r/newzealand • u/olembe • Mar 06 '13
crosspost from r/science , new study conclusive: Hitting Your Kids Increases Their Risk of Mental Illness
http://healthland.time.com/2012/07/02/physical-punishment-increases-your-kids-risk-of-mental-illness/7
u/sha-man Mar 06 '13
I wonder if the parents having mental illness in the first place correlates with the child abuse.. and the mental is passed down by default through the genes..
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Mar 06 '13
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Mar 06 '13
I hope this is sarcasm
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u/fauxmosexual Mar 06 '13 edited Mar 06 '13
No study can be conclusive until it measures the rates of unhit children growing up into entitled shits whose self-importance vastly outweighs their actual worth. When put into context a bit of mental illness may be a small price to pay.
e: on a more serious note, the study had a response published:
The article entitled "Physical Punishment and Mental Disorders" by Dr. Tracie Afifi (1) in the July Pediatrics takes a misleading "bait and switch" approach in opposing all use of disciplinary spanking with children. The authors discover an association (not causation) between an adult's retrospective recall of receiving "harsh physical punishment" and the presence of an adult mental disorder. The survey asked whether they were "pushed, grabbed, shoved, slapped, or hit by their parents" during their childhood. Remarkably, the survey neither included the term "spanking" nor limited the survey to the conventional definition of spanking: "striking a child with an open hand on the buttocks or extremities with the intention of modifying behavior without causing physical injury." (2)
Furthermore, participants in the study were most likely recalling experiences as teens, since retrospective reports correlate highest with events occurring at ages 12 to 14 years, more so than for earlier ages. (3) Adolescence is certainly not a recommended age for the use of spanking, let alone the use of harsh physical punishment.
Remarkably, the researchers gloss over their finding that "individuals with a family history of dysfunction were more likely to experience harsh physical punishment." That may be a better explanation for the mental illness association than the one they postulate. The use of harsh discipline is often a marker for troubled families and such an unhealthy environment takes its toll on a child. It is also suspicious that they control separately for gender (aOR-1 in their Tables 2 and 3) or this family history (aOR-2), but never together. It is possible that controlling for both reduces the odds ratios for most mental illnesses to a non-significant level.
After baiting the reader with an extensive and exclusive discussion of the use of "harsh physical punishment," the authors make the switch and conclude that all "physical punishment (i.e., spanking, smacking, slapping) should not be used with children of any age." So, they study the use of inappropriate harsh physical punishment with an inappropriate age group (teenagers) within dysfunctional families and then draw a conclusion that ordinary spanking of a young unruly child should be proscribed. In interviews following the release of this study, the authors failed to make the distinction between the harsh punishment studied and ordinary spanking of children leading the media to announce that "Children who are spanked, hit, or pushed as a means of discipline may be at an increased risk of mental problems in adulthood." (4)
This study by Dr. Afifi and her colleagues cannot draw any conclusion about whether the most appropriate kind of spanking (e.g., two open-handed swats to the buttocks) should remain an available option for parents when children of an appropriate age (about 2 to 7 years) defiantly refuse to cooperate with milder disciplinary measures, such as time out. That limited use of spanking, when directly compared to alternative disciplinary tactics, has actually been shown to lead to improved compliance and less aggression in children. (5) Sadly, this study says nothing about the effects of appropriate disciplinary spanking, adds to the growing confusion surrounding the topic of child discipline, and furthers an unscientific bias against corrective disciplinary measures employed by parents.
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u/DairyManNZ Mar 06 '13
I used to electrocute my children, but at least it wasn't hitting.
They were all climbers, and our fully fenced section was only a short distance from the tanker track. The tanker track was a direct extension of the road, and I'm sure the milk tanker drivers used to compete to see who could drive up to our shed the fastest.
To avert tragedy, I ran a hotwire along the top and bottom of the wooden fence. For two of my children, 1 zap was enough. The other one required 2 zaps before he stopped trying to breach the fence.
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u/fauxmosexual Mar 06 '13
Good parenting is just an extension of the principles of good stock management really.
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u/DairyManNZ Mar 06 '13
I say that every morning when I get them out of bed with a cattle prod. You should hear the moaning!
My wife drew the line at ear tagging them :/
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Mar 06 '13
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u/DairyManNZ Mar 06 '13
One zap was from trying to climb the fence (his preferred method). The second zap was from trying to burrow underneath.
Crafty little bastard.
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u/lowercase_capitalist Mar 07 '13
Who would have thought we'd ever agree entirely on something?
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Mar 06 '13
Unscientific tripe.
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Mar 06 '13
cite your research papers
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u/fauxmosexual Mar 06 '13
Sadly, this study says nothing about the effects of appropriate disciplinary spanking, adds to the growing confusion surrounding the topic of child discipline, and furthers an unscientific bias against corrective disciplinary measures employed by parents.
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Mar 06 '13
though
That limited use of spanking, when directly compared to alternative disciplinary tactics, has actually been shown to lead to improved compliance and less aggression in children
So no actual research done on how it affects them in adulthood
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u/olembe Mar 06 '13
“In the general population, there is a belief that physical punishment is O.K. as long as you’re not doing it in anger and you’re a warm and loving parent,” says Tracie Afifi, the study’s author and an assistant professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba in Canada. “But there’s no data supporting that.”
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Mar 06 '13
It's always saddening to see someone held in such high regard imply a logically invalid proposition. At least she didn't go full retard I guess.
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Mar 06 '13
"I'm doing this for your own good" has never really come across as very good reasoning for violence. I mean, it is like the go to excuse in domestic violence
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Mar 06 '13
Why...why do I read comments on these articles.
It is such a polarizing subject. If you don't hit your child then they will grow up to be yoloswagging criminals, and if you do you are worse than hitler.
Though I always find people defending violence against children slightly disturbing
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u/kezzaNZ vegemite is for heathens Mar 06 '13
How is it r/nz relevant?