Is it ok to smack your child?

[edy420]

IMO no and I try not to smack my children but if I do it's because I'm getting lazy or I don't have the time (neither are good reasons, but I'm working on it)

In my country it has been ok to smack your children and just recently a new law has been introduced that makes you a criminal if you smack your children.
While I don't think it's ok to smack your children something I find harder to accept is that mothers and fathers may be locked up for repeating what was taught to them.

From what I can understand people smack their children to teach their children a lesson.
The only problem is that the lesson being taught may not be the lesson intended.
How can a child know they are doing something bad if all you can do is smack and growl them?

Something that all parents need to understand is that our children weren't born with our experiences and something as simple as a 6 year old feeding cat biscuits to a cat outside while the dog is off his chain may sound like they are dumb, but I like to argue that the more you can learn or the more you have to learn the smarter you are.

Instead of smacking I like to reason with my children.(even when new born)
My youngest is nearly 2 and she is exploring the world with her new found powers to transport oneself and the ability to interact with her environment.
If she makes a mess with a pot plant and Nana moves in for a smack, I like to argue that it is not my babies fault for wanting to do what she does best(interact and learn)
Instead I blame Nana for leaving the pot plant out when she knew a baby was coming over.

Whats a philosophers take on "the right" to smack your own child?

[Matthias]

Corporal punishment isn't as effective as teaching the reasons for good behavior, as all punishments, pain especially, don't teach children to behave well, it teaches them to not get caught.

Smacking a child is the mark of a lazy parent, (pardon my preachiness) who would rather end the situation immediately than slowly work towards the complete eradication of the issue. Smacking is a quick fix requiring little effort, compassion, or understanding, whereas actually mentoring your children respectfully is the way to ensure a permanent understanding of WHY they should follow rules, rather than an unsubstantiated rule whose only incentive for being followed is the threat of violence.

It should also be noted that in-home violence is potentially dangerous, in the event that you get carried away, and children who lived in abusive or violent homes are at higher risks for becoming criminals and committing acts of violence themselves.

A parent's job is to nurture and protect, not to control.

[Fox]

For the past 200,000 years smacking or spanking a child has been happening and they became mature and respectful at a very young age for the past 50-100 years when these actions have been condoned as barbaric or uncivil children have grown to become snobby, disrespectful little twerps, not knowing the full affects of maturity until perhaps age 30...

You tell me.

A personal experience, I did not know the meaning of the word 'respect' until at age 15 when my grandfather got up out of his wheelchair and gave me a wallop that I'll remember till the day I die.

[Lomax]

Hello Fox,

For the past 200,000 years smacking or spanking a child has been happening and they became mature and respectful at a very young age for the past 50-100 years when these actions have been condoned as barbaric or uncivil children have grown to become snobby, disrespectful little twerps, not knowing the full affects of maturity until perhaps age 30...

You tell me.

A personal experience, I did not know the meaning of the word 'respect' until at age 15 when my grandfather got up out of his wheelchair and gave me a wallop that I'll remember till the day I die.

I am well under 30, and my sister is only 8; yet I do not think it would be altogether accurate to describe either of us as "snobby, disrespectful little twerps"; moreover, neither of us would try to settle a complex ethical argument by labelling an entire major demographic "little twerps". So perhaps the disrespect does not lie, especially, in those of us who were not beaten.

It may worth pointing out two further things. The first is that the pain inflicted on the child, obviously, has to factor in. We have to seriously ask ourselves: does the pain inflicted outweigh the annoyance we get from having "little twerps" as children? It seems rash to leave the assumption that it doesn't, implicit in your argument.

The second is that your claim, inasmuch as I can make good sense of it, is counter-factual. Children who are smacked are more likely to become aggressive. On this count, we owe a debt of gratitude to the generation immediately above us - they have been the first to break the vicious cycle.

Lomax

[Matthias]

Thank you Lomax for reiterating one of the more important points I tried to make: that regularly spanked children are more likely to grow up as violent criminals, or to abuse their children or spouse.

It may take more effort to explain to a child rather than to beat him or her, but the results are better, so please don't be lazy parents, please don't take the risk of possibly creating the next estranged man or woman who ends up throwing their life down the drain all because of psychological damage they incurred as a child because they believed their parents didn't love them. I know that many of these children exist. It all depends on personality type. I am sensitive enough that I can tell you for sure I would have turned out quite differently (not for the better) if my parents had hit me when I was younger.

[CanadysPeak]

Thank you Lomax for reiterating one of the more important points I tried to make: that regularly spanked children are more likely to grow up as violent criminals, or to abuse their children or spouse.

It may take more effort to explain to a child rather than to beat him or her, but the results are better, so please don't be lazy parents, please don't take the risk of possibly creating the next estranged man or woman who ends up throwing their life down the drain all because of psychological damage they incurred as a child because they believed their parents didn't love them. I know that many of these children exist. It all depends on personality type. I am sensitive enough that I can tell you for sure I would have turned out quite differently (not for the better) if my parents had hit me when I was younger.

I hear that claim often, but I'm unsure about how it plays out. In graded school, I was spanked (with a wooden paddle) several hundred times (at least once a day for several years plus the odd ones off and on), yet I have never laid a hand on my child or wives. I am not a violent criminal. I do, however, harbor secret urges to feed screaming kids in the supermarket to the crocodiles in the zoo.

I don't think spanking works as a deterrent. It didn't on me. It does usually correct behavior immediately, but so does the "evil eye" that some parents are capable of. The important thing, I think, is for parents to set standards and enforce them.

[neuro]

I don't think spanking works as a deterrent. It didn't on me. It does usually correct behavior immediately, but so does the "evil eye" that some parents are capable of. The important thing, I think, is for parents to set standards and enforce them.

I think this observation, which is most important, clarifies that there are three different aspect in the question:
1. correcting wrong behavior: animal studies indicate that punishment (physical punishment) works more rapidly and efficiently than other methods in teaching (conditioning), but what you can obtain with physical punishment can always be obtained with deprivation and reward as well.
2. the parents: getting to a violent acting might be a reasoned or automatical behavior, and it used to be so until some 50 years ago; it can also be a way to discharge anger or a sense of impotence, and this has actually become the only meaning and reason for violence in western culture. Noone smacks a child today because he coldly reasons that it is the most efficient way to teach. Once he gets so angry and powerless to hit a child that shows HE, and not the child, has a problem
3. the child: there is a problem which has been greatly underestimated in recent decades. My generation (57) has grown children with the idea that you must not limit their freedom based on your wellbeing and that you must explain rather than force. This, however, creates a subtle problem: it tries to push on the child (and adolescent) the responsibility of his actions, which surely is a means of strengthening his character and behavioral control, but is an incredible psychological burden. And in many cases it turns into an exasperation of stress, uncertainty, existential anguish.
The problem is that with no prohibition and duties it is a terribly demanding task! for them! I mean, give them a break! give a break to this child, give him some certainties! some rules based on AUTHORITY, that freed him from conflict. Let him get angry AT YOU, sometimes, instead of fighting within himself, between desires and rationality.
Not always, sure, let him too have something to mull over, some interior struggle to fight... But, at least once in a while, give him a break!
If only Hamlet might have asked somebody to tie his sword to his hand, and guide it to perform the act that had to be performed! deciding once and for all, here!, decided!, I do it!, and in that same moment – not an instant later, when a new doubt, uninvited, might have appeared – everything is done, finished, nothing more to say about it...

CanadysPeak is right:

The important thing is for parents to set standards and enforce them

[Forest_Dump]

For the past 200,000 years smacking or spanking a child has been happening and they became mature and respectful at a very young age for the past 50-100 years when these actions have been condoned as barbaric or uncivil children have grown to become snobby, disrespectful little twerps, not knowing the full affects of maturity until perhaps age 30...

I suppose a fairly minor point given the direction of this thread but of course there is absolutely no evidence to support the practice of spanking in the past and lots to suggest that spanking probably did not occur. For 95% of the last 200,000 years, people would have been hunter-gatherers. Accounts of hunter-gatherers collected by missionaries for the past 500 years up to modern anthropologists routinely describe them as being overly indulgent with their children and never using corporal punishment of any kind. I can't think of any cases where spanking was used but unfortunately I can't find any big studies or syntheses at the moment. For the most part this would also apply to tribal level, horticultural societies as well which would serve as an analogue for pretty much everyone up to about 5,000 years ago. Again, I just can't recall any cases where spanking has been documented although this is not something I have spent much time thinking about. It might be more interesting to try to document cases where spanking is known to occur. We have our cultural history going back to Arabic pastoralists in SW Asia and subsequent state-level societies (which are defined in part by the use of coercive force) but there may not be too much more.

Now I have my own theories about why kids and adults sometimes seem to be unruly, etc., but frankly I am not at all convinced a) this is necessarily different from any other time and place and b) I am not convinced this can be linked to the use of not of spanking. Far too much pure speculation, at best, here.

[kidjan]

As a kid I got spanked frequently. I don't think it really made any difference.

The research doesn't seem to indicate it's beneficial, so I have no intention of continuing the practice.

[edy420]

As a kid I got spanked frequently. I don't think it really made any difference.

The research doesn't seem to indicate it's beneficial, so I have no intention of continuing the practice.

I don't think it makes much difference either.
IMO, physical abuse during childhood doesn't extend any further than teaching us how to react to certain situations.

The two methods of teaching a child how to learn in question are, smacking a child and not smacking.
Both are methods with entirely different means of teaching, but the differences are major as too are the results.

Smacking seems to be a good attention grabber which IMO is why it works effectively on children whos attention wanders easily.
At a young age reasoning is less effective because of the obvious language barrier but that doesn't convince me that taking the short cut is better.

Instead I think its better to accept that babies younger than 1 year old will cry for no reason.
Between 2-3 children will touch and grab ANYTHING, not because they are naughty and just like making mess with pot plants etc.
The list goes on.

We can try our best to guide our children but each individual is certainly very unique and they will turn out the way they turn out.
The best we can do is guide them and teach them better techniques to equip them in their age of taking on the world.

I grew up in an environment where getting beaten with a jug cord is just normal.
Even going to school with back and blue bruises from the back of your legs was not ok, but it did happen and it was accepted/ignored. (ignorance is bliss)
Now days, the laws are changing and smacking will eventually get bad parents in jail, but there are parents who know how to use physical attention grabbing effectively.

As for the risk of becoming a violent criminal, I know a lot of people who were raised in an extremely violent environment and most of them are genuinely good people.

[owleye]

I should imagine that smacking a child is a cultural phenomenon that can be studied within the context of the anthropology of cultural transmission. Within the context of today's American culture(s), those raised on child-rearing practices based on traditional Japanese culture where smacking is commonplace can be compared with a westernized culture of trying to reason with their children. Is there a neutral standard by which to compare the outcomes or their effectiveness?

James

[Lomax]

Hello all,

Given the link I provided, we have seen some evidence that beaten children are more likely to become violent. Now, there has been some protest that beaten children do, in some cases, mature to be non-violent. Well, certainly. Can we infer from this:

a) that beating makes no difference to the adult's violent inclinations?

b) that beating is therefore not a problem?

c) that the important thing is consistency?

(a): inductively, I do not think so. The studies which suggested beaten children are more violent took a considerably larger sample than the primary research posted in this thread, which seems to involve brief comments on very small and biased population-samples. We can, however, concede something; that the matter is obviously not as simple as that of whether a child is beaten or not. It must be some combination of factors which determines a person's pacifism or violence, one of which is the frequency with which they are/were beaten as a child. However, until other such factors are isolated, it would seem a better precaution not to beat one's children, if one wishes for non-violent offspring.

(b): again, I think not. I must stress that the beating of a child obviously causes physical, if not also emotional, pain to that child, and for this reason the onus of proof ought rest against it.

(c): perhaps, to some degree. Again, it remains to be shown that this is the important factor, but many experiments involving primates and other mammals have shown that inconsistency is conducive to violent behaviour, so it seems like a good guess. The link did show that beating a child was less productive of violent tendencies if that child lived in a culture in which that was the norm - but productive nonetheless. So again, I think be should be tentative.

Lomax

[neuro]

I suggest a slight shift of perspective.

The question is whether a child is exposed to an environment that:
a. Unpredictably and violently punishes them
b. Is reasonably predictalbly regulated by prize / punishment rules
c. Is essentially free from any regulation (or perceived as such).

My impression is that only (b) is a desirable, educatively effective and favorable condition for equilibrated development. Still, humans are incredibly smart, and as they can win many illnesses notwithstanding doctors, they can often grow up straight notwithstanding their parents.

Beating children was once considered an "educative" procedure, which could be performed in an absolutely calm and cold-minded way, the child being absolutely conscious of what was going to happen and why.

Most often, however, beating children was and still is the result of uncontrolled reaction to irritating behavior of the child, or pure expression of violent and uncontrolled social behavior. It has no educative aim (though the subject may think this is the motivation of their behavior) and it simply serves the function of discharging distress, irritation generated by the child's behavior or even personal depression and psychological suffering marginally, if at all, related to the child's behavior.

I believe that what tends to favor a violent behavior in children as they grow up is not the way they are punished (words, prohibitions, beating) but growing up in an environment where relations are characterized by incoherence, impredictability and violence (verbal not less than physical), i.e. by mutual destructive (mostly not strictly justified by the specific situation) aggression.

With this I do not mean that beating children be any good practice: in general whatever can be obtained using beating as a reasoned punishment can be obtained using other reward/punisment methods as well. A physical punishment might be more rapidly effective in some circumstances, as conditioning studies suggest, but I believe this is not sufficient to make physical punishment an acceptable procedure.

The main question is that admitting physical punishment creates a situation where it becomes difficult to discern the "educative" use of physical punishment from the aggressive or "cathartic" use of violence.

[edy420]

Severely beating anyone can seriously inflict emotional scars that will never heal.
But can there be a sensible use of smacking, a way to decide when it is beneficial to the child's learning, or is it NO SMACKING all the way?

The only thing I have found beneficial from taking regular beatings is a good control over pain tolerance.
Even brothers who rough it out a lot growing up, have a good handy cap when fighting less experienced fighters.
But the variable results of child abuse are extreme, from copying what you saw growing up beating woman etc, to hating all violence because thats what you saw growing up.
Thats a risk I'm not willing to take, especially when reasoning would be so much more logical in this circumstance, pain tolerance can be built up using other methods like playing contact sports.

But when a child builds up into tantrum mode that you can see coming a mile away, it is easier to smack or even pretend smack in order to grab their wondering attention.
A similar effect is when you snap your fingers to wake up a day dreamer, but that is not as effective on children.
Reasoning is limited when the person you are reasoning with has such a low vocabulary and won't listen to you.

I think it's unanimous that beating is no good, but what are your guys thoughts on sensible smacking?

[Lomax]

Hello neuro,

Well, here is why I would reject such a shift of perspective, at least going on the evidence (as opposed to the conjecture) which has been raised in this thread so far.

The question is whether a child is exposed to an environment that:
a. Unpredictably and violently punishes them
b. Is reasonably predictalbly regulated by prize / punishment rules
c. Is essentially free from any regulation (or perceived as such).

My impression is that only (b) is a desirable, educatively effective and favorable condition for equilibrated development.

I think that no evidence for this claim has thus far been forthcoming; and so, when we are told that beating a child increases his/her chances of growing up violent, it seems better to err on the side of caution and not beat the child at all.

You presented us with a false trilemma, for some reason. We need an option:

d. is not beaten, but not free from other forms of regulation.

Lomax

[neuro]

You presented us with a false trilemma, for some reason. We need an option:

d. is not beaten, but not free from other forms of regulation.

Lomax

Just one objection, Lomax,
My option (b) implies reward/punishment.
Not beating.

I do not see how you impose regulations with no reward/punishment, be it simply a smile vs. a bad look.

[Lomax]

Hello neuro,

My apologies, I should have read more thoroughly. I think we are agreed for the most part, then.

Lomax

[neuro]

Hello neuro,

My apologies, I should have read more thoroughly. I think we are agreed for the most part, then.

Lomax

OR:
I should have been more concise :°)

(I knew we were agreed...)

[edy420]

The main question is that admitting physical punishment creates a situation where it becomes difficult to discern the "educative" use of physical punishment from the aggressive or "cathartic" use of violence.

I wonder if a child can tell how thin the line is between the two.

[Louis_B]

It's probably more gratifying for the parent to whack an unruly child than it is instructional, but being a biologist I have observed many wils animals, including lions giving thier cubs a whack. I frequently got whacked myself, and it just taught me to lie better. Temporary pain is not, in my view, as traumatic as the verbal assault that usually accompanies it. A stinging backside goes away, but words stick in your head. Does one reinforce another I wonder?

[edy420]

It's probably more gratifying for the parent to whack an unruly child than it is instructional, but being a biologist I have observed many wils animals, including lions giving thier cubs a whack. I frequently got whacked myself, and it just taught me to lie better. Temporary pain is not, in my view, as traumatic as the verbal assault that usually accompanies it. A stinging backside goes away, but words stick in your head. Does one reinforce another I wonder?

Thats the way I feel about smacking but with the laws soon changing, I face the risk of being a criminal.
The only problem is I fail to justify violence in a situation where I am most dominating and my peer that I am dominating MUST believe my word because I AM AUTHORITY and I spawned you, so there.
It just doesn't seem fair that I use my physical advantage just because I "KNOW" that I am right because I am authority.
I remember many instances where my Mother was absolutely wrong.
Like my first game of scrabble with her, I learned the word Zygote in science that day and I used it as my first word in scrabble.
But because my Mother and Grandfather never heard of it before, they didn't even bother to look it up in the dictionary.
So if she was wrong when she absolutely knew she was right, then my authority is tainted with human error.

I find it hard to get rid of smacking all together which is why this topic is very important to me.
The other main alternative that I experienced too was the evil eye in the super market.
But that has the same problem of being the almighty Authority which leads me to the third option.

The third option of only reasoning with your children and using no authority type methods, seems to test my patience and I break down to where I have to pretend smack (I cover their hand with mine and smack my hand, but the sound is enough to break through their tantrums)
But even that type of smacking feels so wrong when I know that my only advantage in life, is that I have more physical strength and size, more experience with life problems and a higher developed brain but so what?
Does that give me the right to be authoritative against another human?

How do I reason with a child that will not listen? Because they will not listen until I break through the barrier of which I only know one way of doing, but that one way contradicts the method of teaching that I am trying to learn.

I understand this is not the place to squabble about my life troubles but any comments on the matter will be appreciated.