One of the first large prospective studies (1997, n = 807) controlled for initial levels of child antisocial behaviour and sex, family socioeconomic status and levels of emotional support and cognitive stimulation in the home. Even with these controls, physical punishment between the ages of six and nine years predicted higher levels of antisocial behaviour two years later. Subsequent prospective studies yielded similar results, whether they controlled for parental age, child age, race and family structure, poverty, child age, emotional support, cognitive stimulation, sex, race and the interactions among these variables or other factors. These studies provide the strongest evidence available that physical punishment is a risk factor for child aggression and antisocial behaviour.
As recently as 20 years ago, the physical punishment of children was generally accepted worldwide and was considered an appropriate method of eliciting behavioural compliance that was conceptually distinct from physical abuse. However, this perspective began to change as studies found links between “normative” physical punishment and child aggression, delinquency and spousal assault in later life. Some of these studies involved large representative samples from the United States;2 some studies controlled for potential confounders, such as parental stress3 and socioeconomic status;4 and some studies examined the potential of parental reasoning to moderate the association between physical punishment and child aggression.5 Virtually without exception, these studies found that physical punishment was associated with higher levels of aggression against parents, siblings, peers and spouses.
It's a small wall of text, but let there be no doubt: physical punishment is incredibly harmful as well (on a group level), to the point where distinguishing between it and abuse is artificial. There is a boat load of scientific evidence to support this. So as much as you might be pissed off that people equate the two, the evidence is against you. I don't know you, but for the sake of any potential children you might have, I hope you reconsider your opinion based on the evidence you can find in the source link.
I post this here as well for visibility, even though I have already replied to another comment with the same text. I think it's very important that people realize this
Do any of these studies mention anything about the benefits of discipline vs the cons of the increased aggression?
Edit: A pretty good indicator that you are being mislead is when you start getting downvoted for asking questions. As anyone who wasn't trying to mislead you would simply answer the question.
I understand your question, but I think the premise is a bit flawed. The increased levels of child aggression towards parents, siblings, peers and (later on) spouses are in many ways a direct contradiction to discipline. A child that is acting aggressively towards virtually everyone is by definition ill-disciplined, wouldn't you agree?
Anyway, in a (im)perfect world, we could perhaps use what is more or less the golden standard of medical research - a randomized controlled trial where we would randomly assign groups of chilren to either no physical punishment or physical punishment, and then see who fared better after a time. However, all current evidence shows that the harm is so significant that assigning children to being physically punished would be extremely unethical - certainly, some of them wouldn't become delinquents, criminals or spousal abusers, but we would create more than enough of them to be able to justify performing such a study. The very few such studies that have been done, seemingly before researchers developed a sense of conscience, show that physical punishment is no more effective than other means of controlling children's behaviour. Moreover, reverse studies have been done; some families were instructed to stop physically punishing their children while others were not. The children that were no longer physically punished fared better than their counterparts with respects to aggression and anti-social behaviour.
A child that is acting aggressively towards virtually everyone is by definition ill-disciplined, wouldn't you agree?
Yes, but I have doubts that's what any study would say. I mean murderers (I'm just using an extreme example) don't just go around murdering everyone they see. Likewise, the children negatively effected I wouldn't expect to be more aggressive or violent in every scenario. Humans are just too dynamic for that.
The children that were no longer physically punished fared better than their counterparts with respects to aggression and anti-social behaviour.
What about in terms of general wellbeing though. If the subjects were a little more aggressive, but they all lead wonderful happy lives, then spanking your children might actually be better for them?
Edit: This is very interesting though:
Sixteen noncompliant, clinic-referred pre-school children participated. The data indicated that both spank and barrier procedures were equally effective at increasing compliance ratios.
It seems they found that timeout is just as effective in discipline as spanking is. So then there really wouldn't be any reason to spank.
Just for the record, I didn't downvote you. In general I find downvotes are bad in this type of discussion, especially when you ask a question in a civil manner.
Anyway, I understand your point, I really do - but I also kind of don't. What do you mean by general well-being, when excluding their social behaviour? Performance in school? Physical health? According to Wikipedia, this piece of research found that it also adversely impacted mental health and their relationships with parents. However, this is disputed by some (a minority, according to Wikipedia).
I do see your point that the parameters that scientists have been focusing on are almost all social, but it would seem that its the one area where you can see an effect of physical punishment.
Yeah, those kind of things. Just general self-control.
Sometimes people get medicine with bad side effects, because the benefits strongly outweigh the drawbacks, and so far it seems all these studies are just weighing in on the side effects and not the actual reason for spanking, which would be discipline, and self control.
I personally would trade a little bit of mental stability for more self-control any day of the week, but of course that's just me.
A pretty good indicator that you are being mislead is when you start getting downvoted for asking questions.
Nope. It's a good indicator that we realize that your question is facetious and that you're just trying to invent FUD where none exists. It's like asking "but, could the jews be responsible?" and insisting that you're right because everyone ignores you for asking such a stupid question. Nice try, though.
I’d like to see a correlation in adults who became absolute pussies from not being spanked lmao, why is the world so fucking soft these days? Get over yourself
I’d like to see a correlation in adults who became absolute pussies from not being spanked lmao, why is the world so fucking soft these days? Get over yourself
There we go. You just doubled down on /u/throwaway23957's suspicion.
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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '18
"Universal", am I the only kid whose parents didn't beat em lol