Spanking can worsen a child's behavior

As a child who was spanked, there was a single moment in my life where I realized as a teen, my parents didn&#x27;t spank for discipline, but they were just shitty parents. So being raised in a conservative household, obviously Fox News was on. Glenn Beck was talking about spanking your children. And he said one of the most profound things that I honestly couldn&#x27;t wrap my head around for physical punishment. He said &quot;After you spank them, you hug them. And remind them that you love them and say it!&quot;<p>That was the moment I realized my parents were just abusive and thought they could alter behavior just by beating us. I hear it all the time with their dogs. If they do something they don&#x27;t like, they don&#x27;t take time to properly train them, it&#x27;s straight to an angry tone and &quot;I&#x27;m gonna get a stick.&quot; Meanwhile I helped train these dogs and have taught them many things. On top of this they all listen and come to me without threatening them. The funniest part is my parents always say &quot;Why do they follow you all the time?&quot;<p>I almost wish I could play the curb your enthusiasm theme anytime they talk because they are absurdly out of touch with even a base line level of psychology.

Corporal punishment is banned in many countries, such as New Zealand, Sweden, Germany, Portugal, Ukraine, Israel, Denmark, Brazil, Kenya and Congo, amongst many others. These nations don&#x27;t seem to have a particular discipline problem amongst their children, so I don&#x27;t see why more countries wouldn&#x27;t legislate against a behaviour that is clearly not better than other discipline techniques, and is also known to have plenty of negative effects.<p>What is everyone else waiting for? This research reported has been consistent for over two decades — nothing is going to change through waiting, except that more children are harmed by their carers&#x27; behaviour towards them.

&gt; The most &quot;consistent support,&quot; in 13 of 19 independent studies, was that spanking and other forms of child punishment created more external problem behaviors over time, Gershoff said, such as &quot;increased aggression, increased antisocial behavior, and increased disruptive behavior in school.&quot;<p>&gt; Some studies in the review found physical punishment increased conduct problems and signs of oppositional defiant disorder, which is characterized by temper tantrums, argumentative and defiant behavior, active defiance and refusal to follow rules, spitefulness and vindictiveness.<p>But is that <i>adaptive</i> or not?

There is a difference between spanking and child abuse. The opposite of always trying to negotiate with the child also has it&#x27;s drawbacks. It moves the parent from position of authority to position of a partner and forces him&#x2F;her to negotiate over every little detail in life. Also, spanking is quite an efficient method if you get the &quot;child laying down on the floor in the middle of a department store&quot; problem. In this case negotiations won&#x27;t give you anything, unless you promise your child to buy every single thing that grabbed his attention on the shelves.

&gt; &quot;Parents hit their children because they think doing so will improve their behavior,&quot; Gershoff said.<p>That&#x27;s what parents <i>say</i>.<p>Parents hit their kids because they&#x27;re angry with no impulse control, or assholes.<p>Doing the same thing to an adult can get you an assault charge, or a punch in the face.<p>I think the punishment for corporal punishment should be jail and corporal punishment.

I want them to do this similar analysis on any shows of force, even not for particular anger filled situations.<p>For example, I have triplets, and sometimes the only way to accomplish what’s necessary at the local maximum of time and other infants benefit and parental benefit is to physically force a squirming baby into the diaper changing table. Is this along the same lines as spanking? Is there any mitigation of those behavior impacts by explaining why I’m physically forcing something?<p>As always with parenting, lots of questions and basically no answers.

Yep.<p>Anecdotally, my aunt was a Section 8 Neanderthal single-mom. She beat my cousin with a wooden spoon. Combine that with no father figure, she ran away with an infamous biker gang before she was 17.

I am fairly hesitant to share this but if I do it I should be willing to talk about it.<p>I occasionally give my son a sharp tap on the side of the head. I have 3 kids and he is the only one I do this with. Words do not work with him, at least at this age.<p>This is very close to being illegal where I come from.<p>I&#x27;m careful to do this only when he&#x27;s say, throwing things recklessly or otherwise engaging in behaviour with real risks to others.<p>It&#x27;s not a &quot;clip round the ears&quot; and it&#x27;s not meant to hurt. It&#x27;s also not intended as &quot;punishment&quot;.<p>What it is though is a reliable way to get his attention; being honest he just responds much more readily to this than words as a way to communicate &quot;stop now&quot;.<p>Sample size n=1, all families, situations and children are different.<p>As I write this and think about it I realise there is probably a better way to do this, all suggestions appreciated.<p>EDIT: previously I found myself yelling, using &quot;stern voice&quot; or physically restraining him before I got to the point of thinking about a &quot;physical signal&quot;.

One thing that can be hard to tease out in observational studies is correlation versus causation.<p>Does spanking increase the bad behavior or is bad behavior more likely to lead to spanking?<p>One thing that could help make sense of this would be to look at non-violent punishments like “time out”. Does increased use of time outs also lead to bad behavior? If so, then one might consider that the punishment is correlation not causation.

This is hardly news.