Here are the main points of frustration I have when it comes to this topic and people getting overly defensive about it.
The scientific consensus should matter.
I see so many people just hand-waving or outright ignoring the fact that the overwhelming consensus of research into this subject says that not only does corporeal punishment carry a bevy of negative psychological effects but that it's also ineffective at achieving the desired disciplinary results.
”It's a very controversial area even though the research is extremely telling and very clear and consistent about the negative effects on children," says Sandra Graham-Bermann, PhD, a psychology professor and principal investigator for the Child Violence and Trauma Laboratory at the University of Michigan. ”People get frustrated and hit their kids. Maybe they don't see there are other options."
But spanking doesn't work, says Alan Kazdin, PhD, a Yale University psychology professor and director of the Yale Parenting Center and Child Conduct Clinic. ”You cannot punish out these behaviors that you do not want," says Kazdin, who served as American Psychological Association president in 2008. ”There is no need for corporal punishment based on the research. We are not giving up an effective technique. We are saying this is a horrible thing that does not work."
The global trajectory should matter.
More and more countries are banning corporeal punishment as a form of child discipline. Three years ago it was only 30 and now we're up to 49. Nearly every country in South America has banned it. This isn't just a case of a few liberal countries in the first world west complaining about different cultures being 'backwards'.
We should not treat our pets better than our children.
I can't remember the last time I heard someone on GAF defend hitting dogs or cats as a form of training/discipline. Everybody knows the right way to train a dog but when it comes to your children suddenly physical violence is back on the table.
Anecdotes don't trump science.
'It snowed this winter therefore global warming isn't true' is the same thing as 'I got hit and I turned out ok'. That's putting aside the fact that self-evaluation is probably the worst way to get an objective result, or that the relevant question is whether you would have turned out even better if you hadn't been hit.
Accept that your parents can do wrong and so can you.
People seem psychologically unwilling to accept the fact that their parents (or themselves) may have done something wrong. That doesn't mean you can't love them or that they didn't love you. It doesn't mean they or you are evil people who need to be locked up. But it does mean admitting that it would have been better for the children involved for different choices to have been made.
Your parents didn't have the advantage of a scientific consensus telling them it was both ineffective and harmful. They didn't have the benefit of living in a world where you could look up and research alternative techniques and forms of discipline from the comfort of your home. They didn't live in a world where they could be aware that the global trend was moving towards the banning of corporeal punishment.
But you do. You have all those tools at your disposal and you have the power to make a different and better choice for yourself and your children.
