Study Links Spanking to Later Mental Disorders: Is Spanking Ever OK?

by mrosen814 Posted 2012/07/11 21:00:00

Related Topics: Health, Disorders, Spanking, Discipline, Mental Health, Parenting, Life, Personality

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	Yes	549 votes	73%
	No	205 votes	27%

A study from the American Academy of Pediatrics shows that physical punishment to discipline children, has a strong association with "...increased risks of mental and personality disorders, as well as drug and alcohol abuse."

Though the article points out that spanking does not cause mental health disorders, researchers claim there is a strong correction. The results "send a strong message that spanking should never be used on a child," states Abel Ickowicz, psychiatrist-in-chief at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.

THEGLOBEANDMAIL.COM reports:
Data doesn’t show that it causes mental disorders, but it does present a statistically significant correlation

+49

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XRenX 2012/07/11 21:50:43 (edited)

Yes

+36
I will. Spare the rod spoil the child. I got spankings (the rare few times I needed them) and I am fine. I am a college student, going back this year...I don't think I am crazy. Oh and I recall the singer P!nk saying she was a bad child and is grateful for the spanking discipline she got, otherwise she'd have gone down another path. Not every study is accurate.

There was a study about weed damaging brain cells (not that I smoke it) and one about classical music making you smarter...both were proven to be myths. I am sick of all these parents now, being too lenient. Do you think that is good? They let their kids smoke, have sex, disrespect them, HIT them, scream and holler in public, etc. Teach them that YOU are in charge and as a parent, you have every God given right to be. You have more life experience than them of course they may not understand every form of discipline or restriction you put on them even upon an explanation. Look at it this way, say you have tried every form of discipline/help there is, except spanking and if all else failed, what would you do? Try what works and if it does, (and it isn't illegal) use it. We need to stop confusing necessary discipline for abuse.

DISCIPLINE THEM EFFECTIVELY SOME HOW! We don't need anymore criminals than we have now, be a parent. Thank you.
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More polls by mrosen814

c.stuar... to Maurice... 2012/07/14 15:40:36

Another good point. A couple of times, we forced our will through other means than spanking. This was also rare, but it was rare because we DID IT when we had to, and therefore taught our children that "resistance is futile". Of course, this required that you use care in setting rules. My mother used to whip us for going outside without shoes when she didn't think it was warm enough. That kind of thing teachers children to ignore you and leads to increased violence.

Another very important thing we did was allow natural consequenses--including making the girls carry their shoes and socks in the car and put them on at school.

Once, my then three year old threw a toy down in a parking lot tanturm and we drove off of left it----except that I had serrepticiously tossed it in the trunk. By the time we got across town, she had relented and we "went back" to a lot nearby our house where we let her "go look for it". She never knew until we told her about it as a teenager.

Now, that was pretty cruel. But it taught her an important lesson and eliminated much future conflict.

But then you also have to back off and let out the slack--they aren't robots. Parenting is a balancing act, and it's HARD for that reason, and if you don't think so, you aren't doing it right.

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Chris 2012/07/13 23:10:15 (edited)

No

+4
People seemed to have forgotten what learning discipline means, it is not synonymous with punishment.

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addie 2012/07/13 23:04:34

No

+5
Is it ever okay to hit a, defenseless, child??
Sure if you are too stupid to teach a child any other way.

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c.stuar... to addie 2012/07/14 15:44:47

I agree, but children are not entirely defenseless. By the time they are three or four, they are quite capable of manipulating their social environment, even pitting parents against one another. That's why WE are here instead of Neanderthals.

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addie to c.stuar... 2012/07/14 16:14:32

My Dachshund manipulates me too, but, like if I let a kid do it, it is really my fault.
well, no, the dog is a little bit evil. B)

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Kyra 2012/07/13 22:52:19 (edited)

No

+5
There are MANY other ways of teaching children what is right and wrong.... hitting them like you are a caveman does not work and teaches them it's ok to run around hitting people like you do, which is obvious you don't know much if you are hitting a kid.

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MissDiva 2012/07/13 22:22:31

No

+5
I have never and will never believe in it. Children are humans, not toys.

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Michelle 2012/07/13 21:56:35

Yes

+2
It depends on the age and the individual child. You can't reason with a 2 year old that is running away from you in a parking lot, they don't understand or correlate the dangers of getting hit by a car, etc -- but if you spank their butt a few times every time they run away from you, they'll correlate that!

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addie to Michelle 2012/07/13 23:09:53

+3
If the child is too young to understand certain dangers then you should be watching it and not let it run around a parking lot.

The caretaker should get hit for that, not the child.

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c.stuar... to addie 2012/07/14 15:46:35

We used to put ours on a leash, something a lot of people also think is cruel. I always though that was incredibly stupid. My oldest loved the freedom of the leash, and I always knew I could pull her to safety in a heartbeat.

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Joyce B... to c.stuar... 2012/07/14 18:28:02

That is great. Restraint is not hitting.

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VICTORIA to Michelle 2012/07/14 03:41:54

+1
My mother always held my hand.

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c.stuar... to VICTORIA 2012/07/14 15:47:17

We always played "One, Two, Three, pick me in the air" and they never even knew we were restraining them.

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VICTORIA to c.stuar... 2012/07/15 03:43:52

They knew. Ask them. There never existed any incident where we children were running amuck in parking lots- because my Mom held our hands.
Yes, it required more attention and energy and work.
She never considered whether we would "enjoy more freedom".

It wasn't an option- why would it be? We didn't have the tools to handle freedom;
We needed solicitous and persistent attention.
We needed to be cared for and protected.
It was a lot of work for her- but it was work she loved.

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c.stuar... to Michelle 2012/07/14 15:45:24

Well said.

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Bunk11 2012/07/13 20:57:59

Yes

+1
It was an atrociously designed study. If it weren't for political correctness, it would never have gotten published. There are so many things wrong with this study that if it were presented as an undergraduate project, it might get a C-; as a graduate project it would get an F.

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Georgia50 to Bunk11 2012/07/14 02:50:38 (edited)

Yep. Should be filed under "Focus on the headline and ignore the study."

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edifyguy 2012/07/13 20:32:58

Yes

+3
Yes. Anyone who thinks otherwise probably has no children. I have seen so many well-behaved children who get spanked, and so many badly-behaved children who don't get spanked that I think that the correlation is irrefutable. Only in the last few decades has the practice even been questioned. We think we're too evolved to spank now........and people of all ages have never been more badly-behaved.

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Joyce B... to edifyguy 2012/07/14 18:39:27

+2
How do you define well-behaved? Obedient to authority? Cowed into submission to all adults? The most remarkable child I know has never been spanked or hit in any way, but she is kind and considerate to everyone and a joy to be around. The correlation to badly-behaved children is not whether they have been spanked, but whether the parents have taken the trouble to actually raise them personally. These days when both parents have to work to pay the bills, children are being raised negligently or by strangers who don't know or care how to treat them like human beings.

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edifyguy to Joyce B... 2012/07/17 20:53:03

In this we agree completely! I despise the negligence of most parents. However, both parent's DON'T have to work to pay the bills if you keep the bills low. Don't spend lots of money on lifestyle, and you can have a single breadwinner. I know this from experience.

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Joyce B... to edifyguy 2012/07/18 15:34:48 (edited)

You are right, and people who have the self-discipline to live within their means and devote more time to personal child rearing are more likely to teach their children self-discipline without hitting them. Every study on spanking in the past decade has shown even slight violence against children being associated with mental and/or psychological problems later, but most parents ignore them because it takes massive amounts of time and self-discipline to reason with small children instead of using the quick fix of violence they were taught by their own parents. That doesn't mean every spanked child has those problems, just like every severely abused child doesn't turn out badly, but why would parents take the risk?

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jman1248 2012/07/13 20:22:56

Yes

only for cetain kids.its more of a reward for emo people

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BoardinOK 2012/07/13 19:41:11

Yes

+4
Spanking, yes; beating, no.

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c.stuar... to BoardinOK 2012/07/14 15:48:44

+1
You get the "Essential succintness" prize.

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Bob 2012/07/13 19:26:01 (edited)

Yes

+1
God yes. Not a beating, but a few good whacks when necessary might help them later in life. I turned out fine. hehehe

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Raphy 2012/07/13 19:24:04

Yes

+2
Give it another year or so an they will come back with another study saying spanking is not bad for raising children.

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Bob to Raphy 2012/07/13 19:26:56

We live in a crazy world.

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kal98 to Raphy 2012/10/31 01:45:13

+1
u correct!

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Juan O'Mara 2012/07/13 18:59:22

Yes

juan he tink spanking ist guten he no looky back on heems chidhood as bad een zee barrio.

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Meek Whon 2012/07/13 18:49:29

Yes

+1
causation vs correlation

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Magical Mushroom 2012/07/13 18:42:58

No

+2
If you want to make them a angry adult like me don't do it.

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amandakevins 2012/07/13 18:20:32
c.stuar... to amandak... 2012/07/14 15:51:25

Tapping a diapered butt it a bad way to find out what's in a diaper. When ours were in diapers, we popped them on the forarm or thigh mostly, and not hard at all. At that age, you mostly just spoil them with love and they try to behave.

When they reach the terrible-twos, we would just get down on the floor and start pounding and crying and they would laugh and forget what they were mad about. Distraction is far more important than spanking.

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hat man 2012/07/13 18:20:24

No

+3
Well I wouldn't hit children. They can't defend themselves. My parents sure believed in hands on discipline and whilst I was never spanked I was slapped every time they thought I was in the wrong (as if they can judge). And it didn't make me see the 'right way' it just made me hate my parents. Though I tried to control it. Every time they lay their hands on me in aggression I wanted to smash their heads through the window. And in the later stages of my childhood I could have done it if I wanted to and that thought just made it all the worse. But I got through it and I don't hate them anymore.

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Bunk11 to hat man 2012/07/13 21:01:02

+2
I suspect the problem was not that your parents hit you, but that they hit you for the wrong reasons, so you hated them not for the act of being hit, but because they did it unjustly. I wasn't in your house, so I don't know, but I'm gauging by my own experience and that of my friends.

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c.stuar... to Bunk11 2012/07/14 15:53:52 (edited)

Well said. My mother always made a point of waiting to whip us so she wouldn't be mad---but then had no sense of proportionality. Sometimes, I'd much rather have been whipped than listen to her prattle on all night--which only bred contempt.

Then my friend's family used merits and demerits, and if you earned enough demerits, you got a whipping. DON'T DO THIS. Punishment, whatever it is, must be timely and proportionate.

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VICTORIA to c.stuar... 2012/07/15 03:45:25

hmmm

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kal98 2012/07/13 17:44:53

No

+1
is this study by the same people that supports vaccinations loaded with mercury and other crapola? I think all mammals discipline their offspring horses with a nip or swift kick, bears with a good cuffing, tigers grab em by the throat, sometimes a quick whack on the rear reinforces the "I am the parent you are the child" and this behavior is not acceptable, Im not talking about excessive beatings! verbal abuse is even worse , rejection by a parent has lieflong effect as well! when in doubt read up on effective parenting!

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VICTORIA to kal98 2012/07/14 03:45:06

+1
Horses never nip or kick their foals.
I don't know why you think tigers grab their cubs by the throat.
Both of your examples demonstrate an unfamiliarity with the animal kingdom-
and even less with the species of humans.

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kal98 to VICTORIA 2012/10/31 01:39:55

u oviously do not live in the country i do and worked with zoo animals but I wont lv a negative commit about u commit

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