Study: Spanked Children May Grow Up to Be Happier, More Successful

[prolix]

In a "debate" I posted a lot of links that were anti-spanking. I was pretty confident that there would not be much counter evidence. I guess i was wrong. I got this in return. Several articles that claim to be pro-science and pro-spanking. Can anyone punch any holes in these articles?

 

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2010/01/04/study-spanked-children-may-grow-up-to-be-happier-more-successful/

 

Young children spanked by their parents may grow up to be happier and more successful than those who have never been hit, a study has found.

According to the research, children spanked up to the age of 6 were likely as teenagers to perform better at school and were more likely to carry out volunteer work and to want to go to college than their peers who had never been physically disciplined.

 

But children who continued to be spanked into adolescence showed clear behavioral problems.

 

Children’s groups and lawmakers in the UK have tried several times to have physical chastisement by parents outlawed, the Times of London reported. They claim it is a form of abuse that causes long-term harm to children and say banning it would send a clear signal that violence is unacceptable.

 

However, Marjorie Gunnoe, professor of psychology at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, said her study showed there was insufficient evidence to deny parents the freedom to choose how they discipline their children.

 

“The claims made for not spanking children fail to hold up. They are not consistent with the data,” said Gunnoe. “I think of spanking as a dangerous tool, but there are times when there is a job big enough for a dangerous tool. You just don’t use it for all your jobs.”

 

Research into the effects of spanking was previously hampered by the inability to find enough children who had never been spanked, given its past cultural acceptability.

 

But Gunnoe’s work drew on a study of 2,600 people, about a quarter of whom had never been physically chastised.

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/family/item/548-new-study-finds-spanking-is-good-for-kids

 

 

Spanking is like milk: It does a body good — or at least a mind. No, this isn’t the conclusion of traditionalist parenting expert Dr. James Dobson but the finding of a study conducted by psychology professor Marjorie Gunnoe at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. FoxNews.com reports on the story, writing, “According to the research, children spanked up to the age of 6 were likely as teenagers to perform better at school and were more likely to carry out volunteer work and to want to go to college than their peers who had never been physically disciplined.”

 

This may come as a relief to parents who don’t wish to spare the rod, but have been accosted with numerous studies stating just the opposite. But how do we reconcile these contradictory findings? Well, perhaps the answer is that the previous scientific studies weren’t very scientific. Fox points out that, in the past, such research was lacking because it was difficult in more traditional times to find subjects who had never been spanked. In contrast, Professor Gunnoe included 2600 such individuals in her study.

 

I had always identified this as the fatal — but furtive — flaw in contemporary analyses of corporal punishment’s effects. To provide just a little anecdote in this regard, I remember once seeing the very libertine Dr. Drew Pinsky on television addressing a certain woman’s psychological problems. She had said that she derived sexual excitement from being humiliated and provided some quite salacious details. Well, Pinsky’s response was to ask if she had ever been struck as a child, to which she answered in the affirmative. He then in effect said, “Aha! You see, I knew it.” The problem was that this show aired at least 10 years ago and the woman was approximately 25 years old, so the days of her “trauma” were about 30 years back. Now, how many people growing up then never, ever — not even once — endured corporal punishment? You might as well have asked her if she had ever eaten carrots and then blamed her problems on beta carotene exposure.

 

We should bear this in mind when hearing claims used to justify anti-spanking laws, such as the prohibitions they have in Sweden and certain localities in the United States. Professor Gunnoe says that such claims are untenable and just don’t accord with the data.

 

Yet there is a larger truth about these contradictory studies: in reality, you can find research to justify any position you might take. This is why we must never, in the name of “science,” dispense with what G.K. Chesterton called “that forgotten branch of psychology”: common sense.

 

Thus, while I believe in corporal punishment (I like a soldier who knows how to maintain discipline) and am sympathetic to Gunnoe’s study, I’ll be consistent and say that the most obvious interpretation of it is insufficient to reveal the truth. For instance, the failure to spank your children is not just a difference, but a symptom. People who won’t lay hand or switch on bare bottom embrace a completely different parenting philosophy than those who will.

The difference is not just that they won’t apply the rod — it’s that they lack what I call a “rod mentality.”

 

That is to say, to such parents, discipline is often a dirty word. They tend to be overly permissive, set poor examples, be inconsistent in moral guidance and not teach responsibility. They are unlikely to view themselves as absolute authority figures but, rather, will treat the family as a democracy (without a constitution). They are more apt to want to be buddies than parents to their children.

 

Common sense tells us some other things as well. For one thing, we often hear that corporal punishment is damaging because it “teaches violence,” a nonsensical assertion if ever there were one (I completely refute this notion here). It is ironic, too, given that those who promote this idea are generally evolutionists who believe man to simply be a highly evolved animal. After all, can you think of an animal that doesn’t at times use violence? Animals use it in defense of self and territory, to kill prey, to win females, and sometimes simply because they’re angry. Hey, even Bambi is guilty. I read a while back about a deer that attacked a man, impaling the fellow with his antlers. Yet, evolutionists would have us believe that somehow, magically, man is the only “animal” who ended up with the Gandhi gene while “evolving” in this violent world.

 

Of course, in reality, as even cursory observation of babies and toddlers informs, it’s more like the Attila the Hun gene. When they have tantrums, they will often lash out, hitting, biting, and pulling hair. Hey, they will cry and scream without that behavior being modeled for them, either.

Despite this, some would have us believe that parents can control these often violent, disagreeable little creatures without occasional recourse to physical action themselves. These experts tell us that if you have to resort to such a tactic, there is something wrong with your parenting ability. This is an interesting theory. If it is valid, we can save ourselves a heck of a lot of money.

 

Why not just eliminate our military, for instance? If man can ever and always be reasoned with, there is no need for an entity whose purpose is, in part, to violently impose our will (rightly or wrongly) on others.

Then, if a man breaks the law and resists arrest, won’t the police use violent action to take him into custody? Why should this be allowed? Can’t they just talk to him, reason, and cajole him into compliance? Maybe he just needs to know he’s being listened to.

 

Oh, this doesn’t make sense? OK, then what do you do when a child “resists arrest”? What happens when the answer to “Go to your room” is “NO!” and the answer to “You’re grounded” is also “NO!”? If force is sometimes necessary with the mature beings known as adults, why would it not be with the raw pieces of humanity known as children?

And if we can’t answer that question without a study, it only proves that, lamentably, reason does not always prevail.

 

 

[prolix]

Sorry, the articles I found could not link their sources, looking into that now to see if there ever was a source study, or just some christian "study", which is not a study at all but bullshit navel-gazing by christian academics...

[percentient]

Would you mind fetching a link to the study, or even identifying information?

 

Edit: When posting this I didn't see the comment above. I couldn't find any study like that with google scholar.

 

The data sounds important, but the discussion in the pop articles is uniformly shitty. "Common sense", therefore spanking? Kids in violent families grow up having tantrums. Self-defense. People naturally capable of becoming violent. Therefore spanking? Come the fuck on. 

[prolix]

Yup. And I just did the research. All the articles that are pro-spanking are either editorial pieces with no science source. Or one "study" conducted by a christian liberal arts professor at a christian college. Literally 100's of studies and articles can be found against spanking...

[J-William]

Would you mind fetching a link to the study, or even identifying information?

 

The data sounds important, but the discussion in the pop articles is uniformly shitty. "Common sense", therefore spanking? Kids in violent families grow up having tantrums. Self-defense. People naturally capable of becoming violent. Therefore spanking? Come the fuck on.

I think you summed it up nicely. These folks are grasping every straw to excuse their treatment of children.

[Carl Green]

.

[Wuzzums]

[Kaki]

The following is a possible mental justification for a parent to be okay with spanking their child. I DO NOT agree with it at all:

 

Assuming the parent would like their child to be happy. Some (or most) parents have the idea that happiness comes from being successful, and the way they see it, the child needs to learn to obey to be successful,. so the temporary harm caused by spanking is an unfortunate necessity to get to the goal of happiness in long run.

 

I completely agree with you here Carl.

 

I was trying to find the actual study which was seemingly done by Marjorie Gunnoe. It might be this one, but I can't find more than the abstract. If someone can find more I would appreciate that!

 

Just like you said Carl, the study was cited on DailyNews as "Spanking makes kids perform better in school, helps them become more successful: study" The British DailyMail turned it into: "Young children who are smacked 'go on to be more successful'"

So it does indeed seem to be about academical and financial success and not emotional well-being.

 

 

The approach of the OP might do well to address this type of justifcation but there are plenty of other parents out there with some pretty terrible justifications (religous ones come to mind)

(...)

 

Marjorie Gunnoe, who came out with the study is indeed a "Christian Scientist" - whatever that might be.

 

http://www.cccu.org/professional_development/resource_library/2003/recommended_readings_by_dr_marjorie_gunnoe

 

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/psych/Vita/Gunnoe%20vita.pdf

[Pelafina]

Is this study considered to be empirical evidence?

[Carl Green]

.

[percentient]

 

I was trying to find the actual study which was seemingly done by Marjorie Gunnoe. It might be this one, but I can't find more than the abstract. If someone can find more I would appreciate that!

 

 

This is a more recent publication (2013) than the "news" stories that just reference each other (2010).

 

Prolix, this was low effort. You can do better

[shirgall]

scholar.google.com is your friend

 

ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN PARENTING STYLE, PHYSICAL DISCIPLINE, AND ADJUSTMENT IN ADOLESCENTS' REPORTS

 

Marjorie Lindner Gunnoe Calvin College

 

Summary.—Recollections of physical discipline as absent, age-delimited (ages 2–11), or present into adolescence were associated with youths' evaluations of their mothers' and fathers' parenting styles and their own adjustment. Data were from the Portraits of American Life Study–Youth (PALS–Y) a diverse, national sample of 13- to 18-year-olds (N = 158). The modal experience of youth with authoritative parents was age-delimited spanking; the modal experience of youth with permissive parents was no spanking; the modal experience of youth with authoritarian or disengaged parents was physical discipline into adolescence. The age-delimited group reported the best adjustment (less maladjustment than the adolescent group; greater competence than both other groups). The positive association between fathers' age-delimited spanking and youths' academic rank persisted even after accounting for parenting styles. The eschewing of spanking should not be listed as a distinguishing characteristic of authoritative parenting, which was more often associated with age-delimited spanking than with zero-usage.

 

 

 

Read More: http://www.amsciepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/15.10.49.PR0.112.3.933-975

 

My reading of this is that children that are beaten fit in better with their peers, but I wonder if that's because they are more likely than not to find beaten children among their peers.

[Kaki]

 

scholar.google.com is your friend

 

ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN PARENTING STYLE, PHYSICAL DISCIPLINE, AND ADJUSTMENT IN ADOLESCENTS' REPORTS

 

Marjorie Lindner Gunnoe Calvin College

 

 

 

Read More: http://www.amsciepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/15.10.49.PR0.112.3.933-975

 

This is the study I linked as well, but as Percentient pointed out it is from 2013 while the OP's article is from 2010; so it can't be the study they are referring to.

[MMX2010]

I didn't read prolix's post in depth, nor did I read the study he posted. 

 

My initial thought was, "Non-spanking is a necessary but non-sufficient ingredient in peaceful parenting."  And I speculated that the majority of children who were never spanked are being raised Neglectfully rather than Peacefully. 

[prolix]

Could you be more specific?

[corpus mentium]

Doesn't murder have a 100% efficacy rate in preventing or even curing cancer?

[shirgall]

This is the study I linked as well, but as Percentient pointed out it is from 2013 while the OP's article is from 2010; so it can't be the study they are referring to.

 

Ah, it seemed like the most relevant from Gunnoe, however. There's a lot of Gunnoe literature on Google Scholar that's related to the same subject matter, though. I sense a one trick pony.

[MMX2010]

When I spoke to my sister, (who gave birth to my niece), about Peaceful Parenting, she immediately assumed I was talking about Neglectful Parenting.  She used phrases like "letting her do whatever she wants" and "letting her get away with everything". 

 

If my sister's assumption is true for all mothers, we should expect to bump into that hurdle whenever we discuss Peaceful Parenting. 

[shirgall]

When I spoke to my sister, (who gave birth to my niece), about Peaceful Parenting, she immediately assumed I was talking about Neglectful Parenting.  She used phrases like "letting her do whatever she wants" and "letting her get away with everything". 

 

If my sister's assumption is true for all mothers, we should expect to bump into that hurdle whenever we discuss Peaceful Parenting. 

 

I totally get that. I find this page to be good about identifying the difference: http://unschoolers.org/peaceful-parenting/identifying-underlying-needs/

 

As a first salvo against this sort of argument, try saying, "Peaceful parents work to understand underlying needs instead of treating symptoms with opposition. It is the disciplinary parents who don't take the time to understand that are neglectful."