or perceived social acceptance.

(Parenting and internal working models in preschool-age children. Martens, Patricia M.; Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering, Vol 67(2-B), 2006.)

(I'd like to say that this study specifically points out the possibility that spanking studies might neglect other problem factors, and still found that spanking caused problem behaviour in children)

RESULTS: Frequent use of CP (ie, mother’s use of spanking more than twice in the previous month) when the child was 3 years of age was associated with increased risk for higher levels of child aggression when the child was 5 years of age (adjusted odds ratio: 1.49 [95% confidence interval: 1.2–1.8]; P < .0001), even with controlling for the child’s level of aggression at age 3 and the aforementioned potential confounding factors and key demographic features.

(Mothers’ spanking of 3-year-old children and subsequent risk of children’s aggressive behavior. Taylor, Catherine A.; Manganello, Jennifer A.; Lee, Shawna J.; Rice, Janet C.; Pediatrics, Vol 125(5), May, 2010.)

Findings showed that regardless of race, spanking is associated with more depressive symptoms in the cross-sectional analysis but does not appear to maintain this relationship over time. With regard to emotional support, depressive symptoms for African American youth are inversely related to the emotional support their mothers provide for them in cross-sectional models, but the benefit does not persist in our change models. For European American children and adolescents, emotional support is associated with fewer depressive symptoms in the short term and over time.

(Child depressive symptoms, spanking, and emotional support: Differences between African American and European American youth. Christie-Mizell, C. André; Pryor, Erin M.; Grossman, Elizabeth R. B.; Family Relations, Vol 57(3), Jul, 2008.)

Results: Mothers who report that the child was spanked are 2.7 (95% CI = 1.2, 6.3) times more likely to report abuse. Increases in the frequency of reported spanking in the last year are also associated with increased odds of abuse (OR = 1.03, 95% CI = 1.01, 1.06). Mothers reporting spanking with an object are at markedly increased odds of reporting abuse (OR = 8.9, 95% CI = 4.1, 19.6).

(Speak softly—and forget the stick corporal punishment and child physical abuse. Zolotor, Adam J.; Theodore, Adrea D.; Chang, Jen Jen; Berkoff, Molly C.; Runyan, Desmond K.; American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Vol 35(4), Oct, 2008.)

Despite evidence concerning the association of spanking with antisocial behavior, not all children who are spanked develop antisocial traits. Given the heterogeneous effects of spanking on behavior, it is possible that a third variable may condition the influence of corporal punishment on child development. We test this possibility using data drawn from a nationally representative dataset of twin siblings. Our findings suggest that genetic risk factors condition the effects of spanking on antisocial behavior. Moreover, our results provide evidence that the interaction between genetic risk factors and corporal punishment may be particularly salient for males.

(Physical punishment and childhood aggression: The role of gender and gene–environment interplay. Boutwell, Brian B.; Franklin, Cortney A.; Barnes, J. C.; Beaver, Kevin M.; Aggressive Behavior, Vol 37(6), Nov-Dec, 2011.)

(I'd like to point out that there is currently no way of knowing your children's genetic risk factor.)

(The following is from the main text of the meta-analysis rather than the abstract because the abstract was unclear).

Presumably, the goals of disciplining children are to decrease some behaviors (e.g., tantrums, talking back), to develop others (e.g., problem solving, playing cooperatively, completing homework), and to promote socialization more generally. It is not at all clear from animal laboratory studies and human applied studies that punishment is among the better strategies for accomplishing these behavior-change goals. For example, decreasing and eliminating inappropriate child behavior in the

home can be achieved through positive reinforcement techniques (e.g., from many arrangements that focus on rewarding alternative behaviors) without the use of any punishment (Kazdin, 2001).

Gershoff (2002) found that children who were spanked were more angry, aggressive, and stressed than children who were not disciplined in this way.

The evidence suggests that spanking that is frequent and harsh is often associated with undesirable mental and physical health outcomes. The effects of very mild, occasional spanking are not well studied or sufficiently clear from available studies. In one sense, it may be correct to say that current evidence does not establish the deleterious or beneficial effects of very mild spanking. Even so, it may be prudent to caution against the use of spanking because there are nonaversive alternatives for accomplishing the same disciplinary goals, and because it has not been empirically established where the demarcation is between mild spanking that may be safe to use and severe corporal punishment that is known to be dangerous.

(Spanking children: evidence and issues. Kazdin, Alan E.; Benjet, Corina; Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol 12(3), Jun, 2003.)

The data did not support a relationship between depression, anxiety, stress, and childhood spanking. The results also did not indicate a relationship between changes in religion or in denomination based on the frequency, age, or severity of childhood spanking. There were several limitations that may have hindered the final results. Participants were mostly female college students at a religious university. Additionally, of the total participants, few reported not having experienced spanking as children. There were some indications that depression, views of spanking, and religion may have some relationship but there were not enough depressed participants in the study to find significance. Future research in this area should address this potential problem of restriction of range in samples.

(The relationship between childhood spanking and adult report of religion, depression, anxiety, and stress. Langhofer, Rachelle C. Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering, Vol 70(2-B), 2009.)

(The full text of this dissertation did discuss the myriad limitations of the sample. Those limitations should be obvious to anyone who can read, I think).

[fakepigtails73]

You have your opinion, I have mine. I love how anti-spankers call it hitting, they like to do that to make it sound violent and "disgusting." I never felt that way about it even while it was happening. I knew why I was being spanked and I knew what I had done to deserve it. If my parents had tried some other lame method, I would have seen it as a victory and would have continued in my bad behavior. Funny thing that anti-spankers never mention is that even parents who may not spank can end up using their discipline method in an abusive way. Some lock their kids in closets, handcuff them to their beds, lock them in the basement, make them sit in time-out for hours on end. Absolutely ANY method for discipline can be turned into a horrible and abusive thing if done the wrong way, in an extreme manner, and out of anger.

Just stating the obvious: spanking IS hitting. One takes the hand and with velocity HITS the buttock. :idea:

How else would you call it? Certainly not heavy petting?

I'm in the middle of the fence re: spanking, I was spanked 2 times, I know some who spank but very rarely. I wouldn't call them monsters but one thing I've noticed is that my friends' kids that are spanked are more agressive and less obedient as a whole than the kids of my friends who use non-physical discipline methods. It's not scientific but I would think that there is some corrolation there.

if I had kids I most likely would never spank them and I can't understand how one would say that spanking isn't hitting.

ETA: Oh, SWL, on another post you say that most posters here on FJ are far, far left. I want to tell you that I'm pretty much on the right politically, although not the kind of right prevalent in the GOP and tea party in the USA (not my thing at all). So no, not all people on the right are full gung-ho for spankings as the main way to discipline.

And this crap about discipling a newborn baby? Sick. :cry:

[StarrieEyedKat]

I noticed earlier that SWL dismissed the recommendations of the American academy of pediatrics on the basis that there might be other things going on in those homes that the researchers neglected. So I went over to psychinfo, which is a scholarly database of studies, scientific articles, etc, and searched "spanking" to see what degree of consensus there was and how well other factors had been accounted for. Below are quotes from all of the English-language studies on the first two pages that dealt with the long term effects of spanking, except for two which had unclear abstracts (I couldn't access the full text of either). One of those abstracts did mention that while many parents in the USA support spanking, it is nevertheless less effective than other punishments (it did not mention positive parenting).

I think it's telling that while some of these studies suggest that some spanked children turn out okay, NONE of them show a positive effect of spanking. So the best possible outcome of corporal punishment is that you don't screw up your child, and the worst possible outcome is that you do (assuming we are talking about swot-on-the-bum spanking and not the Perls). I also searched “positive parenting†and read the abstracts of the first page of articles (though I don't have time to copy paste those as well) and all of them listed positive results, such as less externalizing behaviour, better family relationships, better weight control, better self regulation in abused children (the positive parent not being the abuser, obviously), and a greater ability to deal with negative life events.

I ignored studies about why parents spank or which parents are more likely to spank. I also disregarded two non-study articles in the journal “Marriages and Family: A Christian Journal†because that screams biased source to me, and because they appear to have mistaken scriptures for science. However, even the abstract of an article in favour of light spanking says that the only other thing that works besides spanking is “nonphysical punishmentâ€. Wait, what?

Now, don't go confusing the situation with your data and facts and garbage like that. :roll:

[emmiedahl]

And just as a side note, I can't help but wonder why it is only on FJ that people seem so extreme in their thinking. Through the years I've had the spanking/no-spanking conversation with dozens of people, Christian and non Christian and I've never come across anyone who was so adamant that spanking was so horrible. Most will just say whether or not they spank or plan to spank and what other methods they use and then end with something along the lines each person needing to raise their kids they way they feel is best. I've never had anyone in real life ever be so passionate about the whole topic.

http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/bandwagon

http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem

You managed to have at least two fallacies in one post! Congratulations! :clap:

[deelaem]

Wow, we need to whip out the "Thou Shalt Not Commit Logical Fallacies" chart and see how many times SWL made a hit with her pro-spanking arguements.

1. strawman

You misrepresented someone's argument to make it easier to attack.

2. false cause

You presumed that a real or perceived relationship between things means that one is the cause of the other.

3. tu quoque

You avoided having to engage with criticism by turning it back on the accuser - you answered criticism with criticism.

4. personal incredulity

Because you found something difficult to understand, or are unaware of how it works, you made out like it's probably not true.

5. burden of proof

You said that the burden of proof lies not with the person making the claim, but with someone else to disprove.

6. ambiguity

You used a double meaning or ambiguity of language to mislead or misrepresent the truth.

7. bandwagon

You appealed to popularity or the fact that many people do something as an attempted form of validation.

8. appeal to authority

You used the opinion or position of an authority figure, or institution of authority, in place of an actual argument.

9. genetic

You judged something as either good or bad on the basis of where it comes from, or from whom it came.

10. begging the question

You presented a circular argument in which the conclusion was included in the premise.

11. (this is my personal favorite) anecdotal

You used a personal experience or an isolated example instead of a sound argument or compelling evidence.

12. middle ground

You claimed that a compromise, or middle point, between two extremes must be the truth.

Whew - that's 12! That took some doin'! But it all really boils down to her thinking she's right because she says she's right. And that bit about FJ being a bunch of extremists? That had me laughing out loud. Does she think that having strong opinions means you're an extremist? If that's the case, then may I suggest she follow the trial of Anders Behring Breivik for a better example of extremism.

[deelaem]

LOL! emmidahl, you beat me too it! But I got a much higher count...

[Conuly]

Don't forget the repeated distinction without difference - spanking isn't hitting! It's the exact same thing yet totally different!

I have a longer post percolating, but I really have to cook dinner first. Bah.

[emmiedahl]

Seriously, I really just want to know how she "disciplines" a newborn. Clearly She Who Laughs isn't going to get off her high horse about her superior spanking beliefs, but I can't even imagine trying to rationalize how it's ok to discipline a newborn baby.

Apparently I am highly remiss because I just loved and fed them. You know, age appropriate stuff. I don't even discipline my 18 month old and guess what? He's never been hit by a car! I don't have to whip him into submission, he has these people called parents who are charged with his care.

[bananacat]

OK, She Who Laughs has already admitted outright that no amount of evidence or reality will make her change her mind. She has her fingers stuck in her ears and insists on sticking by her child-hitting ways.

But for anyone else who is on the fence, let me explain why she's wrong about using fear of pain as a punishment. People aren't robots. Our behavior isn't determined by a simple risk vs. reward evaluation. Obviously threat of punishment has some effect, but not nearly as much as authoritarians like to believe. Take the example of a child learning to walk. She'll take a few steps and will fall down and it will hurt. If she were "logical" she would realize that attempting to walk causes pain, and she would not try again. But people don't work that way. She'll try to walk again, but she'll modify it slightly. She'll keep changing her muscle movements until she can "get away with it" and successfully walk without getting the punishment of pain. And it's the same thing with a kid who is doing something naughty. If they take cookies before dinner and get slapped, that won't stop them from trying. Instead, they'll modify their behavior until they can get the cookies without the pain that comes with it. That could mean lying or becoming more sneaky. But that's how people work. To make them stop taking cookies, the most effective way is frustration. Either put the cookies out of their reach, or watch them like a hawk to scold them whenever they attempt to take the cookies. On top of that, they need to eventually learn the reasoning behind the rule so that when parents are no longer around, they will be able to make better choices. Hitting/spanking/whatever will not teach them that.

And yet certain people insist that fear of punishment is enough to keep people in line, even though these very people can't possibly believe it deep down. I'll go out on a limb and assume that She Who Laughs has never murdered anyone. And why is that? Is it because she's afraid of going to jail or Hell? I doubt it. I doubt there has ever been a time in her life where she was perfectly willing to kill someone but the fear of jail/Hell stayed her hand. Only sociopaths act like that. Most of us don't murder because we don't want to murder. We don't want to murder for a variety of reasons, but mostly empathy and a social contract. Fear of punishment has some effect, but a lot less than other factors. It doesn't follow logically that hitting kids will make them behave, and study after study has proven this to be the case. Human psychology just does not work that way.

[Austin]

When I was a kid, I noticed that other kids who were spanked were the sneakiest and the most deceptive. Their parents thought they were well-behaved angels but they were the ones getting away with everything they could behind their parents' backs.

[Kitty]

When I was a kid, I noticed that other kids who were spanked were the sneakiest and the most deceptive. Their parents thought they were well-behaved angels but they were the ones getting away with everything they could behind their parents' backs.

I wouldn't say that's universal, being spanked myself as a kid... everyone I knew growing up was spanked as well. I can't think of a single person who wasn't.

But I will say that the kids who were spanked often, and more severely and had other physical punishments, were by far the sneakiest and worst-behaved. Most people, by high school, know to follow rules because the rules were put in place for a reason (and it wasn't so they could be broken). Some kids only conformed because they feared punishment- detention isn't all that bad and it's pretty lame, but their parents would be PISSED and the kids feared physical punishment. Some kids didn't even fucking bother with that, because getting in-school suspension or thrown out of school for a few days was no big deal, and their parents would be upset but otherwise wouldn't do anything.

Of course, I've noticed that most parents stop spanking around 11, but I suspect it's less "they just don't need spanking anymore!" and more "oh shit, they've hit puberty and are bigger and stronger than me now, I need a new plan!" Yeah, same people are fine with spanking toddlers for doing things little curious people do, like wander away or start playing with things they shouldn't. Granted, toddlers don't exactly understand the concept of "danger," when what they're doing is dangerous (like the oh-so-popular "running into the street" :roll:) but 11 year olds do WAY worse shit, intentionally, than toddlers could ever do. By pro-spanking logic, the 11 year old should be spanked even more than the 2 year old, but by 11 they're "too old." Yeah, it's because of what I said before: at 11, most kids have hit puberty and have started to GROW. Parents who still try spanking find themselves actually physically fighting with their kids.

I have to disagree with how bad spanking is, but the logic of the pro-spankers is very, very faulty.

[Rosa]

It's possible She Who Laughs has never met someone who told her spanking is abusive to her face, since everyone she knows, knows she hits people for disagreeing with her.

Just sayin'.

ETA: I will say that reading all this Pearl-related and fundy "spanking is the only way!" crap, mostly through FJ (though partly on my own, since my parents loved Dobson so much and I did some research after my dad gave me a Dobson-edited book as a baby gift) has made me MUCH more likely to speak up. Because if the spanking people are really only using swats on the bottom, I can shrug it off as a cultural/parenting difference, but now I know that a bunch of people who SAY they use little swats or "only spanking, not beating" are, in fact, beating the holy shit out of their kids.

When I was a kid, everyone's parents spanked, but we knew which parents were really whaling on their kids, and we thought they were evil assholes. Now some of their kids have grown up and said "well I was spanked and I turned out OK", so I have to speak up, because there is no way to know by what they say if they mean "i hit my kids with a belt or a 1x2, just like my dad" or "once my toddler made me so mad I smacked him on the ass with my open hand."