Spanking Is Ineffective and Harmful to Children, Pediatricians’ Group Says
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
That said; as long as it leaves no lasting damage, even physical punishment serves it's purpose.
A little twist of the ear can work wonders when it comes to getting the attention of a child that needs to do some listening.
Just be sure not do do it in anger.
There are things in life with consequences that are dire yet can only be felt in the long run (e.g. a smart kid can coast with bad work ethics until college / grad school / start up). As a parent, you can explain these consequences, and the kid may intellectually agree, but can not fully internalize.
Hitting the kid is simply a way to translate these long-term consequences into short-term ones that can be more easily felt. It's simply the equivalent to celebrating milestones in a long project, translating long-term benefits into short-term ones that can be easily felt. Why is the former vilified, while the later touted as good practice?
- Taking away something that they like
- scolding them
- giving them a time-out
I’m not sure if they are as effective as spanking or not, but they can all be ways of turning long-term consequences into short-term ones, and I don’t think they are vilified the same way as spanking.
My point being that the violent part of spanking is what is frowned upon, not the making-consequences-immediate part.
E.g. your question assumes that spanking is effective in making the kid well organized and well focused, but what if that simply does not happen?
Cause kids ain't that dumb and fully know it is you and not the abstract consequences hitting them. It is you and with goal of not being hit, faking signature works equally good or better. Same with milestone celebration, but people on project like free food and fun, so they will not complain and toute it as good practice. Milestone celebration makes people feel good in short term and does not matter in long term.
More importantly, spanking does not solve whatever reason for whatever caused that bad work ethics. It may be inability to control impulse, it may be an expression of anger, it may be bad organizational skill, short attention span, million other reasons and spanking does not address any of them. It does not address issue and does not make the kid to build good habits and routines, it makes them feel pain if they dont figure it out by themselves. And many kids don't figure it out by themselves.
I'm not convinced of the efficacy of spanking for this purpose, but I can understand the impulse described here (though I doubt that this impulse motivates most spankings, which seem to be carried out in anger).
Also to stop them when going from their room to the living room and subject them to an interrogation. If they don't pass, they get sent back. This would prepare them for international travel.
ELI5 for you: imagine your boss punched you in the face for less than 110% performance, and that society viewed him being right in doing so.
That's a good argument for consequence-based discipline in general, but it doesn't make any case for striking children instead of imposing more effective consequences.
I've made two and three year olds stand with their noses in the corner, taken four year olds' favorite blankets, made six and seven year olds write essays and copy selected sections of books, and made nine year olds rewrite homework and clean public areas in penance for their childish mistakes. There are any number of ways to bring long term consequences to bear in the short term; I haven't yet felt the need to strike these kids to accomplish the behavioral change I wish to enact.
I also won't hesitate to yell and demonstrate anger if it's appropriate to the situation. I call it "silverback parenting". We are primates, and have evolved over millions of years to signal dissatisfaction vocally and respect social order even from a young age. When I do it, I'm just acting, but the kids don't know that. Watch cartoons for kids and look how exaggerated the characters' emotions are; kid's often miss nuance, but they're well versed in recognizing and responding to basic emotions.
Spanking is just plain uncreative. We have so many options as parents I just can't conceptualize any situation where spanking was the best option. And I say this having been raised myself in a spanking household.
But... what do you do if they simply don't want to sit in the corner or rewrite homework?
Where I live physical disciplining is forbidden by law, so I assume parents have to be quite adept at psychological manipulation. In the end the parent is bigger and theoretically smarter. I assume they can pick an uncooperative child up and deposit them in their room for some very boring time alone without toys, to reconsider what they did?
My impression is that if a parent didn't do their job to instill respect and trust in their kids in ages 1-4, it might be very hard for them later. The child could simply be an ass and refuse anything, including the punishment.
Two classic ways to fail at parenting are not setting boundaries and/or setting boundaries and not enforcing them.
Some people smack because they're lazy and uncreative. It's fast and effective because it gets the desired result for the parent. But that's not without significant unwanted consequences for the child. There is zero need to smack unless it's something extreme like immediate physical danger is present and you just need to get their attention. Even then they respond pretty well to the right voice signals.
Watch enough episodes of super nanny and it will sink in. She uses the same damn technique every. single. time. It's just consistently enforcing the boundaries. Sometimes for hours at a time if need be. This usually is on required for a few days and things change.
I'd say that so far has mapped pretty well to raising my toddler. It's not always easy but we do what we have to.
I agree with you, based in part on how I've seen some of my friends parenting their own substantially less compliant children, that the stereotype of a recalcitrant child not submitting to discipline has more to do with parental consistency and resolve than being endemic to child-rearing. One thing my kids have internalized from an early age is that no amount of bickering or disobedience will ever result in less discipline being applied; discipline and punishment only ever ramp up, never down. I also tend toward more severe punishments than many parents, which--at least in theory--sidesteps the risk of the kids developing a "tolerance" to some forms of discipline.
When it comes down to it, deprivation of activities is effective at length with all children. Children are born hedonists, and want to engage in pleasant and pleasurable activities. If I have a particular proactive disciplinary measure to apply (e.g., writing out chosen, relevant passages from Marcus Aurelius' "Meditiations"), it's almost always imposed as a substitute for some pleasant activity ("You'll do this during your normal screen time until you're done") and thus can continue in perpetuity should the kid choose to be recalcitrant. And since I'm typically there with the kid while they're doing the punishment (they're going to have questions about words, meanings, which passage is next, etc.) I can easily enforce the sequestration just by sitting by the door of the study :) There are definitely non-physical ways of punishing children that they simply can't "opt out" of.
As another example, one evening came home to learn from our kids' nanny that my two oldest boys were rude to their mother that morning. My wife had had a hard day at work as well, and getting home before her, I planned a quick trip to grab her a six pack of her favorite beer and order pizza from her favorite place. My boys, apart from having to write letters of apology to their mother, also didn't get to eat pizza. They had peanut butter sandwiches and water while we ate pizza. They wrote their apologies during their normal screen time and lost screen time privileges for a week, if I remember correctly. There's really nothing they could have done to choose "not to submit" to these punishments: if they tried to take pizza, I'd snatch it away, if they tried to use an electronic device, I lock it out of their reach. Disobedience wasn't really an option for them.
I find that the most effective punishments include a severe up-front penalty and a less severe but lingering over-time penalty. The severe frontloaded penalty makes it very clear how egregious the misbehavior was; the lower severity lingering penalty provides the opportunity over time to reinforce and reiterate how to behave better in the future.
Proper discipline takes time! I did not realize how much of my time and effort it will take to put in place proper punishments.
It's easy to yell at or hit a kid. It takes no time at all. I don't know how effective it is.
I want my kids to understand why they are getting a punishment, and have the punishment be constructive in some way, even if it is standing in a corner and thinking about what you did, or sitting in the "time out" chair and letting their emotions cool down a bit. Afterwards, we always talk about why they got punished, what they did wrong, and how they can avoid it in the future.
Yelling is interesting. I find that emotional reactive yelling is not good. Tempered and controlled yelling like the parent poster describes is much better. Getting the tone right to the situation takes practice.
I've come up with a few catch phrases that have served me well. I'm personally somewhat noise sensitive and honestly don't like the cacophony that comes with children much. But the reality is that there's nothing wrong with kids making noise: they're just being kids. My dad's catch phrase was "children are to be seen and not heard" but I don't think that's really ideal for teaching kids to be reasonably expressive, so I've leaned on "That's enough." There's no moral judgment implied, but I've reached the end of my tolerance for that particular noise, and the kid(s) needs to stop doing it.
Kids are really quite dumb. They just don't know much about the world. They don't intuitively understand why certain rules exist, and that's ok, because they're young and don't have decades of life experience to lean on. When I ask them to do something, or ask them to stop doing something, their first response is frequently "Why?" I've been there too, kid. My parents would respond "Because I said so!" which I never really understood as a kid. As an adult I realize it's because they were trying to teach me a measure of respect for and obedience to authority, and I as an adult I also realize how important it is for kids to understand that, but I think we can do better. So my response is "Does it matter?" "Clean your room." "Why?" "Does it matter?" The kid is forced to admit that "why" doesn't really matter: they've been told to do something and they must do it. Once they admit that, I happily explain to them the reasoning behind the request. I'm simultaneously teaching them intuition about the rule and that authority matters. Best of both worlds.
I had to have a recent conversation with my 9yo boy about his response to me yelling. He gets really frazzled and basically crumbles if I yell too much or too loudly or too pointedly about something. Obviously as a parent I don't like this, in much the same way that my parents would say "This hurts me more than it hurts you" when they'd spank me. (I still don't believe them, btw, but I understand where they were coming from.) So I had to explain to him that there exist people in this world who will try to use their emotions to control him. They'll use their anger to make him do things he doesn't want to do, or make him stop doing things he ought to do. He needs to be able to respond appropriately and rationally in those situations. He needs to recognize their emotions for what they are, understand the underlying reasons for those emotions, and decide what to do in response. He needs to grow into a person who doesn't let other people's emotions decide his behavior. Yelling can signal disatisfaction, but it can also provide an opportunity for kids to learn how to deal with others' emotions effectively.
The alternative to corporal punishment most commonly offered is to "reason with your child". (That's bunk from the outset. We don't let children vote or drive cars exactly because they are unreasonable.) But what do you do if your child is too violent or too stupid to reason with? You hit it anyway. The causation may be there, but it goes in the opposite direction.
Meanwhile, the alternatives offered in linked articles (e.g. https://www.healthychildren.org/English/family-life/family-d...) sound counterproductive. No conflict has ever been resolved by "actively ignoring" someone or something (it's an oxymoron anyway). The future studies investigating the long term effect of that kind of passive-aggressive behavior will be interesting.
(Just in case someone jumps to conclusions: I don't have children.)
The commonality of this qualifier kind of disturbs me.
You were a kid. Kids have no idea what they're doing or what's going on and don't deserve shit.
I was hit pretty severely by my parents. It didn't teach me any moral lessons. There's no way it would teach any child decent values, all they'll learn from it is (a) might makes right and (b) don't get caught.
I cannot conceive of and have never heard a convincing argument for seriously hitting a child. They're smaller than you, defenseless, and we're talking about a behavior that you would, hopefully, never do to a stranger, your coworkers, your friends, your spouse, etc. Why do it to your child?
The only real reason that weirdly makes sense, but I completely disagree with, is you think your child is your property, so you get to hit it.
Source: was raised like that!
It matters a lot how the parents treat you otherwise. In my case it happened rarely and it came with a scolding to clarify what I did wrong.
So yeah, it might not be Normal for you, and I am genuinely happy that you weren't abused as a child. More power to you.
This stood out to me from the article:
“Spanking alone is associated with outcomes similar to those of children who experience physical abuse, the new academy statement says.“
Spanking is not similar to child abuse. It is child abuse.
And yes, I was spanked. By my parents, and at least once by a babysitter. The only one I really remember was the babysitter, not because the pain was so bad, but because she not only pulled my pants down to do it (no padding to help me), but also eventually made me leave them down because I was going to get another spanking pretty soon anyway. You might regard that as abuse, but I remember it because it was unusual, not because it was so horrible. (And yes, I was being a snot to her...)
Other kids who were having better parents than mine are now fucking delusional while I am having the right priorities, I dont5 waste money, save as much as I can because there is no fucking way I am going to ask them for help again! Back then I was helpless, I ain't helpless any more
But that is if you arent5 fucked up, if you are then you are damaged goods for life
I was an American kid hit (many times) by parents. What you find "funny" is, well, bullshit. Consider that abuse is abuse regardless of demographic.
In general I have the feeling that americans kiss their kids' ass too much.
But its ok. I'm over it. Whatever I am is because of my past, or rather despite it.
Looking back, I don't think I was hurt by that kind of disciplining.
Anyway, something has to be used by parents to discipline their children; give them free courses, brochures, whatever with the proven methods to get kids under control.
I've seen some complete parenting failures which resulted in very spoiled and rude kids.
But you can raise them without hitting. American kids are more independent than Indian kids for a good reason. I've seen in movies that "curfew for a month" (or whatever they call it)
That never happens in India. Also the new gen parents are utter failures, at lesst majority.
Both parents work, both travel a lot to and from office, so much so that they are weekend parents and their kids are raised by Youtube.
Or course there are good number of exceptions too. But majority kids these days are raised by youtube
My nephew doesn't do anything unless you hand him youtube. He won't eat, brush or anything else.
I know. I was at the receiving end of it.
I didn't and still don't find abuse as funny. What is funny is the massive difference in raising kids. Typical American families treat their kids with respect and let them be independent. But here in India, if kids are independent by birth they are beaten badly for "speaking like an adult when it is not your place". I've seen girls and boys who are 20+yrs old and their mothers buy underwears for them!!
Isn't it funny?
And since you were hit as a child. Tell me, do you remember being beaten for a pointless reason and then you started crying and then your parents kept beating you until you stopped crying?
I remember being hit until I hit back. Then I was never hit again.
My parents are still the useless human beings they were back then and I'm better off without them.
Both of them around 5 years old went through a phase where they started dealing with anger/upset by hitting. In particular mom would enforce some limit or positive discipline or be telling them to do something and an argument would escalate to the child starting to pummel my wife.
At first this was dealt with separating them, carrying the child to their room and putting them on their bed and telling them to stay there until they have calmed down. Many discussions around better ways to respond, how to use their voice, how to manage that fire that builds up in their belly, what to do with their hands when they feel that urge to just hit, etc.
At some point you hit a wall with these strategies. It’s like telling a child “don’t run down the stairs” a hundred times but until they come crashing down and get a nasty bruise they won’t stop doing it.
So for both kids eventually there came a day when they were causing real physical harm to my wife (a small child can actually still hurt you) and it crossed a line.
“What you are doing is hurting your mom. Not just her heart but her body. It’s OK to be angry. Sometimes if you have to yell it’s OK to yell. It’s never OK to hit, kick, bite or scratch in anger. In the world if you hit someone do you know what happens? Besides getting in big trouble? You get hit back. The next time you hit your mom you’re getting a spanking.”
And then I proceeded to explain how in some houses children who misbehave get spanked, and that’s not how we choose to do it. But this has gotten to the point where we’re going to try that if it happens again.
Sure enough several days later another tantrum lead to my child starting to punch and kick.
I think in the end actually spanking my child was more memorable for me than it was for them. But I could see it clicked immediately for them.
For both of them it was a last resort, and for both of them it was necessary to finally crystallize that meltdowns can happen, but a violent meltdown is truly unacceptable.
In both cases I wished I hadn’t waited as long to finally resort to corporeal punishment because frankly the emotional distress to my wife in the meantime was a big cost to pay to avoid using it.
It’s so easy to gloss over the true grit involved in day-to-day parenting. Shit can get real, and spanking or not spanking both can carry consequences.
It’s easy to demonize the parent who resorts to spanking their child as an outlet for their own frustration. I think the modern attitude of shocked outrage to any spanking is itself damaging (even if many instances of spanking are indeed shocking and outrageous)
But it is also possible that not all children can learn all lessons aurally, and some lessons/boundaries are absolutely crucial to be established for the health and safety of the child, or the rest of the family.
I'm no parent, but I don't think it's illegal here in Aus...
In Norway I know for sure that you are very likely to loose your child for this. The "illegality" issue is more an enforcement issue. Spanking is illegal in many countries(in the EU at least) but it not enforced.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_...