I have not read the study, but I will bet every penny I've got that this study is fatally flawed by the exact same methodological error that makes just about every other study on spanking completely worthless.

The problem is a presumption that all spanking is abuse. So, the mother who swats her 4 year old on the behind with an open palm to get him to stop throwing his peas against the wall is lumped in with the father who beats his 12 year old with a belt because she came in 15 minutes late. The parents who reserve spanking for the most serious offenses are catagorized with the drunks who hit their kids for talking too loudly when daddy has a headache.

I would be very interested in seeing the internal data from this study. But I don't really need to, because I've seen plenty of them already. It's just another classic case of GIGO.

Garbage in, garbage out.

???? I don't see any reason why the study needs to categorize the spanking as "abuse" or not in order to generate its results. It can remain completely agnostic to the "is spanking abuse?" question and still come up with a correlation between its independent and dependent variables.

Because studies that lump in parents who judiciously use spanking as a corrective tool for intrangiently disobedient toddlers with parents who beat their kids whenever they are unhappy with them does not give an accurate picture of the results of spanking.

It would be no different then trying to judge the results of offering kids rewards for good behavior by lumping together those who offer a pizza party with your friends for a student who can raise his grade point average from a C to an A with a parent who bribes his kids with candy to get them to be quiet in the grocery store.

And since you haven't read the study, you can't really say, can you?

Murray Straus is a respected researcher in the field. He's certainly come to some conclusions about corporal punishment, but that's because he's seen decades of results on his and other researchers' studies. He puts spanking, hand slapping and so on on the same continuum with abuse for precisely the reason that even this does have a negative effect on children as has been repeatedly shown in his research: example, 18 month olds whose hands were repeatedly slapped to discourage them from touching things, fell behind kids the same age who were encouraged to learn through touch, intellectually and developmentally. It's logical: discourage someone from learning, and they will not learn.

Your overarching need to defend spanking as if it were somehow separate from other forms of physical punishment has addled your objectivity. Are you also one of those folks who thinks human beings aren't primates?

Eh. The study may not make a distinction which you believe would be interesting, but that is simply a limitation of the study. It doesn't make the research an "outright lie".

Isonomist, I don't need to read the study. You've made my point for me. Lump all forms of corporal punishment together with outright abuse, then draw the conclusion from your study that hitting your kids gets negative results.

Well, duh. Of course hitting your kids is bad, and bad for them. But that hardly demonstrates that judicious application of moderate spanking for very bad or dangerous behavior is bad for kids. In fact, the exact opposite is true.

Do you work with kids much? I do. And I can, with close to 90% accuracy, tell which kids' parents believe in spanking and which don't. Kids who know that, when it comes right down to it, Mom and Dad will enforce the rules, are almost always easier to teach, better behaved towards others, happier, and better learners.

I have three kids of my own, aged 4, 6, and 8. And I can trust them, especially the oldest. I give her freedoms that most parents think is nuts, because she has demonstrated that she can make wise decisions. The other two are well on their way, and ahead of many of their peers. It is my intention to teach my kids self-discipline so that the can control themselves.

And judicious spanking for them until about the age of 5 is absolutely essential in that training. Why? Because babies cannot understand the real consequences of many of their choices, so I have the responsibility to give them consequences they can understand. This gets them in the habit, very early in life, of thinking about the consequences for choices. This habit of thinking, then, can be developed and shaped.

It is my plan to have my kids as self-sufficent in decision making as possible, as early as possible. So far, it is working out great.

Mangar:

Eh. The study may not make a distinction which you believe would be interesting, but that is simply a limitation of the study. It doesn't make the research an "outright lie".

If a study lumped violent and non-violent criminal offenders together and drew the conclusion that criminals released from prison were highly likely to commit murder or rape within 2 years of their release without distinction for the type of crime they'd committed before going to jail, would you consider that a valid study?

I train teachers and staff in day care and early childhood classrooms, as well as parents, on positive discipline and other methods of teaching kids good behavior without hitting them. I raised two fantastic boys into wonderful young men who chose to devote their lives to helping children, oldest went to law school to become an advocate for kids in the system, and youngest is in college, majoring in chemistry with a minor in education, already hired for two years of teaching in the New York City public school system.

I think you're missing my point entirely, however. The reason that researchers "lump" spanking with other forms of physical discipline is because they are acts on the same scale with essentially the same purpose.

Oh, and you're wasting your time spanking babies under 2. They are developmentally unable to understand consequences at all. So all they learn is to be afraid of you. As for 2-5, there are far more effective methods of teaching the child discipline.

I think what you are seeing in the groups you've identified is not spanking vs. other forms of discipline, but vs. no consistent, firm, and loving discipline at all. I too, am against allowing children to raise themselves while indulging their whims.

OTOH, if you think you can trust your children, I can only suggest that you may want to rethink that belief. Children are human beings, they are driven to test boundaries, and if they're like daddy, they're smart. But don't be mad when they lie to you or steal something, or cheat at a board game or on a test. It's a normal part of growing up. All you have to do is point out why lying/cheating/stealing doesn't work. Make them perform restitution. And make them earn back your trust. No need to spank.

Yes, I would, because unless there was an irregularity in collecting the data, the results are objectively true..."criminals released from prison were highly likely to commit murder or rape within 2 years of their release".

The problem would come with the interpretation. Let's say somebody tried to use these results to conclude that the "prison culture" makes people into murdering rapists. Well, that's a conclusion that's not warranted, given the results. I would want to know if some other factor (say, the kind of crime committed) explained a significant amount of variance.

The study, as reported by Saletan in Human Nature, simply reports a correlation. That correlation is true as long as the study was carried out with the proper attention to design. However, as I said before, I'm pretty sure the interpretation is unwarranted...that there's something about the experience itself of being spanked that causes the sexual behavior. I don't think the study's results support that conclusion, even though the results themselves are true.

"Isonomist, I don't need to read the study."

Classic. I don't need to read the study to know it is wrong? That is the perfect example of a conservative's mind set. You know that answer and don't care what the evidence says. You know Iraq has WMDs so you disregard all evidence to the contrary. You don't care about the science behind global warming, you have already decided it is all made up.

[I think you're missing my point entirely, however. The reason that researchers "lump" spanking with other forms of physical discipline is because they are acts on the same scale with essentially the same purpose.]

Spanking as a planned consequence for certain defined forms of misbehavior is absolutely not in the same category as punching your son in the mouth because you didn't like something he said. That is just nonsense.

[Oh, and you're wasting your time spanking babies under 2. They are developmentally unable to understand consequences at all. So all they learn is to be afraid of you.]

Again, absolute nonsense. Children are incapable of understanding complex consequences. You cannot explain to a 15 month old the dangers of touching a stovetop that may or may not be hot. But the whole point of parental discipline is to teach kids which behaviors to avoid before you end up in the emergency room. If you think that warnings followed up with physical discipline don't register with children under two, you just simply haven't tried it.

And I guess you'll just have to take my word for it, but my kids are about as far from afraid of me as it's possible to be.

[As for 2-5, there are far more effective methods of teaching the child discipline.]

Such as?

[I think what you are seeing in the groups you've identified is not spanking vs. other forms of discipline, but vs. no consistent, firm, and loving discipline at all. I too, am against allowing children to raise themselves while indulging their whims.]

I'm not saying that spanking is the only possible form of discipline. But it is an effective tool to keep in the arsenal, when it's needed.

[OTOH, if you think you can trust your children, I can only suggest that you may want to rethink that belief. Children are human beings, they are driven to test boundaries, and if they're like daddy, they're smart. But don't be mad when they lie to you or steal something, or cheat at a board game or on a test. It's a normal part of growing up.]

I never said my kids were perfect. But I can and do trust them. Sorry for you if you can't.

[All you have to do is point out why lying/cheating/stealing doesn't work.]

That is all fine and good once the child is old enough to understand consequences.

[Make them perform restitution. And make them earn back your trust.]

Always.

Don't get the idea that I spank my kids for every offense. I don't think I've had to spank my youngest in about 6 months. And it's been years since I've spanked either of the older two. But with judicious use of spanking very early in life, you can eliminate the vast majority of common discipline problems most people face.

TJA:

"Isonomist, I don't need to read the study."

Classic. I don't need to read the study to know it is wrong? That is the perfect example of a conservative's mind set. You know that answer and don't care what the evidence says. You know Iraq has WMDs so you disregard all evidence to the contrary. You don't care about the science behind global warming, you have already decided it is all made up.

Did you even read what I wrote? I don't need to read this one, because I've already read so many others, and they all make the same methodological error in coming to the conclusion that spanking is harmful.

To my mind, True Conservative just proves TJA's point more deeply with this post. Information is to be gathered once...or, at the very least, it is to be ignored once a conclusion is reached. That is the analogy to Bush. He read "so many reports" that suggested WMD's that he decided that they were there. After that, new information was ignored. There is always a chance that things will change, True, and that the stand you took wasn't correct after all (in your case, that ALL spanking studies fail to differentiate between spanking severity). The fact that you feel you no longer need to gather the relevant information to draw your conclusions makes you worse than you accuse the study of being.

I work with kids too and I can also tell the difference between kids whose parents practice spanking and kids that aren't spanked . The kids that have parents that believe in spanking are always MUCH better behaved than the other kids. And I'm talking about moderate spankings here; not beatings or abuse or anything like that. What's funny is that even though parents who practice spanking are vilified nowadays, I've noticed they tend to be the parents that are most active and involved in their child's education. I also know if these kids do get into any serious discipline problems at school then I can just contact the parents and they deal with it instead of whining about how they aren't responsible for their kid's behavior when they are at school. It's always the touchy feely types that don't believe in any type of discipline whatsoever that always have the worst, most rotten kids, and always refuse to accept any responsibility for their child's behavior.

You aren't having a conversation, you're just saying you're right and all the research is wrong.

I'm sure your kids are fine. All I'm saying is that you can get the same result without spanking them, with less risk of negative consequences to your own behavior (ie spanking them). I'm not saying you're a bad person. You, however, seem to think everyone who doesn't spank their children is.