Gotta love the Daily News. They have a little tidbit out yesterday on the positive aspects of smacking young children:
“A study…found that young children whose parents spank them perform better at school later on…The research, by Calvin College psychology professor Marjorie Gunnoe, found that kids smacked before age 6 grew up to be more successful.”
Duh! I don’t have a doctorate and I know that already.
I jest. I have yet to lay a finger on my son (not that I haven’t considered it–eat your damn veggies!), but there is a part of me that thinks that spanking isn’t such a great sin.
At JP’s age (three), my father used to smack me on the wrist as a punishment. This was a structured penalty, not an angry one. If I repeatedly ignored warnings to stop a certain behavior (spitting, fighting, Satan worship), then I had to stand up straight, put my hand out, and get a sharp wallop on the back of the hand. It stung, and I certainly didn’t like it, but it got the point across.
Later on, I received the occasional, not-very-hard spanking for major offenses. I also went to school in the south, which meant that my teachers were permitted to paddle me. And they did, with justification and great gusto. None of this seems to have had any major impact on me, except if you count my S&M predilection, serial killing rampages, and chronic bed-wetting.
End of the day, I haven’t made up my mind on spanking. Highly likely I won’t do it, but I’m not sure it’s such a bad thing, really, and it may be more effective than yelling, which according to a daffy little piece in the Times a couple months back, is the “new spanking,” whatever that means.
Any thoughts out there in parent-blogging land? Where do we come down on the issue of whacking?
The Po Bronson/Ashley Merriman book, NurtureShock (I can’t recommended this more strongly, btw), made a point about how spanking’s effects depends on the community a child grows up in. If spanking is the norm (as tends to be the case in southern communities), then it tends to have no negative effects (though I can’t remember whether it had positive effects). But if spanking is not the norm (the trend in many northeast cities) then that’s when you tend to see correlations with a child’s behavior, academic achievement, etc.–children who do get spanked in these places tend toward aggression, poor school performance, etc.
I like the way you were disciplined growing up. It sounds like British boarding school–spanking as consequence, not just punishment.