Funny how parents in the past were able to raise well mannered, healthy children without the use of any research, while modern parents are bombarded with experts giving research for this discipline method, and research for that discipline method, and yet a large amount of modern parents are completely incompetent when it comes to raising their children. This article was full of "The research says..." followed by advice that makes you wonder if the researchers have actually ever met a real life child before. Modern parents are going to have to stop listening to the advice of these so-called "experts" if they actually want to do a decent job of raising their children.Thirty years ago when children came to school they already knew how to behave, now the teacher has to spend the first few months of school trying to teach them to behave, and modern children are absolutely flabbergasted by the idea that they are actually expected to behave and do what adults tell them to do. It's like a completely foreign concept to these kids to have to do what an adult tells them to do.

Heck, I'm surprised that the author of the article was actually in favor of time-outs. One of these child psychiatrist "experts" visited our school a few months back (I'm a teacher) and told the preschool teacher that time-out was detrimental to children (based upon research, naturally!) because it hurt their feelings, and that instead of punishing children she should just explain to them why what they did was wrong. Yeah, you can just imagine how wonderfully that worked out, trying to explain to a four year old why hitting another child is wrong, and then having him do the same thing a few seconds later because he knows he won't be punished for it. One of the requirements to be a child psychiatrist must be that you are not ever allowed to have any children of your own. Let's throw out all of these parenting books, research, etc, and go back to disciplining kids the way our grandparents did, with common sense.

Who says that in the past parents that spanked raised healthy well adjusted children? The generation that thought only of spanking raised an adult generation (post WWII) that had something like a 70% divorce rate once divorce became viable. My that's a sign of a "well adjusted" generation.

They raised children that believed in Jim Crow and racial superiority. They raised children that women were not intellectually capable. They raised a nation that generally was less eductated than their western industrial peers. They raised a nation that tolerated the Ludlow Massacre, McCarthyism etc.

Note the poster's confusion about Timeouts as "punishment". Clearly befuddled about how to raise a child without punishing them into compliance, this poster cannot even conceive of timeouts as something other than punishment.

How ignorant. How sad.

degsme:

Note the poster's confusion about Timeouts as "punishment". Clearly befuddled about how to raise a child without punishing them into compliance, this poster cannot even conceive of timeouts as something other than punishment.

How ignorant. How sad.

In order to raise a child properly you must use some type of punishment. I'm sorry if that offends your delicate sensibilities, but it's plain common sense. The punishments can have double purposes, such as getting children to think about what's wrong with their behavior, but there must be some sort of punishment involved. Children don't understand and don't care about any touchy feely lectures you give them, but they do understand about not being allowed to play during recess, or having to do extra homework. "Punishing them into compliance" means that you raise your children to know right and wrong, and to know that negative consequences will occur when they do wrong. When they grow up and get out in the real world they're going to have to deal with living with the consequences of their actions, and that's why we try to teach them this as children.

We use punishment as a method of control in our society for adults also (such as prisons) and if adults must have the threat of some type of punishment in order to behave, then the same is especially true of children, who don't have the complexity of thought that adults have.

In order to raise a child properly you must use some type of punishment. I'm sorry if that offends your delicate sensibilities, but it's plain common sense.

No its not "common sense". Its an arguement by definition aka a tautological arguement. And that is a logical fallacy. There is no evidence that punishment is what teaches the difference between right and wrong, and there is plenty of evidence that punishment can teach the opposite.

So its hardly "common sense". And no the threat of punishment is not what keeps adults from misbehaving. Most intelligent people could be fairly succesful crooks if they so chose to. For example, most don't use "illegal" drugs - even though the chance of being caught doing so is under 10%.

So there is clearly a very different reason why adults 'behave". And the research on this is also pretty clear - its a combination of their self-image, of their vesting in society, and of the peer pressure/loyalty to society they feel (see The Loyal and Disloyal). So no, punishment has very little effect in "controlling" adults. If it did, there would be low rates of recidivism when in actuality they approach 75%.

So there is no evidence that punishment is what teaches right from wrong at all.

Try again - this time with some actual evidence.

How can you ask for evidence when you've given zero evidence yourself? You speak of logical fallacies yet try and connect punishment with divorce and Jim Crow laws - hardly a tight argument there. Are you saying the Jim Crow opponents weren't punished as children? Are you saying divorce rates would plumment if only we stopped spanking? You need to show me that study.

The fact is that pain retains. I'll use time outs and other techniques for small infractions, but there is nothing wrong (and a whole lot right) with a well timed swat to the bottom. It worked for me, my siblings, and billions of other people for the last 10,000 years.

Well the data on the divorce rates is pretty clear. The claim was that the generation in which spanking was considered good child rearing, one in which "compliant behaviour" was valued, was well adjusted. I simply pointed out that the moment there was no financial penalty in not being complaint, they abandoned compliant behaviour in their most important relationship. This puts lie to the notion that compliant behaviour - the only thing that has consistently been cited as the reason for spanking - is hardly a measure of being "well adjusted".

And I guess you see nothing wrong in bullies, in adults hitting children. Because no matter the euphemisms you use, spanking is an adult hitting a child. Using hitting or the threat of hitting to force a weaker person into compliance is bullying.

And as your lack of willingness to own your behaviour indicates - it clearly did NOT work for you.

As for the billions over the last 10,000 years - they also believed that if you sailed too farr from shore, you fell off the earth. You want to joint that level of rationality? Well no one can stop ignorance.

So children who are spanked get divorced, believe in Jim Crow and racial superiority, believe women are not intellectually capable, are less educated, and tolerate the Ludlow Massacre and McCarthyism and other examples of uncivil behavior.

And those who opposed or wanted to improve each of these wrongs at the time were thus ipso facto people whose exceptional parents didn't spank them.

And spankling must iobviously be making a resurgence or perhaps never went away, because the US test results are not much improved. In fact, the difficulty with passing standardized tests shows that many, many children walk home from school in order to be whaled on immediately and fiercely by their parents.

Don't you think you exaggerated, just a bit?

"Well the data on the divorce rates is pretty clear."

I am aware of no data that links spanking to divorce rates, positively or negatively. You are comparing apples to oranges here.

And I guess you see nothing wrong in bullies, in adults hitting children. Because no matter the euphemisms you use, spanking is an adult hitting a child. Using hitting or the threat of hitting to force a weaker person into compliance is bullying.

No, I don't see a problem with a parent hitting their child with the caveat that it shouldn't be done excessively (as defined by law). Your comparison of parents to bullies is unfair and inaccurate. I don't recall ever seeing a bully in school hit someone because the bully wanted to ensure the safety and social adjustment of the person he or she hit.

" And as your lack of willingness to own your behaviour indicates - it clearly did NOT work for you."

Let's see, no criminal record, good job, happy marriage, active in my community. Yeah, I'm a complete failure. Those horrible spankings I got made me a monster. More seriously, one could argue that since my example is only anecdotal, it isn't representative, yet the amount of anecdotal evidence arguing that spanking is not harmful is truely huge.

" they also believed that if you sailed too farr from shore, you fell off the earth. You want to joint that level of rationality? Well no one can stop ignorance.

The "falling off the edge of the earth" belief is mainly a myth. The greeks believed the Earth was a sphere, as did many other ancient cultures. Besides, you are commiting another fallacy in assuming that one inccorrect belief means that another completely unrelated belief is wrong. "

My point about the billions before us is merely that if spanking were in fact as harmful as you imply, then it seems strange that western civilization would have reached the level it has. Even if you were to convince me that spanking was harmful in any context, you still would need to convince me that its harm outweighs the harm of millions of people not using corrective techniques (or more accurately, misusing them) on their children.

Finally, what many anti spanking zealots refuse to see is that every kid is different. My wife was spanked maybe once in her entire life, she was just a good kid. You give my toddler to my goodmother and she can't figure out what to do. Time outs and such just don't work. And just spounting off about "the cycle of violence" does not make a very convincing argument.

Dude, the argument goes like this: "Back in the day, everyone spanked, and everyone turned out fine."

Well, everyone did not turn out fine, so that argument goes out the window. That doesn't mean that spanking does or does not work, it just means that the original argument was weak.

If you think spanking is a good idea, give a good reason.

The claim made that I was responding to, was the claim that spanking resulted in a generation of better mannered and better adjusted adults than subsequent generations where spanking was less.

Yet this was the same generation that supported Jim Crow, had a 70% divorce rate. IOW compliant behaviour as children as a consequence of spanking did nothing to make them well adjusted, compliant adults.

And while you aren't necessarily a failure, you feel its ok to bully and hit children. That's something that is very much a mark of the violence done to you.

My point about the billions before us is merely that if spanking were in fact as harmful as you imply, then it seems strange that western civilization would have reached the level it has

This doesn't follow in any sense whatsoever. Violent society's can and do make progress. Stalin in particular ran a very succesful scientific development program in which the scientists worked under the threat of torture and death both to themselves and more significantly to their loved ones.

But I sure don't think that's a good way to build the society I want to live in.

Remember we used to use children as cheap labor, blithely willing to let them lose limbs and lives just to get cheaper coal and hot-dogs. That too didn't prevent society from progressing.

So clearly hitting children is less harmful than having their hands ripped off by a meat-grinder or crushed by a weaving loom. Does that mean its ok to hit children?

The response was weak. I don't think that spanking or not spanking is the most important decision made about raising children.

But moral education begins with reward/punishment. Many people advance beyond avoiding disapproved behavior because of threats, but use of punishment is a start. It's comprehensible to a young child.

The article was right to a degree: time outs are equivalent to spankings in that they express disapproval. Maybe less effectively, maybe more effectively.

But what's wrong with expressing disapproval beyond verbally?

Those who give such advice as we read in the article either really believe that the action of spanking - even with a rolled newspaper - teaches the wrong lesson, or their goal is to give themselves the satisfaction of controling others' behavior. Sometimes the experts' arguments are so exaggerated that the intent seems to be Say anything to make the adult do as told.

Hmmm.

Maybe the experts are so aggravating that we can deal directly with the problem. If a child misbehaves, require him to spend some time with an expert, one who will follow his own best advice. The worse, the more often repeated the offense, the more time with the expert.

Eventually the child will bring the parent a rolled up newspaper and say Please, please. Or even not offend at all. Fear of experts is an advance in moral education over fear of punishment.

Stalin's science program was not successful. Agriculture, for example, was under the charge of an individual who thought Mendel was wrong.

Stalin's minions stole some good, important information and his scientists were quick to use what they were told. The threat of death or exile (which were equivalent) did provide incentive to work late hours, I admit.

But there's a difference between a conscienceless maniac and a parent patiently and lovingly teaching his children, honest.

They designed some very effective fighters and bombers and even were ahead of the Germans on jet engine power.

And was it less effective than one based in reward not fear? Sure. But it was sufficiently succesful to obviate the claim that civilization wouldn't be where it is today if fear and violence were harmful - which was the claim