Punishment of the Childrens

Starting on this pagish, the Games thread starts discussing punishment of childrens.

Any actual evidence this works better than dealing with kids without violence?

With the recent anti-smacking law been passed here, it's illegal to even give a slap on the wrist.
This has led to it being quite the debate on talkback shows, with people arguing cases for and against the smacking of chilluns

While there are many alternatives, some children just don't behave and, quite frankly, need a good beating to knock some sense into them.
For example, my cousin was never spanked and and look what happened.
This is not to say it's the only answer, there are generations of families who don't do this and the kids turn out fine.

spanking/belt/wooden spoon/whip/paddle/brass knuckles should only be used after all else has failed

Evidence?

well beating was probably the wrong word and as for evidence....
Me, I was quite the terror as a child and after a few "meetings" with the belt I soon learned not to put catfood in my brothers bed and pick on my little sister.

The mere snapping of the belt was enough to get me to fall back in line

It's not that violence doesn't work. Pain is a strong deterrent, be it from a parent smacking a child, or learning not to touch a stove when it's hot.

But that being said, it's not the only option. Anecdotal evidence of "my cousin never got spanked so he dug up our dead pets" doesn't actually mean anything. There's a whole nature vs. nurture thing I could go into here, but that's not what this debate is about.

Violent punishments themselves are bad, and they're not the only option.

Any evidence that other forms of discipline wouldn't have worked?

That's why I'm asking for usable evidence, like studies. Such as this one:
Spaking leads to child aggression and anxiety.

That's not very many considering the amount of mothers/children are likely in the MILLIONS.

That's not how statistics works.

I understand that, but I'm merely questioning the accuracy of the research due to the low amount of people questioned.

Well, a sample size of 336 is enough for a maximum margin of error of ~5.3% in a numerical study. Is that accurate enough for you?

Edit: The last sentence was not meant to be snarky.

This post has been edited by Grandmaster Jogurt on Dec 12 2007, 11:31 PM

The only way we'd have evidence that something like this wouldn't have worked would be to try it one way, and then go back in time and try it another way.

Edit: Forgot the smiley.

This post has been edited by Iyestorm on Dec 13 2007, 12:12 AM

I gotta say that's a very vague statistic.

Why?

Because we're given no percentages it just says kids are more aggressive without numbers to suggesting in what size,when it comes spanking and physical force there is barely any description for the measurement of physical force applied (for example, spanking with your hand is much different then spanking with a belt when it comes to pain but very similiar to group) and the amount of physical force applied is important.
Three alot of the info is second hand from the mothers and so cannot be considered entirely reliable, since they might not know enough about their children's life to be considered experts on their aggresssion.

This post has been edited by Alphawolf55 on Dec 13 2007, 12:27 AM

It shows that disciplining with violence causes noticable harm to the child (besides the pain). There's no numbers, yes, but as there are no units for aggression or violence, it's hard to apply numbers. So unless there's real evidence that violent discipline works better than non-violent discipline, there's very good reason not to use it.

We don't even know if the rest is entirely reliable, because statistic test like this can usually find any result the researcher wants (especially with no hard numbers to back up statements). I'm not doubting that use of excessive force against children is bad, I just feel this particular test is horrible evidence of that. Especially since there's a difference between spanking a kid with your hand, and physically beating him and this test doesn't take those differences into account and those are important differences.

Then find a recent study that shows the opposite. People say this whenever statistics are posted here, but they never actually back that up.

So wait my only choices are either to find a statistic that contradicts this one or accept this one as fact?

Well, if you want to discredit the field of Statistics, one would think you would provide something besides your sayso.

What about the fact that this statistic has no evidence except them saying so?