quote:Originally posted by Buttercup:
To Eastside:quote:You didn't respond to my question about the pediatrician -- I am curious if you truly think a ped that doesn't rail against the wrongs of spankings shouldn't be a ped?
Yes. I say that because if she believes spanking is an acceptable and successful form of discipline - when there's so much evidence to the contrary - I would have to question her judgment on other issues. That's my opinion and, as a parent, I have a right to it. But, then again, not all physicians are the same. There are some excellent ones and there are the ones who have their licenses revoked for malpractice.quote:I contract with a juvenile facility -- if you were to poll those kids -- yes you'd get a 100% violence rate to being spanked (40 kids violent and they will all say they were spanked), but if you poll my 7 year old's class room -- you'd get about a 5% violence rate (18 kids 1 kid is the violent one). Big difference in who you poll to get your statistics to fit the outcome of your research.
Well, I don't know how much I can trust your poll or any of your research since you yourself said:quote:These researchers go into this type of idea with preconceived conclusions and they use what benefits them and what doesn't is considered "insignificant" -- you that +/- 4% thing on most statistics. I pay attention to research but I know enough to know that it is not written in stone and that it has human hands in it so it cannot be taken as law. I give it its due if I don't know of something else in my life that contradicts it. But no one should ever take research as absolute and final. Period.
But let's say your 5% violence rate (kids who were spanked) is correct. Aren't better alternatives to spanking - that we know exist in 2010 - worth using to squash that 5% violence rate? Wouldn't you want to do everything possible to ensure your child doesn't become a bully; isn't withdrawn; doesn't become and alcoholic; doesn't abuse his future wife?
Conversely, you will not find any research anywhere that concludes alternatives to spanking create future violent children. Lack of spanking DOES NOT set a child up for jail time in his future; however, spanking can. The key to the "alternatives to spanking" argument is consistency. The problem is parents make empty promises about consequences for actions and the child learns his parents aren't serious, then repeats the behavior.quote:No one spanks their child every day or even every week for that matter
Now you are the one making assumptions. How do you know that NO ONE spanks their child every day or even every week? You somehow have access to the goings on in every household in America?quote:but how many times a day do you have to put a child in time out? How many times a week do you have to send a child to their room?quote:How long does it take for your child to "grow out" of their behavior when alternatives are used?
Speaking for myself, very infrequently because my child(ren) "got it" a long time ago. How many times have you spanked your child? If it worked so well, why do parents have to repeat the action?
How to respond? You proved my point exactly with quoting me on the research – no research is absolute – there are always human touches – I’m glad you wouldn’t take my “research” as solid because that was a not a scientific research by any means – just what I know of the kids in the class. However, no I don’t want a Utopia that you want-- I wouldn’t want to quash that 5% at the outside chance that not spanking could increase that 5% and before you say it wouldn’t happen – you don’t know. You said there is no research that shows “not spanking” produces violent kids –um, probably because there aren’t many researchers that want to prove that spanking works. Why would they? There’s no money in that research. However, for many of us, there is history that proves it does in many cases. Not every kid in juvenile detention was spanked and there are many that are just like you – they did the best they could and tried not to show their child anger and violence and they still have a kid that is angry and violent. There is a mix of kids from upper class homes that had it all with the silver spoon and were never spanked or at least rarely spanked just as there are kids that grew up in hell like my ex that have serious issues.
As for the No one spanks every day. Anyone that spanks every day is most like abusing their child so therefore, I wouldn’t consider that discipline I would consider that abuse and that would not be what I’m discussing here. However, I will say that you are grasping at straws to poke holes in my opinion by picking out that line as your stomping point, but that’s ok. You are one of the few on this one. You are entitled to your opinion as am I, but to use research to call those of us that do believe it works pretty much ignorant – is as skewed as your research you use to back up your opinion. Just state it as your opinion and let it go.
As for how many times have I spanked my child? Not many because the fear works just fine and dandy. Most times the action is not repeated for the same offense – therefore, it (just like your time outs and your taking away privileges) happens when it needs too and not when it doesn’t.
Now to your comment about the government. I don’t want the government is my business whether that is insurance premiums or how I discipline my child. If they can do such a grand job at running things why are we in debt to China up to our ears and our prisons are overcrowded? They took corporal punishment out of the school and they took prayer out of the schools and yet we still have violent offenders entering the system every day – thousands more now than we had 20 and 30 years ago. Roe vs. Wade may never be overturned but that doesn’t mean the government knows what is best for us. They just realized that women were going to have abortions anyway – at least with law on their side they could get money from the political movements and they could make abortions safer for women that choose the option. It doesn’t make it righteous by any means. By the way, I am Pro-Life, but I think it should be the woman’s choice. Of course, I think women should have guts enough to consult the father to see what he would want too since it does take 2 to tango.