Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

I think we cross posted, so I wanted to be sure you saw this. ;)
This is exactly the kind of thing I need!

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Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

We're talking about it over breakfast night now! If we get as far as writing it up, I'll let you know. It will probably take us a while.

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

It would also need to have a control for any other types of punishment or discipline used.

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

That's awesome of you! What a great way to teach her and a great article to do so on. :)

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

I also like how the second to last section tries to make the point that yelling is bad, but it's what parents are turning to when they take spanking out of their tool-box. They site a study that shows yelling is as detrimental as hitting... Sounds like the opposite of the point they were trying to make about spanking not being harmful! Unless I read it wrong!

ETA: And, the whole society went down the drain when spanking went out the window conclusion is useless, b/c there are 5th Century quotes about how the youth of the day were so much worse than generations previous, so that mindset has been around a long time!

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

A serious and covering study on effects of spanking would be most interesting to see and to conduct, if they do not exist yet. It would not be a simple undertaking...

First, the parameters (the factors to be measured and tested and the ways how to measure and test them) should be defined and evaluated. Just to compare the outcome of spanking with non-spanking would be much too simple. We would need at least a four-field such as responsible spanking/non-responsible spanking/responsible non-spanking/non-responsible non-spanking. Even this would be quite simplistic and crude, but it is still not easy to define. What would "responsible spanking" be? How should it be defined, and in whose opinion spanking should be considered responsible or not? Would it be the spankers opinion? Or the spanked person's opinion. Or someone's elses?
When these parameters finaly are defined and we want to find out how spanking effects its subjects, we need parameters for these effects also. We need to define what are "good" and what are "bad" effects. And we need to figure out how directly we can expect responsible spanking/irresponsinle spanking/responsile non-spanking and non-responsible nonspanking to correlate with the "good" and the "bad" effects. Not something you do in a few spare evenings...
After we know what to measure, we need to choose a method: surveys, lognitudial studies, observational methods, thematic interviews, depth interviews...After the best method (in our opinion) is chosen, some complementary methods or control methods also need to be applied. For instance, if we use surveys and statistical methods, it is good to use some qualitative methods also, such as interviews or observational techniques. And the other way around: qualitative methods should be controlled with some amount of quantitative research. This use of a controlling method is called triangulation. Its purpose is to prevent "blind spots" and "tunnel vision" and provide the researcer with a more in-depth view to the data and the results.
And when this is all done, funding needs to be applied. No one is able to do serious research as a hobby. Such work demands a full time commitment of at least one person, and often it involves a whole research group. In order to get funding, we must present a convincing research plan to someone who is crazy enough to pay to get the research done. The reseach plan is a whole bunch of papers where the methods and the problem to be studied are described. It is not easy to write such a thing, and it takes time...
So...our parameters have been defined, our methods are chosen and our very convincing study plan has been accepted by someone who is willing to fund our research. Before the actual research is started, pilot studies are often conducted first. This means: the parameters and the methods are applied on a smaller scale in order to test them, to evalate them, to correct them and to fine-tune them. The results of the pilot studies are often evaluated in public. For instance, an article may be written about them in a scientific journal. The matter is discussed by other members of thescentific community. Opinions are gathered. Methods and parameters are optimized...And when this is all done...the actual research can take place.:)
So, serious scientific studies are huge projects. Even the preparations for one can take years.
The reseach projects descrbed in Pearl's article do not look very convincing to me. Even the most serious one - the survey with 2600 spanked and non-spanked subjects - looked quite superficial. This impression may be because the study was cited by Pearl, who - frankly speaking - is not a very educated person in my opinion. I doubt if he would be able to even read a scientific study properly, and to cite one properly is even much more difficult.

If serious studies have been done on the effects of spanking, some of us should have heard about its preparations and pilot study phase already. I'm thinking of those of us who work in the educational or social field. Some information about such studies should have "leaked out" in their preparation stage already.

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

Parenting can not be reduced down to 'spanking or not spanking'. If you 'spank' = beat your child you are not a good parent. If you 'don't spank' but ignore teaching your child basic manners and responsibility you aren't a very good parent either. That is one of the major flaws of Pearl etc, the simplify parenting down to 'hit them and it will all be fine' and that is not parenting.

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

Excellent points.
I have been giving a lot of thought to addressing their argument about no research being conducted on families who spank "responsibly". I believe there are many components to family and while they argue that a healthy Christian family who spanks will produce healthy children, they fail to consider that maybe a healthy family produces healthy children because they are a healthy family. Maybe they produce relatively healthy children in spite of the spanking because they are healthy in so many other areas. Just maybe the Pearls should consider a healthy Christian family who doesn't spank would also produce even healthier? Unless we can bring a group of identically healthy families into a study who both spank and don't spank we will never be able to determine the true difference. It seems the Pearls have a rather unstable method of measuring spankings effectiveness. If a family spanks and has children who grow up to be dilenquents then they argue the family wasn't spanking correctly or was unhealthy in another area. If the family has healthy children who grow to be leaders then they must have spanked. They use the same form of reasoning as they accuse the researchers of doing.

What I lament is the sad lack of healthy leaders who can stand up and say "I wasn't spanked". I personally have never met a person who wasn't spanked outside of my own kids. I hope we raise up a generation who can say the above and can by example fight the Pearls of this world.


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Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

Where are the studies? Other than a couple of examples he named names, but not studies or studies, but no names. No dates, universities or other ways to look up the data for yourself. Who is funding this research? There is nothing about any of the studies he is citing other than his view of them. I found one study done in 1986 suggesting that the abuse rate was higher at that time than it had been. But it also suggested it was because parents did not know what to do, only what not to do. Something that is to be expected.
To say that twenty years ago parents did not know about the controversy with spanking is just not true. I am thirty four now, I remember spanking being debated then. (For the record, I was all for it being outlawed). He is simply recycling the same arguments. snide humor and hyperbolic predictions that we being used twenty years ago.
Why did they fail to mention the safety issue of spanking? There are three kids whose deaths have been tied to their methods. If spanking is so safe, isn't it on them to prove it's safety?
I noticed that after a passing dismissal of Sweden, he did not mention the other countries that have banned spanking. Anyone else wonder why? It is illegal to spank in Germany, Denmark, Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia and they have a much lower crime rate than the US. It is also illegal in other countries besides those, but I can't remember the crime rates or even names right now. But I do know that they are not dangerous lawless lands. By the way that study that proves that without spanking the Swedish resorted to abusing their children was done in 1986 and even the researchers thought it might be growing pains. Parents knew what not to do but not what to do and were frustrated.
The other thing is that the very few studies that have come saying spanked kids turn out okay all qualify with as long as the spankings themselves are not too severe, rare and the parents are consistent. And by very few, I only remember two of those studies coming out in the last five years or so. That may sound like a lot, but there have been more than that coming out saying spanking is a bad idea or that parents spank far more than they realize. It is late, but if anyone wants them, I will see if I can find those studies in the morning.
The question I keep asking about spanking and no one can answer is how is it that only experts who advocate spanking are the ones writing books on dealing with angry children and teens while those that are against it are not? Why do those who are not spanking not need that resource while those who do spank need it? I am not saying gently parented kids never get angry, but they do not seem to carry years of anger that has been building. Not one person who has told me to spank can tell me anything other than that is just what some kids and all teens do.

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

The "growing rate of child abuse" in those countries that have banned spanking may also result from changes in how "abuse" is defined. I live in one of those countries where it is illegal to spank. After spanking and other corporal punishment became illegal there have been law suits against parents who spank but also against parents that pull hair, pince, slap on fingers or give a flick on the forehead. This kind of actions are defined as incidents of "mild abuse" and they go to statistics as such. Before the "spankin ban" no-one was ever sued for slapping on the fingers of a child, but now it can happen. So,"mild abuse" which went by unnoticed before is registered today as abuse, and of course it makes the things to look like child abuse has increased. In reality, I believe parents are not slapping on fingers or pulling hair more than before but rather less.

In my country, parents who has been flicking a child on forehead have been found guilty of "mild abuse" and they have been condemned to fines. If someone of the health care or education suspects a child has been "mildly abused", he/she must notify the social care system. In cases like that, parents are usually subjected to compulsory family therapy or at least to some consultation sessions. Of course things like this show in statstics somehow.

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

DD & I are about halfway through the article now. She's 12 (almost 13) and thrilled that she can refute their arguments by calling out their logical fallacies. Anyone else notice how violent their name-calling is? They describe anti-spanking folks as:

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

I did notice that. I also noticed that they claim people who don't believe in spanking as having a liberal agenda that includes a lot of things that I and other non spankers I know are completely against. I found the abortion one particularly distasteful.

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

I'd love to see her final essay :).

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

I would love to see your daughter's final essay, too. I love seeing preteen and teenage essays, they are so often intelligent and insightful. They are often the real chicken soup for the soul.

Re: NGJ New Addition to To Train Up a Child
 

:yes I would too!