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Alan C.

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Posts posted by Alan C.

  1. Spanking a child DOES affect their mental health and is 'often the first form of child abuse', experts claim

     

    Spanking, or, as it’s formally known, 'corporal punishment,' has been much in the news of late.

    Out on the presidential campaign trail there was Senator Ted Cruz’s revelation about spanking.

    Senator Cruz said: 'If my daughter Catherine, the five-year-old, says something she knows to be false, she gets a spanking.'

    . . .

    ...'In the United States, it is against the law to hit prisoners, criminals or other adults.

    'Ironically, the only humans it is still legal to hit are the most vulnerable members of our society – those we are charged to protect – children.'

    Dr Knox, like many mental health professionals, cites a strong correlation between corporal punishment and child abuse.

    She said: 'Spanking is often the first step in the cycle of child abuse.'

    . . .

    The psychological toll on children subjected to corporal punishment is well-documented.

    In 2011, the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners issued a statement that said: 'Corporal punishment (CP) is an important risk factor for children developing a pattern of impulsive and antisocial behavior…[and] children who experience frequent CP… are more likely to engage in violent behaviors in adulthood.'

    Similarly, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, in a 2012 statement, concluded: '…although corporal punishment may have a high rate of immediate behavior modification, it is ineffective over time, and is associated with increased aggression and decreased moral internalization of appropriate behavior.'

    In short, spanking a child may seem helpful in the short term, but is ineffective and probably harmful in the long term.

    The child who is often spanked learns that physical force is an acceptable method of problem solving.

     

  2. Retail Sales in U.S. Decrease to End Weakest Year Since 2009

     

    I like how the columnist suggested that it's probably because people are choosing to sock away savings from cheaper gas prices rather than go shopping. I don't think so.

     

    Wal-Mart to shutter 269 stores, 154 of them in the US

     

    Sears and JC Penney have also closed stores. Sears used to be a department store juggernaut in the U.S.

     

    This must be the strong economy that Obama talked about in his State of the Union address.

     

    I think we're right about where we were in 2006 when things began to slow down right before the housing crash. However, this time the housing bubble won't be the only bubble that pops.

  3. The problem with this narrative is that it consists of context dropping.

     

    You have to analyze the logical and requisite antecedents to arrive at the correct conclusion. You can't stage a narrative and then say that it invalidates a libertarian idea.


    As far as I know libertarians don't think past the point of "there will always be enough charity", for the reason that if there will always be enough there is no plan needed of what to do if not.

     

    Libertarians probably have greater foresight than any other group of people.

  4. Another unfortunate consequence of the proliferation of superstitious dogma is the victims (including children) of exorcisms who are beaten, burned, tortured, and killed in an effort to extricate evil spirits.

     

    The idea that there are invisible entities floating around, and inhabiting and controlling people, comes from religion (including Christianity). People who believe that they are being controlled by invisible beings are likely to be mentally unstable and may be psychotic. Religious folks who peddle this cockamamie baloney (including Christians) are morally culpable for the harm done.

  5. You're implying that killing your kids by depriving them of modern medicine is common to Christianity, which is a patent lie.  Does the Church promote faith healing at the expense of modern medicine?

     

    Christianity and other superstitious worldviews legitimize irrationallity and magical thinking, and encourage people to shun and ridicule science and reason (except when they personally benefit from it).

    • Upvote 1
  6. How to limit the daddy damage: How your father treats you is the 'blueprint' for your future relationships with men

     

    For most women, our father is our primary experience of a man, and attachment to our earliest care-givers has a powerful effect on our later relationships.

    We learn to regard ourselves the way our father or mother regards us. If you’re lucky enough to have a good father-daughter bond, it can help you work out the pattern for healthy future relationships with men.

    ‘It’s a blueprint,’ psychotherapist Jane Haynes, co-author of Doctors Dissected, says. ‘You think: “I won’t put myself into an abusive position because I know what it feels like to be in a good relationship.”’

    Feeling heard and affirmed by your father is a gift for later life, she explains.

    ‘Little girls need to believe their fathers think that they are lovely, just as little girls think their fathers are fantastic.’

    Therapists call this ‘erotic feedback’, she says. It has nothing to do with sexual touch, but rather the way a child feels that she/he is valued, cherished and, above all, experiences their body as a good thing.

    ‘It’s about the sense in which the child feels the father’s gaze with a kind of passion. He has an intense interest in their littleness, so that the child feels big, feels valued, part of the world,’ says Haynes.

    ‘But if you feel you have to earn a father’s admiration, that’s very different from unconditional love.’

    There are many ways to be a family. We all know single parents and same-sex couples who do a brilliant job.

    Many people grow up without fathers and lead rich, full lives. But if your father is present in your early life, he provides a male standard and opportunities to practise communication with the opposite sex.

    According to psychologist Lawrence J Cohen, co-author of The Art of Roughhousing, ‘Both boys and girls need loving physical contact with their fathers and in [play fighting] the participants get the endorphin rush that you experience with a sport, as well as the oxytocin or “cuddle chemical” rush that you get from a hug or an embrace.’

    ‘If you’ve had a father who was tender, engaged with you as a child and understood your boundaries, that has to be a resource in your life,’ says Haynes.

    But if you grow up with a remote or absent father, or one who is not able to communicate easily, it can affect self-esteem.

    And inevitably the quality of that early relationship can impact a daughter’s ability to trust and relate to men later in her life.

    Daughters who grew up with an emotionally unavailable dad may desire intimacy but find it hard to trust, be on guard, or even feel obliged to become a surrogate caretaker to their lover (replaying a role from childhood).

    . . .

    According to a 2012 study by Professor Ronald Rohner of the University of Connecticut, which examined the cases of more than 10,000 sons and daughters, a cold or distant father can damage a child for decades.

    Rejection in childhood has the most ‘strong and consistent effect on personality and development,’ says Rohner.

    Indeed, research shows that well-fathered daughters are less likely to be clinically depressed or have eating disorders, drop out of college or get pregnant as teenagers.

    As adults, they are also more likely to be successful in higher-paying, more demanding jobs and wait longer to get married and have children, largely because they are focused on achieving their educational goals first.

    In one study, undergraduate women who did not have a good relationship with their father were found to have lower than normal cortisol levels, often making them oversensitive and over-reactive when confronted with stress.

    ‘To feel that your father found you irritating is discrediting,’ says Haynes. ‘We all want someone to be interested in us. Before you can get a sense of your own identity and importance, there has to be that period of interest.’

    Research shows that women tend to be drawn to partners who are similar to their fathers.

    As adults, it can be easy to fall into repetitive patterns, replaying some of that earlier confusion and ambivalence experienced in childhood.

    Believing we can help another person is a way of coping.

    ‘If we can try to rescue the other person, or blame ourselves for their behaviour, it can be oddly empowering – even give us the illusion of control,’ explains Haynes.

    Many of us insist we are choosing partners who are the exact opposite of our father, but we are still basing decisions about our romantic life on the relationship (or non-relationship) we experienced with him.

     

    • Upvote 1
  7. Dear Dad,

    You can make a difference by being a good father, male role-model, and gentleman. Lead by example. Conduct yourself with dignity, integrity, courtesy, compassion, and self-respect. Involve yourself in my life. Show me kindness, affection, attention, and patience so that I'll know that my life has meaning and value, and then I won't attempt to validate myself through histrionic, attention-seeking, impulsive, hedonistic, ruinous behavior.

    Do this and then I'll know what desirable character traits to look for in a man, and avoid the bad boys, posers, and losers.

    • Upvote 4
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