Physical force in parenting

gimmepie said:

I would even argue that if you're only acting a certain way to avoid pain then you're not really a better person than you were before, just self-serving.

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I respect your position, Pie, but I'm still struggling to see how this issue wouldn't arise in the case of verbal discipline or taking away of privileges as well. Nobody in the thread seems to have a problem with disciplinary measures as such- as I pointed out in my last post, some form of a reward-punishment structure can be incorporated even in a very productive moral education system (very few of our actions, even as adults, are done only from a sense of moral duty without having some sort of ulterior motive somewhere in the subconscious. It's only natural an education system of morality would take that basic fact into account). Given that fact, can you really say there's an in principle objection to be found against physical disciplinary measures that's also not available against verbal ones?

I continue to feel the line that's being drawn here to exclude physically disciplining a child under any circumstance is rather arbitrary, in the sense that the arguments used here can very well apply to verbal disciplinary measures as well. I don't see how moral concerns crop up the moment we cross over from the realm of verbal to physical measures. Rather, I think the line should be drawn at inappropriate behavior towards children in general. When judging whether an action crosses a moral red line, we shouldn't ask whether that action is verbal or physical, but the effect it would have on the child, the intent with which the action was carried out, and a lot of other circumstantial factors.

I'm by no means a cultural relativist, I'm as full-blooded a moral realist as they come. However, the reason I think Angie's (and others') appeal to culture is not altogether irrelevant to this conversation is because, again, there's no a priori moral line that could be drawn to begin with. There's no moral fact of the matter which precludes physical disciplinary measures without also discounting verbal ones (or vice versa, for that matter). There are instead considerations of appropriateness and effectiveness, which vary from situation to situation, and of course from culture to culture. It's only because of the fact that our shared morality fails to adequately shed light on the issue that cultural norms become relevant.

Sometimes, I feel like a kid should get a smack across the face. Bad talking their mother, raising havoc in a store, screaming because they didn't get their way, stealing, shoplifting, vandalism, wilding, trespassing, littering, you name it I've seen it from as young as 6.

Calling your ma a bitch in the grocery cause she won't buy you the cereal you want warrants a reaction so fast you'll question whether or not the Flash is the fastest being alive.

I dealt with middle schoolers banging eachother in public restrooms, smoking in school, spray painting, and whatever else they come up with these days. Just a few days ago, witnessed a girl call a boy 'limp dick' (about 11-12) and another girl who is always on about her favorite pornos to "Jill to". I tell ya, at some point a parent needs to mash the proverbial pedal to the floor and say enough is enough.

When your kid is hanging out with thugs and hoodlums, out gangbangin' with the buddies or doin' drugs you need to ask and think to yourself long and hard about if tryin' to knock some sense and possibly saving the life of your child is worth the pain and heartache. I can almost guarantee you a parent would rather have a kid that hates you for taking all their special priviledges away and have them screaming at you from the top of their lungs that they hate you, rather than a dead kid.

I ain't saying that if your kid spills milk on the couch you go to town on their ass, of course not. What I am saying is that in special circumstances, it may be necessary to get their rear end a smack or two.

Sometimes you can let a kid learn from their mistakes, most times even. But if you kid makes the mistake of hanging out with the wrong crew and tries to rob a liquor store only to have their skull fragments and brain matter become some sort of macabre motif, that mistake is their last mistake.

Of course, this is assuming you're actively parenting and being proactive and not reactive.

Sum: Bruised behind > Drug addled crack slut for a kid. Last resort. Or you could call the cops and have them parent for you. Just something to keep in mind, that WCS.

I don't agree with it all, I believe there are other effective ways to discipline a child that doesn't involve hitting them (Like grounding). Plus hitting can make your child more afraid of you, and I doubt anyone wants that, I don't think children should fear their caregivers.
I was never hit, not once, and I turned out fine.

Im actually really surprised by a lot of these responses too. Spanking your kids is just so prevalent here, and I definitely agree with Angie on it's cultural aspects. But interestingly enough, I'm seeing a lot of people saying they were spanked way into their teens, which is something I don't see so often.

I'm a mom myself, my son is 3, and while talking to your kids is super important, there is only so much reasoning you can do with a screaming toddler. If my kid is throwing a tantrum, I will spank his hand or bottom, and send him to his room until he calms down. It's not something I do often and I certainly dont enjoy doing it, but it works and no one is going to convince me that it's a form of abuse, he hasn't ever given me any reason to think he resents me or his father for it. If anything I think he's outgrowing it as he develops more skills in the way of reasoning and communication. I don't see it as something that I'll be doing about a year from now though, I just don't think it'll be needed. I couldn't imagine spanking a 10 or 15 year old who, when it comes to kids that aren't preschoolers, I just can't see it as very effective.

One thing I have noticed in my personal experience with friends and aquaintences kids is that the ones with the horrible behavior, acting out, being disrespectful, ect. Typically ARE the ones who's parents won't hesitate to physically punish them on top of taking away privileges and such.

Hi, I'm hijacking this discussion because I feel strongly about this issue.

colours said:

That's precisely why I mentioned that you don't do it all the time, though! Only use physical force when you absolutely have to; to teach some sort of lesson that you wouldn't be able to get across otherwise in any other fashion.

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There is no evidence that I have seen to suggest any situation like this exists.

colours said:

Yeah, you're right. In my earlier posts, I said I behaved and got my stuff together out of fear of getting hit, but the focus is being put too much on the punishment itself and not the end result of it.

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"The end does not justify the means" is an extremely well known moral standard.

colours said:

I remember when I used to get beatings for getting low grades in school.

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This is one of the worst cases I could possibly imagine for hitting a child. I think it's disgusting.

colours said:

I learned very early on that getting failing grades in school was completely unacceptable, because I would get sound beatings because of that. Eventually, I got my act together and my grades improved because I didn't want to get punishmed.

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You know, I never had grade trouble. My brother did. He got encouragement and positive reinforcement. I would bet money that would have worked better.

colours said:

Could my parents have chosen a better method? I suppose in some people's eyes, yeah, probably.

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I'm one of those people.

colours said:

The bigger picture, however, was to teach me a lesson that failing grades are unacceptable in class.

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Shall we apply this to everyday life then? No, of course not. If you started attacking people to teach them a lesson you'd probably get arrested.

colours said:

But I think there's some sort of misinterpretation of how physical force can be made into something effective. You don't just randomly beat the crap out of your kid as soon as they do something bad and expect them to get the point of it; you explain why you did what you did. In any disciplinary method that you choose, communication is of the essence, and yes, this exists in physical force, as well.

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I'm not sure I've seen a good reason yet why physical force is a valid method that is ever preferable to alternatives. All I've heard from anyone is "Sometimes it's the only way!"

colours said:

If you're going to give them a beating, why did you do it?

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Because you were probably beaten as a child for punishment too and so thought it was the norm, never once reading any of the studies which prove it doesn't work.

colours said:

A kid may have screwed up, but they're human beings much like any of us on this planet are. They need to understand why what they're doing what they're doing is a bad thing beyond simple physical measures, and that's generally the entire point. In my eyes, using physical force and actually talking things out with your kid can co-exist within a similar spectrum; I was given a beating for performing poorly in school, but I understood why that was the case. Not just because they didn't want me to have poor grades, but because my parents wanted to see me succeed in school and by extent, life in general. They wanted to teach me that failure is unacceptable and you have to try your very hardest to succeed in just about anything that you do.

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On a side note, that's a pretty bad moral lesson overall. Live and learn. Make mistakes and learn from those. Much better moral lessons than "failure is unacceptable".

colours said:

I think, when people imagine typical physical force, they think of the punishment itself existing in isolation from all of the others, in which yeah, that would be an ineffective way of doing about doing it (as I mentioned in my previous post).

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No, I think beating children is wrong even if you give them a nice talk as well.

colours said:

Whenever my mother used to give me a beating, there were also moments she would give a heart to heart to me and made it very clear what her expectations were and why she did what she did. I knew that if I got a beating, it was completely my own responsibility for going out of line or doing something that was not to the expectations of my parents.

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I genuinely struggle to believe that of all the cases that can be made for hitting children, you chose getting bad grades. I've never heard of anyone getting beaten for that. It's so archaic, something from a Victorian school.

And "if you get beaten it's your own fault for doing something inappropriate" is, again, a very, very bad moral lesson for the real world. You wouldn't say that to a friend in real life if they were beaten. I would have thought that people would think that it is worse to do it to children, but apparently it's more acceptable.

colours said:

Whether this is morally right or wrong can be debated until our fingers drop from our hands because there will always be those that believe that you should never lay a finger on your child as a matter of principle (and that's fine! Who am I to argue with people's method of parenting as long as they care about their kid and have their best interests at heart?). However, I generally believe that as long as you give your kid beatings in situations when it is appropriate (the how) and explain to them what they did wrong (the why), that would lead to greater growth and benefit for the kid than if you just gave them a beating for little reason and expect them to figure the rest out, does that make sense?

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We don't really need to debate this until we lose our fingers because the studies prove beating doesn't work. The only benefit of hitting is that it is easier for lazy parents who just want to get the message across with no fear of the actual consequences for the child.

colours said:

Oh, boy!

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I'm pretty excited.

colours said:

yeah, it's not like people that have personally been through it know what they're talking about, right Caaethil?

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Your personal anecdote is not better than scientific research.

colours said:

Glad to know we follow different morals. It's almost like we're two different human beings!

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Did I really set you off?

To say that the end always justifies the means is rather concerning. To give an extreme example, should we wipe out the human race to stop pollution? No, I didn't think so.

colours said:

And I think it's fair. We can drop the discussion here, though, but since you insist...

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I posted a different opinion on a thread on the Round Table? Hardly qualifies as condemnable, but sure.

colours said:

I dunno, it worked plenty well in my case, and in the rest of my family, but y'know, maybe that's just me.

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According to scientific facts, no, it's not just you. It generally works as far as disciplinary measures go. But there are other ways to do that and this way happens to make children more aggressive, perpetuating the violence.

colours said:

Cool!

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I don't deserve this. :(

colours said:

You do know there's a difference between spanking your kid and outright abuse, right? You seem to think that the line between the two is extremely blurry when it's actually super clear.

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Sure there is a difference. But what they have in common is often detrimental effects.

colours said:

you're seeing this in way too much of a black and white issue, which it isn't. while im sure in a perfect world, every kid that doesn't live up to his or her parent's expectations would just simply be sat down and encouraged with words, that's simply not how some families operate these days. in my experience, it is no better or worse than any other method; it is just a method

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Anecdotes are not good evidence. Research is much better evidence. This is a fact. And the research shows that hitting children isn't good.

colours said:

I have no idea what this has to do with the portion that you quoted.

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You asked why a parent hits their child at a given moment. I answered.

colours said:

Thanks, mom.

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I'm not your mother. I already established that I strongly disagree with her parenting, right?

colours said:

Agree to disagree.

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I think you've missed the point of this thread.

colours said:

You know... /scratches head... it's almost like families who use physical force to discipline their children for reasons that make you flabberghasted are in a different culture than yours!! And as such, physical force has been a norm in their culture since forever!

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See, this is a logical fallacy called the appeal to tradition, which assumes that something is okay because it is normal and has always been done that way. You'd probably be saying the same thing in the 1800s if I was condemning slavery, wouldn't you?

colours said:

You seem to think that physical force is nothing by just beating the crap out of your kid which I already outlined doesn't work; I'm not sure what your point is, here. As I've said...

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I don't think that, don't attack a strawman.

colours said:

I'm not very interested in getting into this kind of discussion anymore, so we'll agree to disagree here!

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Considering the way you wrote an angry response, you certainly could have fooled me. But sure, whatever you say.

colours said:

Obviously your way of seeing things is much different than mine and there's no way we're ever going to convince each other of the other argument,

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That is probably the case.

colours said:

but it was nice hearing from you!

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You know, I could handle your arguments, but this is too much for me. No need to sugarcoat it, we both know that for whatever reason my post deeply bothered you. I only ask that next time you keep it to yourself.

Physical discipline is definitely a culture thing. I'm a preschool teacher who works in an impoverished inner city. There are two things I have noticed personally. There are many toxic stressors implemented on parents such as low wages, unable to find affordable housing, arguments with spouses/baby daddy, and the constant violence. Little do these parents know, the stress they are feeling is bothering their children as well. The children act out what they see on the streets. What do the parents do? Smack their kids around. The second thing is it's mostly the African American community who spanks their children, sometimes on a daily basis and multiple times throughout the day.

Now, I teach a couple of children who do receive whoopings at home who do not show any signs of trauma. They will talk about it, but their parents also include moral stories in their beatings. They do not get these spankings every night, just whenever they do something terribly wrong. These parents giving moral lessons understand that children are learning about their environment and surroundings. Their belief is causing pain will remind the child to stop doing that in the future because they will remember how much it hurt mentally and physically.

I also have parents who are constantly disciplining their children. They do everything in the book such as spankings, taking privileges, and not allowing them to express themselves. This is where I cross the line completely. At this point, these children are desperate for any form of attention, whether it's positive or negative. These are the children who no longer care about the consequences. Plus, these are some of the hardest children I have to deal with on a daily basis.

It is true that positive discipline is the best route if you are trying to teach children a lesson. The school I work at uses a program called Conscious Discipline. This is a program that helps reroute the brain to allow children to take control of their emotions when they are angry or upset. It allows them to remember, "I can calm. I am loved. I am in control." It helps boost their socio-emotional skills, problem-solving, and independent thinking. Talking to children on their level about what they did, what emotions they and another child may be feeling, and coming up with solutions is a positive method to discipline a child. Doing a program like this when the children are younger can help with their behavior in the long run.

But like I said previously with my most challenging children: positive discipline does not work most of the time with them. One would think having some sort of positive interaction would help their behavior, but they are set in their ways. I have has a couple of children who successfully grasped Conscious Discipline, and the parents have moved on to using that form of discipline over going straight to a spanking. Unfortunately, there are some parents dead set in their cultural upbringings and toxic stressors whom cannot see how straight spankings do not help.

Florges said:

Physical discipline is definitely a culture thing. I'm a preschool teacher who works in an impoverished inner city. There are two things I have noticed personally. There are many toxic stressors implemented on parents such as low wages, unable to find affordable housing, arguments with spouses/baby daddy, and the constant violence. Little do these parents know, the stress they are feeling is bothering their children as well. The children act out what they see on the streets. What do the parents do? Smack their kids around. The second thing is it's mostly the African American community who spanks their children, sometimes on a daily basis and multiple times throughout the day.

Now, I teach a couple of children who do receive whoopings at home who do not show any signs of trauma. They will talk about it, but their parents also include moral stories in their beatings. They do not get these spankings every night, just whenever they do something terribly wrong. These parents giving moral lessons understand that children are learning about their environment and surroundings. Their belief is causing pain will remind the child to stop doing that in the future because they will remember how much it hurt mentally and physically.

I also have parents who are constantly disciplining their children. They do everything in the book such as spankings, taking privileges, and not allowing them to express themselves. This is where I cross the line completely. At this point, these children are desperate for any form of attention, whether it's positive or negative. These are the children who no longer care about the consequences. Plus, these are some of the hardest children I have to deal with on a daily basis.

It is true that positive discipline is the best route if you are trying to teach children a lesson. The school I work at uses a program called Conscious Discipline. This is a program that helps reroute the brain to allow children to take control of their emotions when they are angry or upset. It allows them to remember, "I can calm. I am loved. I am in control." It helps boost their socio-emotional skills, problem-solving, and independent thinking. Talking to children on their level about what they did, what emotions they and another child may be feeling, and coming up with solutions is a positive method to discipline a child. Doing a program like this when the children are younger can help with their behavior in the long run.

But like I said previously with my most challenging children: positive discipline does not work most of the time with them. One would think having some sort of positive interaction would help their behavior, but they are set in their ways. I have has a couple of children who successfully grasped Conscious Discipline, and the parents have moved on to using that form of discipline over going straight to a spanking. Unfortunately, there are some parents dead set in their cultural upbringings and toxic stressors whom cannot see how straight spankings do not help.

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This is interesting, thanks for posting. Nice to hear the opinion of someone with a lot of experience with the idea.

Caaethil said:

This is interesting, thanks for posting. Nice to hear the opinion of someone with a lot of experience with the idea.

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Not a problem. Personally, I wouldn't spank my own children (that is if I ever have one), but I can understand the morals behind it. It's just one of those things I see the positives and negatives over the subject.

So I've read over this thread and... are we still pretending that just because something is a cultural norm it is somehow more morally correct/humanitarian or somehow more effective? In any other argument (except the dreaded gun control debate of course) this position is immediately disregarded as ridiculous, so why are we pretending that it's somehow a relevant point in this one?

It doesn't matter if something is culturally acceptable or not, that has no bearing on if its more effective nor does it make it morally correct in a modern, global perspective. It's culturally acceptable to stone women to death for being a victim in parts of the middle east, so following the logic presented by Colours' here we should probably not kick up a fuss about that then?

Culture is irrelevant in the context of effectiveness. You could use it to make a weak argument as to why using violence - even minimal violence - to educate children is justified but it's pretty clear the discussion has moved away from that context.

I grew up with it being used very sparingly, and I agree that it really shouldn't be used. It's pretty much proven to simply not work as a form of discipline but more than that, does it not make people uncomfortable when they're justifying it, or explaining it using words like "fear" or "associating pain with their actions"? Conditioning a child with fear or violence really doesn't seem like appropriate methods of parenting, and doesn't actually teach the child a lesson in the way you'd assume it to.

When you beat your child for doing poorly in grades or for doing something they shouldn't they aren't learning any kind of moral lesson, they're just associating that concept or action with pain/violence from their loved ones. That's not a lesson, just cultivating a fear response from the child

Glitter said:

So I've read over this thread and... are we still pretending that just because something is a cultural norm it is somehow more morally correct/humanitarian or somehow more effective?

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The humanitarian in me says it's sad and pathetic; however, as an early childhood educator I understand the negatives and benefits it may or may not have. There is a culture that surrounds this form of discipline in the African American community. Sometimes it's beneficial, but sometimes it's not. I have seen it be successful, unsuccessful, and to the point, I have had to call Child Protective Services. It's not something I like to see, but it's not possible to change an entire culture to stop doing. These parents were raised on physical discipline, their parents were raised that way, et cetera. It's too difficult, even if different laws are put in place to put a stop to it.

Florges said:

The humanitarian in me says it's sad and pathetic; however, as an early childhood educator I understand the negatives and benefits it may or may not have. There is a culture that surrounds this form of discipline in the African American community. Sometimes it's beneficial, but sometimes it's not. I have seen it be successful, unsuccessful, and to the point, I have had to call Child Protective Services. It's not something I like to see, but it's not possible to change an entire culture to stop doing. These parents were raised on physical discipline, their parents were raised that way, et cetera. It's too difficult, even if different laws are put in place to put a stop to it.

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Again, cultural norm =/= effective and doesn't really equal morally okay in this day and age either where we look at everything from such a globalised perspective.

I've worked with a few children myself and have found that being strict is fine but that overdoing it just shuts kids down - they don't see the lesson only the adult attacking them. This is just verbally. If you're going to incorporate physical violence into the matter that situation is only going to get worse.

"It's to difficult to stop it" is not an excuse for encouraging (not saying that you are) and isn't an excuse to allow it to continue when we're in a position to say something. It's just straight up a bad practice to engage in - I don't care where you're from or how you grew up.

colours said:

I strongly disagree with this. It's fine if your preferred method of parenting is to sit the kid down and lecture them ad nausuem on what they did wrong, but it's also equally as effective in my eyes to give kids a spanking to get the point across if being verbal with them just isn't enough. What's your proposed solution if kids are reluctant to listen to you? What if you try and sit them down and talk and talk but they walk all over you nonetheless?

Culture-wise, it is perfectly fine morally because for parents it's a method to establish authority. Especially if you grew up in a super family-heavy atmosphere, you learn very early on through spankings what is okay and what it isn't. Of course, as i mentioned before, in isolation this is bad practice--again, if all you do is attack your kid without explaining why, then duh they're not going te get it--but it's because of this that I think you're looking at it the wrong way. Physical force isn't really beating the crap out of the kid and leaving them to figure it out. It's giving kids spanking (to various degrees) and then explaining why that is the case. It's done in cultures to establish your authority as the parent and to explain why you find strong disapproval in x action.

If done right, then yeah, the kid will grow and learn what's right and what's wrong and the grey areas in-between. If it's done wrong, and the parent just does nothing but beat up their kid, then there's a problem. I feel like you're kind of mixing up both and think one is similar to another when it's actually very different.

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You can disagree as much as you but that is not how the psychology of a child works. The child will not associate the later lesson with the spanking, they will only see the parent's aggression. You didn't turn out fine because you were spanked, you turned out fine because you learned the appropriate lessons from other sources as you grew up. Compliance is not the same as understanding and empathy. Not acting out of fear of pain is not the same thing as being a good person.

Furthermore, spanking is also associated with increased aggression or anti-social behaviour in children and it really doesn't matter if your child can explain why they beat little Billy with a shovel because it's still the wrong thing to do.

Corporal punishment is ineffective, teaches things in a range of "nothing" to "bad lessons" and is honestly not particularly good parenting. This isn't my opinion, it is fact supported by numerous professionals and parents alike.

http://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/04/spanking.aspx
http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2002/06/spanking.aspx
http://www.parents.com/toddlers-preschoolers/discipline/spanking/spanking-discipline-debate/


As for culture, I've explained repeatedly why that's a terrible argument and you're choosing to ignore that so I don't see much reason in going into detail again there. I'll just repeat this instead - if cultural norms are the highest moral standard, surely it's totally okay for women to be oppressed in the middle east. After all, that's the cultural standard over there. Surely we shouldn't criticize then? Culture is a very poor justification - especially given how ineffective a method of discipline you're championing.

colours said:

Snip

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I was going to break down your post and tackle this point by point but I'd probably end up writing a literal essay and I am not putting that much effort into a forum debate - so sorry if my response is a bit hard to follow. First though, I'd suggest though that you don't suggest I didn't read my sources because you should know I'm not stupid enough to cite things I haven't read. I quite intentionally chose neutral sources to avoid bias.

Onwards!

1. I not once claimed that this was a 100% exact science. There is obviously a big difference between corporal punishment and abuse and there is obviously a difference in the severity of various forms of corporal punishment. I didn't discuss this because it seemed like it was a given.

2. Yes, there are a few in the field who don't have any issues with corporal punishment. There's also a few climatologists who believe humans aren't speeding up climate change and an astronaut or two who believes the US government is secretly dealing with aliens.

The fact remains though that there is more evidence to support my stance than yours. Do some research for yourself, there's plenty. You should also note that more recent studies support my stance than yours for the most part.

3. Yes, it's more likely that a child will get something out of a spoken lesson than if you beat them with no explanation. That's not a shocker. But if you smack your child and then procede to lecture them


You can always wait until the kid calms down and then explain it of course. However, then these are two totally separate events and you might as well have not gone to the beating in the first place. You said it yourself (and by misusing my citations), beating is at best equally as effective as non-violent discipline and at worst far less effective. So if the best case scenario is exactly the same as the non-violent option using corporal punishment is clearly more for the benefit of the parent than the child and that is unacceptable. Not to mention that nothing you said discredits that it still teaches violent behaviour to the child.

What more proof do you need that it's just not that great a method of parenting?

4. I thought my point about the middle east was pretty straightforward. You have repeatedly claimed that because it is the cultural norm for some families to use corporal punishment it is completely justified - simply because that is how it has always been done.

Well that logic shouldn't change because the issue does. If you believe cultural norms are the highest moral standard you must also believe that the oppression of women in the middle east is okay - that's the cultural norm over there and how it's been done for hundreds upon hundreds of years. What about slavery back in the 1800s or English Imperialism? Those were the cultural norms too.

Just because something occurs as a cultural trend does not make it humane. Nor does it make it more effective. Nor does it make it a good choice. Is that clearer? I'm honestly not sure how else to explain it.



As a side note - I've been working with children since I was not quite 16 years old and I've had to study child psychology/socio-emotional and cognitive development as coursework towards my degree. It's not like I was coming into this discussion with no idea what I was talking about to begin with or anything. Everything I have experienced and learned says that positive reinforcements work far better than negative and that children who experience aggressive behaviour (spanking is aggressive behaviour whether the parent reasons it to the child or not) at home are far more likely to repeat similar behaviour at school or in a social setting. This is anecdotal evidence of course, but it definitely supports the non-anecdotal evidence that has been provided.

One thing I really want to reiterate here: Gimmepie works with children and has studied their psychology. Florges works with children and has dealt with both the good and bad effects of physical punishment.

Your personal experience means 0. Anecdotal evidence is bad evidence. Colours, you repeat constantly that you were punished with physical force, and because it didn't traumatise you or otherwise negatively effect you it must be okay in moderation for some children. But how do you know which is which? How do you know which child will hate you and be emotionally affected? How do you know which will learn their lesson?

I won't for a second go for the "you aren't qualified to talk about this" argument. I find it incredibly patronising and it bothers me immensely. You judge an argument based on its own merits, not the person behind the computer screen typing it out. I understand that, and I myself am certainly not an expert on the psychology of children. I'd say I'm about as educated in the subject as you are. But the argument that you're making is that your personal experience acts as a counterargument to specialists and research. It doesn't

Your personal experience is limited to one person - yourself, so I daresay that it is pretty worthless to bring up overall. Taking your personal experience and acting as if it means anything near raw data is a fallacy (image source: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/):

Sorry, Colours, but I disagree with your points. I do not think hitting is ever warranted. I believe that children are too vulnerable and emotional and may learn to fear you as a parent if you do hit them.

colours said:

It's fine. I wasn't planning on having any for now, but thanks for the personal jab based on my own beliefs. Real smooth.



You're living in that world. A lot of parents do it. Is it okay? That depends on the how and why, as I've explained five million times.



I already explained "why". I'd be repeating myself ad nausem at this point. You'd only use corporal punishment as a means to teach a lesson or instill certain values, and it works when it's in combination with explaining to the child why whatever they did what they did is wrong and encouraging them with positive reinforce to do the right thing.

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Sry I just entered the thread after skimming, I admit that that was uncalled for and I apologize.

I believe there's other more effective ways though? Call me too soft or something but I just feel like hitting is going too far? I think something like grounding or temporarily removing a privilege would work also.

Once again I do apologize and I'll edit my post.

I haven't read every post in the thread so sorry if I'm retreading on stuff already discussed, but:

I wonder how much this debate would change if it were seen as acceptable for people to step in on other parents' actions. Like, if you saw a parent being harsh with their child and you could, culturally speaking, step in and say something without the parent flipping out ("Don't tell me how to raise my child!") would it have any change on how people discipline their kids. Similarly, if you could chastise a child whose parent wasn't paying attention and letting the kid run wild.

You know, it kind of feels like you're nice to everyone but me, even though I feel I've been rather reasonable. Some advice: stop being so bloody patronising. I'm not a child, okay? Okay.

colours said:

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These people in this thread have collectively dealt with, more than likely, hundreds of children. That's not an anecdote, an anecdote is an ISOLATED CASE - i.e. your personal experience of when you were hit as a child. And even if your criticism had any merit, it would still be fallacious:

colours said:

You know, this is about par for the course. I'm not surprised, at all. But sure, I'll entertain your questions:

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Your personal attacks never cease to amaze me.

colours said:

Easy: if you read any of my posts at all, you'll note that the answer is not black and white like you're trying to make it seem (and I swear people ignore this point lol).

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The reason this point is being ignored is because it's a statement with no evidence. We've seen the actual statistical evidence. You know, SCIENCE. I'm sorry science is too black and white for you. I'm sorry facts are too black and white for you. But no, science is not disproven because your experience is anomalous.

colours said:

Corporal punishment in isolation is something that shouldn't be encouraged. In moderation probably, alongside explaining to the kid why what they're doing is wrong and show them the right thing to do, which is my entire point. How they develop afterwards is entirely dependent on exactly how often this is encouraged, etc.

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Really? Well actual research disagrees, you've pulled that statement out of nowhere. You aren't a psychologist. You have absolutely zero idea of the effects of physical force in punishment of children. You're just guessing. The rest of us who aren't psychologists tend to look at what the actual psychologists are saying, and if you spend 5 minutes on Google, you'll see what they're saying.

The biggest problem with your argument is that you immediately dismiss any opinion which you see as 'black and white'. You assume that there is a reasonable middle ground, yet you provide no evidence to suggest that violence and talking put together produce a good result. You just assume that is the case because you feel like middle grounds are always the best and anything sweeping is stubborn and wrong. In fact, there's a whole other fallacy for this (I highly, highly suggest you read through that website):