Serious On raising children and specifically spanking

[Tmi489]

well, spare the rod and spoil the sod
positive reinforcement becomes less and less potent the more you do it so you should add the other side of the skinner box
eventually positive reinforcement can be required to do the action, if the parent isnt brave enough to cull it (which parents who don't like to spank can be)
also for a child to live a "happy life" they better get a reality check and be obedient by the time they get a decent job
source: anecdotal from my behaviors

 

[Luck O' the Irish]

can confirm. my parents beat the shit out of me as a child and i am now a healthy, well-adjusted adult with a decent job

 

[earl]

There’s so many more productive (and healthier) ways to punish a child compared to hitting them. Society at this point doesn’t physically punish people in virtually any other setting, so idk why parents should do so for their child. It’s not like a their future job will physically beat them. At least legally.

Just give them a time out or something. Or count to 3. That scared the shit out of me as a kid, never wanted to see what 3 meant.

Best case scenario is “I was hit as a kid and turned out ok” and worst case scenario is, well, child abuse

 

[Bayleef030]

well, spare the rod and spoil the sod
positive reinforcement becomes less and less potent the more you do it so you should add the other side of the skinner box
eventually positive reinforcement can be required to do the action, if the parent isnt brave enough to cull it (which parents who don't like to spank can be)
also for a child to live a "happy life" they better get a reality check and be obedient by the time they get a decent job
source: anecdotal from my behaviors

There's a huge amount of options in between spanking and over-over-over the top spoiling.

Instead of spanking (or grounding, no more TV/gaming)... Let the child fix what went wrong.

For example, if they ruined someone else's property, let them fix it by repairing what they broke, or buy a new one with their allowance. Or if they yelled at someone for no good reason, they need to actually apologise. So not a simple fake 'sorry', but actually talk to your child about what they did wrong, so they can feel and show genuine remorse.

That way, the child might actually learn something from the experience. Much more effective than spanking in the long run, and it's not abusive.

 

[Wigglytuff]

disclaimer: don't beat your kids, this isn't an endorsement of spanking. but i think spanking is effective, which is not the same thing as it being ideal, and i want to lay out a case for why.

i don't really buy the "children don't learn anything from spanking!" argument. you learn what not to do, and you learn it in a nasty way. after iterated occurrences, you develop a framework of "x things will get me spank'd", and later on you develop an understanding of why those things are wrong in a moral/social/cultural sense rather than a sense of avoiding punishment. but the first impression sticks and provides a low resolution view that will suffice in steering you away from doing stupid things until you can adequately grasp the higher resolution details.

it's like when you pee on an electric fence and get your willy zapped when you're 5; it's not like you know how electricity works so the takeaway from that is "don't pee on things that you're not supposed to or you might get zapped". of course, when you learn 7 years later that your piss is full of nice minerals that conduct the electricity in that fence rather well, you have a higher resolution view of "don't pee on things that conduct electricity." but for the last 13 years i have not peed in anything that wasn't a toilet, not even when i was piss drunk (haha pun) stumbling around in a cornfield, and i think we could all agree that that's an ideal mode of operating. perhaps the method wasn't ideal but it was super effective and i don't think that should be minimized in this argument.

tl;dr: don't pee on electric fences and don't spank your kids

edit:

obligatory gif

 

[Martin]

don't pee on electric fences

What if I want to tho

 

[Wigglytuff]

What if I want to tho

you've been warned

 

[TexanSansei]

I could not find the exact article, but UT published a study on the effects that spanking a child has on the child that took place over five decades. Some effects are an increased likelihood of antisocial behavior/mental health problems, increased chance to become an alcoholic/drug addict. Usually the parent does so to "win the fight" and the parent also has more of a chance to escalate things up to abuse than a parent who doesn't. Also the child has a larger chance to endorse child spanking later on in life. The most info is on the actual article but now said article doesn't appear immediately upon looking up it. It's a good source, try and find it.