Researchers say smacking kids lowers their IQ, researchers need a smack.

[Vonhelmet]

Occasional physical correction is not going to do anyone any permanent harm. And by occasional, I mean I think I've had to smack my 3 year old once or twice because she was doing something dangerous and needed a strong warning that some instructions must be obeyed without question.

On the occasions it has been needed my wife or I will smack the back of her hand. Does it hurt? Yes, it does. It'll sting and then it'll pass and that will be it - a lesson learnt. I have no qualms about this and I have no concerns that she is growing up to learn that violence is always ok or that she'll end up dumber for it.

The majority of sensible parents should not be prevented from using a valid means of discipline just because the minority are beating the living daylights out of their kids on a regular basis.

 

[Calabi]

But does it effect your height?

 

[vincent1989]

Occasional physical correction is not going to do anyone any permanent harm. And by occasional, I mean I think I've had to smack my 3 year old once or twice because she was doing something dangerous and needed a strong warning that some instructions must be obeyed without question.

On the occasions it has been needed my wife or I will smack the back of her hand. Does it hurt? Yes, it does. It'll sting and then it'll pass and that will be it - a lesson learnt. I have no qualms about this and I have no concerns that she is growing up to learn that violence is always ok or that she'll end up dumber for it.

The majority of sensible parents should not be prevented from using a valid means of discipline just because the minority are beating the living daylights out of their kids on a regular basis.

exactly. a calm smack on the hand or bum can mean the difference between a teary eyed but ultimately safe child and a teary eyed child on the way to hospital because they've found a knife or a lighter, or a pair of scissors, and done themselves far greater physical harm.

smacking =/= beating, beating (ie numerous and unnecessary smacking, punching kicking biting etc) is physical abuse, smacking is letting your child know that what they're doing is not good for themselves or the people around them when all alternatives have failed.

may parents did this to me, and their parents did it to them and i've no doubt my great grandparents did it to them. i can probably count the number of times i've been smacked on my fingers and i doubt it's done me any harm, it's certainly spared me from a lot more.

 

[mrk]

Please tell me you're joking.

Here, have this sugar pill. Come back to me in 20 years, if you're not dead it worked! The homeopaths must love you.

I have no idea what the Kanye West you're talking about so will choose to not confuse myself with your rambling.

 

[BigglesPiP]

We need to do an experiment here:

Take 100 unspanked kids.
IQ test for all.
Spank 50 every time they speak for a year.
IQ test again.

 

[D.P.]

How about this, kids with a lower IQ get in trouble more...

Indeed, as a fully trained psychologist with a degree in psychology (and Artificial Intelligence), and as a scientist researching a PhD in a top European technical institute, I would have to say I am completely stumped at how one could design such an experiment to ensure a causality.

 

[D.P.]

Kids who get smacked gets the message that violence is the answer to things that are wrong.

Peer reviewed high impact factor Evidence?

 

[Vonhelmet]

We need to do an experiment here:

Take 100 unspanked kids.
IQ test for all.
Spank 50 every time they speak for a year.
IQ test again.

Brilliant. You'll then succeed in proving that long term physical and - much more importantly in your example - psychological abuse retards development.

What's that going to prove about occasional, measured physical correction?

 

[D.P.]

There's been plenty of reasearch into smacking, this is hardly a unique finding. It's a rubbish form of punishment.

Good parents both don't use it, and don't need to use it.

Utter cods wallop. Point me toward these peer reviewed scientific articles in well known journals....

 

[D.P.]

A child is little different to any other animal, IQ and cognitive abilities all much the same. For our puppies we use an electroshock therapy in training in extreme circumstances, such as if they worry sheep. Talk about effective, 1 single trial was all it took for the Pavlovian training to be demonstrated. We now have puppies that will keep a respectful distance from sheep.

I'm not advocating electroshock therapy on humans, but highlighting the basic principles of how physical contact is effective. This is how a child learns, based on Hebbian learning of the cortex. Child reaches up to handle of saucepan and boiling water is poored all over them. Child learns. Child runs around supermarket screaming and receives a stern warning. Child promptly stops but no inherent memory is stored and not synapses strengthen. Next week, same ordeal - child misbehaves is told of, temporarily stops, does not learn. Ad infinitum. After some threshold of tolerance of the parent is surpassed, said parent gives a short sharp tab on the child but. The mere act of a negative physical stimulus automatically and subconciously creates a neuro-connections in the childs ever adapting brain. Child learns very quickly after neuro-modulation.

A child is not innocent, its sole purpose is to exploit its social environment as much as possible. Children are intrinsicly selfish, and are so wired from birth for important survival reasons. Throughout nature in social mammals, it is the parents who must define the social boundries of right and wrong. Otherwise the child learns the interaction with the world based on reward and cost, the difference between finding food or being poisoned. We want children that act in our world within our social values. We must impinge these values on children and teach them right form wrong. A child does not intricately know right from wrong. Theft is a very useful natural survival mechanism in the wild, but should be discouraged form our society.

The only challenge is to properly define the threshold form which a telling off must surpass to a short and non-injuring physical punishment. Physical affects are proven time and time and time again to be successful in reinforcement learning. Be this rewards for positive behaviours orpunishments for negative. A mammalian brain will and does learn form such basic principles. It is hard-wired and irrefutable.

 

[Maximum Triceratops]

Occasional physical correction is not going to do anyone any permanent harm. And by occasional, I mean I think I've had to smack my 3 year old once or twice because she was doing something dangerous and needed a strong warning that some instructions must be obeyed without question.

On the occasions it has been needed my wife or I will smack the back of her hand. Does it hurt? Yes, it does. It'll sting and then it'll pass and that will be it - a lesson learnt. I have no qualms about this and I have no concerns that she is growing up to learn that violence is always ok or that she'll end up dumber for it.

The majority of sensible parents should not be prevented from using a valid means of discipline just because the minority are beating the living daylights out of their kids on a regular basis.

A stern talking to would provide you with the same results and if you carry on smacking her then theres a good chance she will resent you for it in later life. I am not saying what you do is totally wrong but in my opnion there are better ways of doing things.

 

[D.P.]

A stern talking to would provide you with the same results and if you carry on smacking her then theres a good chance she will resent you for it in later life. I am not saying what you do is totally wrong but in my opnion there are better ways of doing things.

There is absolutely no evidence that a stern talking will produce the same result, quite the contrary, and there is no evidence that an extremely rare smack of the hand will result in any kind of long term negative affection.

Animals and children are certainly both alert to the tone of communication (e.g. a dog growl with point ears, or an adult talking strongly with angry expression). They both perceive this and process this as information, but they have no fundamental mechanism to learn from this outright. They can indeed learn, but definitely it is much slower. A physical reaction to an action stimulates a natural recinforcement learning event. You touch fire and it hurts, you learn after 1-2 trials. If a child gets told off it will try to explore the limits of acceptability and will seek reaffirment that said action definitely leads to a negative tone of the parent.

 

[Maximum Triceratops]

There is absolutely no evidence that a stern talking will produce the same result, quite the contrary, and there is no evidence that an extremely rare smack f the hand will result in any kind of long term negative affection.

Animals and children are certainly both alert to the tone of communication (e.g. a dog growl with point ears, or a an adult talking strongly). They both perceive this and process this as information, but they have no fundamental mechanism to learn from this outright. They can learn, but definitely it is much slower. A physical reaction t an action stimulated a natural recinforcement learning event. You touch fie and it hurts, you learn after 1-2 trials. If a child gets told off it will try to explore the limits of acceptability and will seek reaffirment that said action definitely leads to a negative tone of the parent.

I have evidence so I dont need to gather any as this is what I do with my child and it works. I also learnt to resent my parents in later life through them smacking me as a child, sooo meh.

 

[D.P.]

I have evidence so I dont need to gather any as this is what I do with my child and it works.

1 anecdote does not make data, and science is based on the statistical analysis of data and the development of mathematical models behind the theoretic analysis.

Has your child resented you yet for smacking them, or are you making this up?


EDIT: but if you can properly bring up your child without smacking then this is very applaudable and shows excellent parenting skills and a bright child. However, You just can't generalise across a population and ignore the underlying biology of learning.

 

[Maximum Triceratops]

1 anecdote does not make data, and science is based on the statistical analysis of data and the development of mathematical models behind the theoretic analysis.

Has your child resented you yet for smacking them, or are you making this up?


EDIT: but if you can properly bring up your child without smacking then this is very applaudable and shows excellent parenting skills and a bright child. However, You just can't generalise across a population and ignore the underlying biology of learning.

Mate, I cant compete with your scientific knowledge on the subject. But in MY opinion there are various other methods of disciplining your child that are just, if not more effective than smacking them.

 

[Orcish-Horde]

There's been plenty of reasearch into smacking, this is hardly a unique finding. It's a rubbish form of punishment.

Good parents both don't use it, and don't need to use it.

Why do parents call it Smacking? when really they are hitting their child

From my prospective a slap or smack is just a tap with the fingers. The child does wrong, No! Tap on the hand or bum. Then you explain what they did wrong and why it is wrong. Then its forgoten and we move on to something else.

As for hitting, if I hit a child I would easy do damage as am a big powerfully built man. If I raise my voice everyone around me is put on edge, so I don't as I believe it would do more harm than good to my children. I also believe that behavioural correction should be short and sharp leaving them no doubt that what they did was wrong, non of this suppernanny 10 minutes to think over your actions nonsence.

 

[Mr Jack]

Utter cods wallop. Point me toward these peer reviewed scientific articles in well known journals....

Sure:

Durrant, J. E. (2003). Legal reform and attitudes toward physical punishment in Sweden. International Journal of Children's Rights, 11, 147-173.

Durrant, J. E. (1999). Evaluating the success of Sweden's corporal punishment ban. Child Abuse and Neglect, 23, 435-448.

Douglas, E. M., & Straus, M. A. (2006). Assault and injury of dating partners by university students in 19 countries and its relation to corporal punishment experienced as a child. European Journal of Criminology, 3, 293-318.

Gershoff, E. T. (2002). Corporal punishment by parents and associated child behaviors and experiences: A meta-analytic and theoretical review. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 539-579.

Grusec, J. E., & Goodnow, J. J. (1994). Impact of parental discipline methods on the child's internalization of values: A reconceptualization of current points of view. Developmental Psychology, 30, 4-19.

Gunnoe, M. L., & Mariner, C. L. (1997). Toward a developmental-contextual model of the effects of parental spanking on children's aggression. Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, 151, 768-775.

Janson, S. (2005). Response to Beckett (2005) The Swedish myth: The corporal punishment ban and child death statistics. British Journal of Social Work, 35, 125-138.

Turner, H. A., & Muller, P. A. (2004). Long-term effects of child corporal punishment on depressive symptoms in young adults: Potential moderators and mediators. Journal of Family Issues, 25, 761-782.

---

There's plenty more out there if you want to look it up.

 

[Loki]

From my prospective a slap or smack is just a tap with the fingers. The child does wrong, No! Tap on the hand or bum. Then you explain what they did wrong and why it is wrong. Then its forgoten and we move on to something else.

As for hitting, if I hit a child I would easy do damage as am a big powerfully built man. If I raise my voice everyone around me is put on edge, so I don't as I believe it would do more harm than good to my children. I also believe that behavioural correction should be short and sharp leaving them no doubt that what they did was wrong, non of this suppernanny 10 minutes to think over your actions nonsence.

Agree 100% there dude. So many people playing the nanny state card in this thread it's laughable. Smacking is a very very lazy form of parenting if it's your first and only option. I have seen parents drag kids round the local tesco belting them across the back side but very rarely do they give them the reason what if anything they have done wrong.

Don't get me wrong if a kid is constantly playing up then it has it's place.

 

[Mr Jack]

I have no idea what the Kanye West you're talking about so will choose to not confuse myself with your rambling.

I'm talking about your imbecilic assertion that because some people have been smacked and "turned out okay" it must be alright. Are you really so simplistic in your understanding of the world that you don't get how pathetic an argument that is? Tell me, did you grandma smoke like a chimney and live to ninety too?

 

[Mr Jack]

Occasional physical correction is not going to do anyone any permanent harm.

I quite agree.