quote:Originally posted by Lets Go Jeepin':
What never ceases to amaze me is, for all the studys that are done, no one ever discusses how things are now as compared to the past. While you cant contribute it to one thing (like spanking or not spanking), there is an obvious difference in todays and yesterdays (20+ years ago) children. I dont remember growing up with police at school, worrys about school shootings, 11 year olds being charged with murder and rape, large numbers of children being on mood altering drugs (prescribed by doctors, anyway), etc.
So tell me, what is different today? Lots of things have changed, spanking is frowned on, national news reports on crimes more frequently and in deeper detail, TV shows are less family friendly, children are 'drugged' into compliance (ADD and ADHA - while it is a real problem, IMHO it is WAY OVERDIAGNOSED). Children are not raised to accept failure and move on, now everyone is a winner and no one accepts defeat anymore. The list goes on and on.
Jeepin'
Judging by the influx of pro-spankers that always chime in on spanking threads, spanking is still going on. That means the number of children being spanked in this generation probably is the same as the last generation. I say that, not only because of the overwhelming responses that are pro-spanking, but because parents usually use the same discipline methods as their own parents.
So the number of children being spanked has not changed from our parents' generation to ours, yet we do have more violence in our schools, kids on drugs, etc. So there must be something else to contribute to the increase, right?
What makes sense to me (and from everything I've read) is it is due to children being exposed - and early exposure at that - to incredible amounts of violence from t.v., Internet, video games, etc. I'm in my 30's and can only remember watching reruns of the Brady Bunch in the afternoons when I got home from school, and Bugs Bunny on Saturday mornings. (We didn't have cable and had about eight channels to choose from.) The rest of the time I was in my backyard building tree houses and making mud pies. You probably were too.
As for drugs, aside from Meth - which seems to be rampant everywhere - prescription drugs are abused far more than cocaine or any other recreational drug. Why is that? How are kids getting these drugs? It's because almost everyone is on a flippin' anti-depressant now. Xanax, Zoloft, etc., etc., are grossly overprescribed. People don't want to deal with the root causes of their depression and use effective methods like cognitive therapy; they want to pop a pill. So Johnny sees those pills (along with BP and heart medications) in the medicine cabinet and there you go....
Also, parents just aren't around for their children anymore. We've got far too many latchkey kids and that's just asking for trouble. In an ideal world, most moms I'm sure would love to stay home with their children, but because housing, automobiles, food, etc. cost so much in this damm country, moms have to work too. (Also, a woman can't afford to be away from the workforce a few years to raise her kids because if she does, she'll have to start over in her career when she goes back. Unfair but true.) So if twelve-year-old Johnny's at home by himself from 3:00 to 5:30 in the afternoons, he's much more likely to find and take these drugs or get creative and start huffing on air freshener (something that is, sadly, also becoming common.)
So I veered a bit with that, but it all comes back to the points in your post. People are still spanking their children; the evidence is clear (and all over this thread), so you can't attribute lack of spanking to unruly kids. Also, and I've pointed this out before, there are plenty of people in our prisons in their 50's and 60's that were from the so-called "spanked" generation. So lack of spanking has nothing to do with it, it's lack of parenting and lack of boundaries.
But thanks for your post. I always enjoy and respect your contributions.