corporal punishment

Originally posted by karoly aczel
That's cool.
And so is your stance.

I know in my heart that I want nothing but the best for my kids.
I had a peaceful childhood. Apparently I was smacked once or twice when I was young, but it was too young for me to remember. No trauma here!
I remember my Dad as gentle and loving. My mum too.

Some might call my way "lazy" but I prefer "quicker ...[text shortened]... ht a much harsher lesson by an oncoming car.
How do you keep your 2 yr olds off the road?

Some might call my way "lazy" but I prefer "quicker", as in quicker than getting taught a much harsher lesson by an oncoming car.
How do you keep your 2 yr olds off the road?

What I posted earlier referenced that very example. You should reread it at least through the paragraph on "short-run effectiveness".

Even if it were more effective, simply calling it "quicker" rather than "lazy" seems a rationalization. From what I've seen, the majority (perhaps vast majority) of parents often opt for what is expedient, i.e., "quicker" over what's best for their child's well-being, simply because of self-centeredness. It's easy to claim "I want nothing but the best for my kids", but the reality is that there's often a pretty wide gulf between what they say they "want" and what they're willing to do. Have you ever seen the TV show "Intervention". An all to common occurance has the addict who is a parent proclaiming, "My children are the most important thing in my life". The reality is that continuing to feed their addiction is so much more important to them. It's not even close.

Originally posted by bbarr
Meh, there's nothing wrong with a swat to the bottom to get a child's attention. Hell, it doesn't even cause pain, just surprise. And, obviously, this should only be used when immediate compliance is very important, and then only with children who are too young to understand the rules or be reasoned with. None of the studies you mention have much to say abou argue against infrequent and mild child-swatting, and I'll do my best to respond to them.

Today we were out with a friend and when she was getting out of the taxi I grabbed her arm pretty firmly because there was a car coming and she didn't notice it. This isn't punishment. Neither is a attention-getting act of touching of a child that may be a little hurtful where the intent is to prevent imminent harm.

But to your request: found by google on psychological effects of corporal punishment. "Word too long" in the following is a RHPism.

http://www.repeal43.org/docs/Gershoff%20meta-analytic%20review%3A02.pdf

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/352743?uid=3739560&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101391512167

http://books.google.com/[WORD TOO LONG]

To be fair, I only read the abstracts of the first two, and the third is a book that, among other things, cites studies performed by others. I don't expect you to put more work into it than I did. I only want the point to be made that such studies do exist.

I don't say that "infrequent and mild child swatting" is or is not harmful. The terms are too vague for that. But correlations are reported between the frequency and intensity of CP and psychological health. Somewhere, probably varying by child and parent and environment, thresholds are crossed.

Originally posted by bbarr
Meh, there's nothing wrong with a swat to the bottom to get a child's attention. Hell, it doesn't even cause pain, just surprise. And, obviously, this should only be used when immediate compliance is very important, and then only with children who are too young to understand the rules or be reasoned with. None of the studies you mention have much to say abou argue against infrequent and mild child-swatting, and I'll do my best to respond to them.

From what I understand, more than a few parents have managed to successfully raise their children without having had to ever resort to striking them.

Seems like when there is violence involved, the onus should be on the person advocating it to demonstrate that non-violent methods are not effective and that the violence causes neither short-term or long-term harm.

Somehow it's not difficult to imagine some men saying something like, "Meh, there's nothing wrong with a slap upside the head to get your wife's attention. Hell, it doesn't even cause pain, just surprise." Doesn't make it true. Doesn't make it right. Doesn't make it harmless.

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
From what I understand, more than a few parents have managed to successfully raise their children without having had to ever resort to striking them.

Seems like when there is violence involved, the onus should be on the person advocating it to demonstrate that non-violent methods are not effective and that the violence causes neither short-term or lon ...[text shortened]... just surprise." Doesn't make it true. Doesn't make it right. Doesn't make it harmless.

Actually, the onus is on you to show that swatting a child's butt even qualifies as violence (no harm, nor intent to harm), or that slapping one's wife and swatting one's young child are in any way analogous (wives are rational, autonomous agents, young children are not; slaps are paradigmatic violent acts, swats on the butt are not; slapping one's wife is a profound case of disrespect, swatting a child's butt to prevent imminent harm is done from care). So, if you want to make your case, you'll have to actually present arguments.

Originally posted by JS357
Today we were out with a friend and when she was getting out of the taxi I grabbed her arm pretty firmly because there was a car coming and she didn't notice it. This isn't punishment. Neither is a attention-getting act of touching of a child that may be a little hurtful where the intent is to prevent imminent harm.

But to your request: found by google on p Somewhere, probably varying by child and parent and environment, thresholds are crossed.

Your first cited article defines corporal punishment as "the use of physical force with the intention of causing a child to experience pain but not injury...". So, already the study is irrelevant to the case I explicitly raised above. Swats on the butt aren't painful; they're surprising, attention-grabbing and indicative of parental seriousness. I do not advocate the use of pain on children as an educational tool or behavioral modifier.

That was easy. Should I bother to go on?

Edit 1: The second cited article doesn't define corporal punishment.

Edit 2: The third cited article uses the same definition as the first.

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
[b]Some might call my way "lazy" but I prefer "quicker", as in quicker than getting taught a much harsher lesson by an oncoming car.
How do you keep your 2 yr olds off the road?

What I posted earlier referenced that very example. You should reread it at least through the paragraph on "short-run effectiveness".

Even if it were more effective, ...[text shortened]... eir addiction is so much more important to them. It's not even close.[/b]

Well my kids are important to me, and this goes beyond words.
You can imply what you want but I'm fairly confident that if you actually saw me parenting (like my neighbours observe everyday) , you would agree with them that I am one of the best parents around here. After all, I've been a single dad for my son since he was 12 months old.
Parenting is about the only thing that I'm real good at, which brings out the best in me.

Originally posted by Agerg
For all our mental sophistication when we mature, we are still animals. Almost every other human chastises its young with a short, sharp, and non-permanent shock when said young is doing something "bad". That we don't (because a committee has decided we shouldn't) is to betray the simple fact that as the natural world shows us, it's effective! It's especially ...[text shortened]... rong (or whether there is a great urgency in preventing some action from happening again)

You cannot use the "we are still animals" argument here unless you use it consistently; shall we be ruled by the toughest guy? shall women be forcibly taken? shall new partners kill their step children?

Yes we have animal urges - but we live in a society where those urges have to be surpressed.

There's a lot of talk of "spanking", "swatting" and "tapping".

Lets get it clear here: we are talking about hitting a child.

A defenceless child.
A child, regardless of what they have done, who has rights.

Its mind-boggling that we have put corporal punishment for adults behind us but still debate its use for children.

Sickening.

Originally posted by bbarr
Actually, the onus is on you to show that swatting a child's butt even qualifies as violence (no harm, nor intent to harm), or that slapping one's wife and swatting one's young child are in any way analogous (wives are rational, autonomous agents, young children are not; slaps are paradigmatic violent acts, swats on the butt are not; slapping one's wife is a p ...[text shortened]... from care). So, if you want to make your case, you'll have to actually present arguments.

Seriously? I'm not at all interested in getting bogged down in semantics.

I think you probably know what I was getting at, but if you object to the word 'violence', I'll use the term 'physical force'.

So, I'll reprhase:

From what I understand, more than a few parents have managed to successfully raise their children without having had to ever resort to striking them.

Seems like when there is physical force involved, the onus should be on the person advocating it to demonstrate that methods not requiring physical force are not effective and that the physical force causes neither short-term or long-term harm.

As to the reference to men striking their wives, the intent was to demonstrate how easy it is for those using physical force to be cavalier about it and claim that it doesn't cause pain, as you were in regards to striking children.

But I think you probably know what I was getting at there too.

Originally posted by wolfgang59
There's a lot of talk of "spanking", "swatting" and "tapping".

Lets get it clear here: we are talking about [b]hitting a child.

A defenceless child.
A child, regardless of what they have done, who has rights.

Its mind-boggling that we have put corporal punishment for adults behind us but still debate its use for children.

Sickening.[/b]

Yeah, that's a really bad argument. You first equate swatting with hitting, because you want to exploit the emotional connotation of 'hitting', then conclude this is a violation of the rights of children. But my claim concerns swatting, which I'm claiming is only justifiable when it inflicts no pain. So your exploitative equation with hitting is misguided here. Further, it is question begging to claim that swatting here violates the rights of children. Since the moral status of the practice is precisely that which is in question, you don't get to just stipulate that it's a violation of rights. Sorry!

Originally posted by karoly aczel
Well my kids are important to me, and this goes beyond words.
You can imply what you want but I'm fairly confident that if you actually saw me parenting (like my neighbours observe everyday) , you would agree with them that I am one of the best parents around here. After all, I've been a single dad for my son since he was 12 months old.
Parenting is about the only thing that I'm real good at, which brings out the best in me.

I hope you reread what I posted earlier as I suggested and that it gives you pause about continuing to espouse your attitude towards striking a toddler.

I wasn't trying to "imply" anything about how well you parent (though your attitude towards striking a toddler does give me pause).

The point was that given what I've seen with the gulf that often exists between what a parent believes and reality, it doesn't seem reasonable to blindly accept what any parent may claim.

I think some people came up with throwing a glass of water over the child in a bid to induce shock as opposed to smacking.
Physicality is something that all humans need to learn, and do learn naturally.
Much too much is made of just hitting a child in and of itself. That should be about 0-0.5% of parenting of a young child. What you do with the other 99% will ultimately determine your effectiveness as a parent.

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
I hope you reread what I posted earlier as I suggested and that it gives you pause about continuing to espouse your attitude towards striking a toddler.

I wasn't trying to "imply" anything about how well you parent (though your attitude towards striking a toddler does give me pause).

The point was that given what I've seen with the gulf that often ...[text shortened]... lieves and reality, it doesn't seem reasonable to blindly accept what any parent may claim.

I pause to consider parenting everyday. In fact, my kid is having a "bad hair day" as we speak. I've been talking him through the various scenarios of chucking a tantrum all morning.
No need for hitting though.
It does not surprise me that a 'one size fits all' spiritualist like yourself endorses a 'one size fits all' method for parenting.

Maybe it's people that have a problem with their own violent tendencies that are outraged to hear of other parents using a so-called violent technique succesfully.

Unless you have something else to say, I'm out of this one. I'd rather do more parenting than go over this back and forth.

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
I hope you reread what I posted earlier as I suggested and that it gives you pause about continuing to espouse your attitude towards striking a toddler.

I wasn't trying to "imply" anything about how well you parent (though your attitude towards striking a toddler does give me pause).

The point was that given what I've seen with the gulf that often ...[text shortened]... lieves and reality, it doesn't seem reasonable to blindly accept what any parent may claim.

I dont expect you to believe blindly what I claim, just to consider what I have said when making future posts.
If my words about parenting seem hollow and worthless, then I shall just cease to waste my words on you.

Originally posted by bbarr
Yeah, that's a really bad argument. You first equate swatting with hitting, because you want to exploit the emotional connotation of 'hitting', then conclude this is a violation of the rights of children. But my claim concerns swatting, which I'm claiming is only justifiable when it inflicts no pain. So your exploitative equation with hitting is misguided he ...[text shortened]... h is in question, you don't get to just stipulate that it's a violation of rights. Sorry!

You first equate swatting with hitting, because you want to exploit the emotional connotation of 'hitting'
C'mon. Why do you insist on trying to make a big deal out of word choice?

If someone wanted to do the same with you it'd be easy enough to do, since you keep using the word 'swat':

from google:
swat/swät/
Verb:
Hit or crush (something, esp. an insect) with a sharp blow from a flat object.
Synonyms:
hit

But my claim concerns swatting, which I'm claiming is only justifiable when it inflicts no pain.

Realistically how does a given parent determine whether or not a given "swat" has inflicted "no pain"? Realistically how reliable is this determination?