Why do people beat their kids... - Page 2

beat the crap out of their kids. My childhood was not an exception; I remember getting slapped so hard I lost hearing in my left ear for 2 days

On May 27 2013 02:00 Chairman Ray wrote:
I had a very similar upbringing when I was a child. I did not turn out okay. There's a clear difference between beating your child and traditionalist Chinese parents. I've seen white parents beat their kids before. They give them a light smack on the bum to show them their displeasure, but it doesn't cause pain or any damage. Whether or not this a good parenting technique is debatable but certainly has its merits. My parents, just like the OPs, were completely different. I have suffered blows all over the body including the head, and got a lot of bruises as well. I have been beaten with objects, in public, and in front of guests too. When I don't get beaten, I get verbally abused. Obviously this led to a wealth of psychological issues in my youth and they still persist today. Eventually I managed to cope with it. I accepted that my parents were not on my side, but rather another obstacle I have to overcome. For me I had to perform well in school and defend against my parents while in my poor mental state while most other kids only had to do well in school and with the aid of their parents. However I realized that I didn't have it bad. I live in a first world country with a roof over my head and 3 meals a day. My parents actually provide pretty well for me. I didn't have to go to war unlike most young men in our history. The verbal abuse my parents gave me were just words and will only affect me if I take it to heart. Physical pain is just pain and nothing more. This had allowed me to tough it out and do what I want to do.

So my advice to the OP is just to do whatever you can to get your life on track the way you want it. Finish your engineering degree and don't let your upbringing lull you into thinking you are disadvantaged in any way. You won't be able to get your childhood back but you can still make your future into what you want it to be. When you succeed, your parents will still probably take credit for it, but that can't really be helped.

On May 27 2013 01:18 wanghis wrote:
How can kidz know what's right or wrong if they don't have physical and emotional trauma to scare them away?

On May 27 2013 01:18 wanghis wrote:
How can kidz know what's right or wrong if they don't have physical and emotional trauma to scare them away?

On May 26 2013 19:41 salle wrote:

I completely agree, it's a very very bad way to try and teach someone something. Positive reinforcement is much better, but also much harder for a lot of people to do for whatever reason. However it is a form of negative reinforcement... (do wrong, get pain).

A 1996 literature review by Robert Larzelere suggested that, in some circumstances, corporal punishment of children can increase short-term compliance with parental commands. Examples of such circumstances noted by Larzelere are that no implements should be used, that the child is between ages 2 and 6, that the punishment be carried out in private, and that it should occur less than once per week. However, comparisons in the same study with alternative punishments such as one-minute time-outs did not establish that corporal punishment was more effective. This paper also did not measure long term outcomes.[54]
Diana Baumrind has studied the effects of different parenting styles[55][56] and has expressed the opinion that mild spanking with the empty, open hand, in the context of an authoritative (not authoritarian) parenting style, is unlikely to have a significant detrimental effect, if one is careful to control for other variables such as socioeconomic status. She observes that previous studies demonstrating a correlation between corporal punishment and bad outcomes failed to control for these variables.[57] She has also cautioned that neither the pro-spanking nor anti-spanking studies is truly scientific, in the sense that physics or chemistry experiments are scientific, as they cannot be modeled or reproduced by other researchers, there are too many disparate factors that might influence the results, and the studies are often heavily biased toward producing a result that affirms the researcher's personal beliefs.[58]
A 1996 study by Straus suggested that children who receive corporal punishment are more likely to be angry as adults, use spanking as a form of discipline, approve of striking a spouse, and experience marital discord.[59] According to Cohen's 1996 study, older children who receive corporal punishment may resort to more physical aggression, substance abuse, crime and violence.[60] A 1997 study by Straus, Sugarman and Giles-Sims[61] found detrimental child outcomes of nonabusive or customary physical punishment by parents using a design that would not also tend to find detrimental outcomes of most alternative discipline responses. Its findings were criticised by Larzelere,[62] who affirmed that the new study did not contradict his earlier study, the conclusions of which were summarized by Baumrind as "a blanket injunction against spanking is not scientifically supportable".[63] Larzelere granted that frequent and severe corporal punishment carried with it an increased risk for detrimental effects, but saw no proof that an occasional swat could harm a child in the long run.[62]
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in an official policy statement[64] (reaffirmed in 2004) states that "Corporal punishment is of limited effectiveness and has potentially deleterious side effects." The AAP recommends that parents be "encouraged and assisted in the development of methods other than spanking for managing undesired behavior". In particular, the AAP believes that any corporal punishment methods other than open-hand spanking on the buttocks or extremities "are unacceptable" and "should never be used". The policy statement points out, summarizing several studies, that "The more children are spanked, the more anger they report as adults, the more likely they are to spank their own children, the more likely they are to approve of hitting a spouse, and the more marital conflict they experience as adults."[59] Spanking has been associated with higher rates of physical aggression, more substance abuse, and increased risk of crime and violence when used with older children and adolescents.[60] Research published in the American Academy of Pediatrics journal Pediatrics in 2012 based on data gathered from adults in the United States which excluded subjects who had suffered abuse[65] showed an association between harsh corporal punishment by parents and increased risk of a wide range of mental illness.[66][67]
The Canadian Pediatrics Society policy on corporal punishment states "The Psychosocial Paediatrics Committee of the Canadian Paediatric Society has carefully reviewed the available research in the controversial area of disciplinary spanking (7-15)... The research that is available supports the position that spanking and other forms of physical punishment are associated with negative child outcomes. The Canadian Paediatric Society, therefore, recommends that physicians strongly discourage disciplinary spanking and all other forms of physical punishment".[68] In the United Kingdom, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and the Royal College of Psychiatrists have both called for a complete ban on all corporal punishment, stating "We believe it is both wrong and impracticable to seek to define acceptable forms of corporal punishment of children. Such an exercise is unjust. Hitting children is a lesson in bad behaviour".[69] and that "it is never appropriate to hit or beat children".[70] The Australian Psychological Society holds that physical punishment of children should not be used as it has very limited capacity to deter unwanted behavior, does not teach alternative desirable behavior, often promotes further undesirable behaviors such as defiance and attachment to "delinquent" peer groups, and encourages an acceptance of aggression and violence as acceptable responses to conflicts and problems.[71]
Opponents of corporal punishment sometimes argue that spanking constitutes violence and is therefore by definition abusive. Some psychological research is held to indicate that corporal punishment causes the deterioration of trust bonds between parents and children. It is claimed that children subjected to corporal punishment may grow resentful, shy, insecure, or violent. Adults who report having been slapped or spanked by their parents in childhood have been found to experience elevated rates of anxiety disorder, alcohol abuse or dependence and externalizing problems as adults.[72] Some researchers believe that corporal punishment actually works against its objective (normally obedience), since children will not voluntarily obey an adult they do not trust. Elizabeth Gershoff, in a 2002 meta-analytic study that combined 60 years of research on corporal punishment, found that the only positive outcome of corporal punishment was immediate compliance; however, corporal punishment was associated with less long-term compliance.[73] Corporal punishment was linked with nine other negative outcomes, including increased rates of aggression, delinquency, mental health problems, problems in relationships with their parents, and likelihood of being physically abused.
Opponents claim that much child abuse begins with spanking: a parent accustomed to using corporal punishment may, on this view, find it all too easy, when frustrated, to step over the line into physical abuse. One study found that 40% of 111 mothers were worried that they could possibly hurt their children.[74] It is argued that frustrated parents turn to spanking when attempting to discipline their child, and then get carried away (given the arguable continuum between spanking and hitting). This "continuum" argument also raises the question of whether a spank can be "too hard" and how (if at all) this can be defined in practical terms. This in turn leads to the question whether parents who spank their children "too hard" are crossing the line and beginning to abuse them.
Opponents also argue that a problem with the use of corporal punishment is that, if punishments are to maintain their efficacy, the amount of force required may have to be increased over successive punishments. This has been claimed by the American Academy of Pediatrics,[64] which has asserted: "The only way to maintain the initial effect of spanking is to systematically increase the intensity with which it is delivered, which can quickly escalate into abuse". Additionally, the Academy noted that: "Parents who spank their children are more likely to use other unacceptable forms of corporal punishment."[75]
The American Academy of Pediatrics also believes that corporal punishment polarizes the parent-child relationship, reducing the amount of spontaneous cooperation on the part of the child. The AAP policy statement says "...reliance on spanking as a discipline approach makes other discipline strategies less effective to use".[64]
A meta-analysis of 88 research studies testifies to many long and short-term dangers of corporal punishment and concludes that corporal punishment of children is “associated with all child constructs, including higher levels of immediate compliance and aggression and lower levels of moral internalization and mental health.”[73] A 2003 review of available research into parental punishment concluded that "strong evidence exists that the use of physical punishment has a number of inherent risks regarding the physical and mental health and well-being of children".[76]
In a 2006 Study on Violence against Children the Independent Expert for the Secretary-General to the General Assembly writes: “Children testify to the hurt – not only physical, but ‘the hurt inside’.”[77] A 2006 retrospective report study in New Zealand showed that physical punishment of children was quite common in the 1970s and 80s, with 80% of the sample reporting some kind of corporal punishment from parents at some time during childhood. Among this sample, 29% reported being hit with an empty hand, 45% with an object, and 6% were subjected to serious physical abuse. The study noted that abusive physical punishment tended to be given by fathers and often involved striking the child's head or torso instead of the buttocks or limbs.[78]
A 2008 study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine[79] found that mothers who reported spanking their children were more likely (6% vs 2%) to also report using forms of punishment considered abusive to the researchers "such as beating, burning, kicking, hitting with an object somewhere other than the buttocks, or shaking a child less than 2 years old" than mothers who did not report spanking, and increases in the frequency of spanking were statistically correlated with increased odds of abuse.[80]
There is also MRI evidence that children treated with harsh corporal punishment have reduced gray matter when aged 18–25 in their prefrontal lobe. Such research also found that these reductions in gray matter linked to reduced performance IQ on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale.[81]

On May 27 2013 03:38 farvacola wrote:

So above we have folks arguing that children are essentially curious and willing to test limits, and now you are suggesting that they are borderline perfectly trusting. The truth is obviously somewhere in between, and therein lies the reason that many parents rely on nominatively harsher forms of encouragement, particularly when their child's health is at risk.

On May 27 2013 03:25 Liquid`Drone wrote:
but kids are always going to test limits and explore. you are advocating punishment of human nature. in your example, if the kid puts his finger into the socket, that's gonna teach him to listen to you without having the added benefit of the child thinking violence is a proper way to deal with people not obeying him.

On May 27 2013 04:21 farvacola wrote:

Violence should always be the last resort, and I think that the only situation in which it can be justified is in regards to the 3-6 age range and a specific tendency for a child to partake in a behavior that is particularly dangerous, like turning on the oven, touching electrical sockets, or getting into medications. The vast, vast majority of children respond better to verbal and non violent punishments, but there will always be cases of kids who simply will not listen to anything other than mild corporeal punishment.