Interesting that the only reference or article that Kazdin cites or links to is one about inflexible ideologies. No mention of any specific research or researchers despite nearly histrionic claims of "science says"! Yes, he may be President of APA but that does not mean he has mystical powers over the scientific literature, such that he can make it say what he wishes.

As has been pointed out "1 in 3" parents who escalate from "mild" corporal punishment to abuse does not make non-escalators "rare". Lumping all corporal punishers in together is also unfair and unscientific, and Kazdin characterizes them all as reactionary and unreflective.

He also ignores the cultural research which shows that people with different cultural backgrounds within our country have different outcomes with different parenting styles. That is, a harsh parenting style from a culture in which that harshness is the norm seems to be "associated" with the best kids. (Chao, 1994; Coulton, Korbin, Su, & Chow, 1995...actually, for a nice list of other references take a look at The Nurture Assumption by Harris, 1998).

Lastly (and perhaps most importantly) Kazdin still seems determined to ignore the behavioral genetics research, so embarrassing to the APA and established conventional wisdom, that says kids grow up to be like their parents BUT NOT BECAUSE OF HOW THEIR PARENTS TREAT THEM. That is, an impulsive parent may be more likely to engage in spontaneous violence, and to have an impulsive kid who gets into trouble. However, the mistake researchers make constantly is to assume that it's the punishment, and NOT the genes, that is causing the child to behave badly. As we become more and more aware of how genes influence behavior we have to question these assumptions...Kazdin does not.

In the end, this article claims loudly to be about empirical research but is just another political call to action from someone who is entrenched deeply on their side of the debate.

You are correct on all points, saying many of the things I would have had I had the time.

Just to add to your 2nd point ... when parents spank and society at large condemns them for it, children who catch on to this lose confidence and may reject their parent's moral authority. Kazden never considers that it takes a village to undermine good parenting, and that all the science he references is measuring is just how resentful children of a liberal village are when corporally punished.

Excellent points by both Mangar and tracker. Once again I learn so much more from reading the readers' comments than the Slatee article!

Kazdin ignores all of the Boys Town and other meta-analysis from the 1980s onward that totally disagree with this thesis. They remove violent abusers from the mix (Straus conflated beating that ended in the hospital with a swat on the behind openhanded) and found that spanking (3-6 hits with open hand on behind, ages 2-8) was AS effective as time out.

Spanking has to be mixed with another punishment to be effective. It is an attention getter that stops the behavior long enough to then institute re direction, explanation, or another punishment (taking away, etc) that has a more long term effect. They work together.

All in all, very biased.

Wonderful, Mangar. I notice there are presence of the ultra-PC'ers, "how could you every think of touching a hair on the head of beautiful children?"-crowd are absent from this thread... perhaps because your argument was backed up by multiple references and research as opposed to a single inflexible theory and anecdotes? Well put.