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Aug. 24, 2011 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

17:03

1984 The Facts About Spanking

The shocking science about the long-term effects of corporal punishment, essential viewing for every parent! Sources: http://www.fdrurl.com/spanking

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	Hi everybody, it's Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Aid Radio.
	Thank you so much for taking the time to look at the facts about spanking.
	Let's start with the definition.
	We're not talking about beating children black and blue.
	We're not talking about extreme child abuse.
	We're talking about spanking, which in most of the studies cited here is to find a striking a child with an open hand on the buttocks or extremities with the intention of modifying behavior without causing physical injury.
	How prevalent is it?
	Very prevalent.
	Most of these statistics are to do with the US and the UK. Spanking remains one of the most common strategies to reduce undesired behaviors.
	Over 90% of American families report having used spanking as a means of discipline at some time.
	And this continues throughout the childhood of the offspring.
	Spanking of young children is highly correlated with continued spanking of school-age and adolescent children.
	More than half of 13 and 14-year-olds are still being hit an average of eight times per year.
	Is it widespread? Certainly.
	Almost 70% of American parents think spanking is not only good but essential to child-rearing.
	In other words, it would probably be considered abusive to not spank.
	90% of parents spank their toddlers at least three times a week.
	Two-thirds spank them once a day.
	One in four parents begins to spank when their child is six months old, really an infant.
	50% when their child is 12 months old.
	This really is too early for children to understand cause and effect and predict consequences to behavior.
	52% of 13 and 14 year olds get spanked, as do 20% of high school seniors.
	What is the age breakdown?
	62% of parents hit their 1-year-old child, even more hit their 4-year-old child, and 7% of these 4-year-olds are being hit at least once a day.
	By the age of 7, at least 8% are being hit once a day, and a further 33%, not less, than once a week.
	22% of 7-year-olds receive corporal punishment with an implement, some external thing, a belt or a wooden spoon or something like that.
	53% have been threatened with an implement.
	Three-quarters of seven-year-olds are either hit or threatened with implements.
	91% of boys and 62% of girls.
	By the age of 11, 18% or 22% of boys are being hit once or more a week and 15% of boys are being punished with an implement.
	What triggers it?
	What causes spanking?
	Parents are more likely to spank when they are angry or irritable, depressed, fatigued and stressed.
	In 44% of those surveyed, corporal punishment was used about 50% of the time because the parent had, quote, lost it.
	Approximately 85% of parents expressed moderate to high anger, remorse, and agitation while punishing their children.
	These findings do challenge the notion that parents can or do spank in a calm, planned manner.
	What are the effects on parents?
	Although 93% of parents justify spanking, 85% say that they would rather not if they had an acceptable alternative that they could believe in.
	Well, such alternatives do exist.
	Strongly urge you to look into them.
	One study found that 54% of mothers said that spanking was the wrong thing to have done in at least half of the times they used it.
	That's pretty bad. Spanking is a very aggressive action towards a child, and if you're doing it wrong half the time, you probably shouldn't be doing it at all.
	What are the effects on children?
	There is a 93% agreement in scientific studies that spanking is harmful to children.
	Spanking leads to more antisocial behavior in childhood and increased aggression, increased spousal abuse and increased child abuse in adulthood.
	And to be clear here, I'm not saying everybody who spanks becomes a spousal abuser, but it is strongly correlated that it leads to an increased risk.
	Now, this 93% agreement has been called an almost unheard of consensus in parenting studies, which are full of contradictory results, but these are very consistent.
	Defiance. A study shows that disciplining children by spanking puts youngsters at risk for becoming aggressive, antisocial, and chronically defiant, which is why the spanking continues for so many children through their teenage years.
	Dr. Elizabeth Gershoff has analyzed 88 studies over 62 years to determine the effects of spanking on 11 child behaviors.
	Apart from immediate compliance, the research showed that spanking had negative effects on other behaviors.
	Substance abuse and mental health Children who are spanked and slapped are twice as likely to develop alcohol addiction and other drug abuse problems.
	A study at McMaster University in Canada found that spanking and slapping children is linked to increased rates of anxiety disorders, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, antisocial behavior, and, to some extent, depression.
	IQ Spanking by parents can significantly damage a child's mental abilities and results in a lower IQ later in life, suggests a study by researchers at the University of New Hampshire.
	The research team also looked at corporal punishment practices in 32 countries and found a lower average IQ in nations in which spanking was more prevalent.
	Imagine if there was some food that was costing your child up to five points of his or her IQ capacity or potential, what an outcry that would be.
	Kids who were physically punished had up to a five-point lower IQ score than kids who weren't.
	And the more the children were spanked, the lower their IQs.
	It is dose-dependent.
	Mental abilities. A study shows that corporal punishment slows the development of mental ability, particularly in younger children aged two to six.
	Corporal punishment was defined for the study as hitting a child, usually on the buttocks, at least three times a week.
	93% of mothers hit their 2-4 year olds an average of 3.6 times a week, or 187 times a year.
	12.8% hit their children at least 7 times a week.
	This is also dose dependent.
	The more children were spanked, the more they fell behind in cognitive development.
	Let's look at some of the data.
	This is a chart. The higher the percentage of parents in a nation who used corporal punishment with teenagers, the lower the national average IQ. This holds back an entire culture from advancing intellectually.
	The trend line is very clear.
	Post-traumatic stress disorder.
	More spanking results in a greater probability of post-traumatic stress symptoms.
	A lot of corporal punishment more than doubles the percent of people with high PTSD symptoms.
	It adds to the cycle of abuse.
	Parents who experience frequent corporal punishment as children perceived it as acceptable and frequently spanked their own children.
	Changing your parenting is one of the most difficult things.
	Changing from how you were parented to how you are parenting is one of the most difficult and essential things, I would argue, in the world.
	So people who experienced frequent corporal punishment as children, their children in turn, advocated spanking as a disciplinary method and preferred aggressive conflict resolution strategies with peers and siblings.
	How does it affect aggression?
	Frequent use of corporal punishment, i.e.
	mother's use of spanking more than twice in the previous month when the child was three years of age, was associated with increased risk for higher levels of child aggression when the child was five years old.
	Aggression against children makes children more aggressive.
	Even controlling for baseline antisocial behavior, the more three to six-year-old children were hit, the worse their behavior was when assessed two years later.
	Again, this is dose-dependent.
	Physical abuse. University of North Carolina Chapel Hill researchers concluded that parents who report spanking children with an object and parents who frequently spank children are much more likely to report other harsh punishment acts consistent with physical abuse.
	Again, to be clear, Not saying parents who frequently spank children are automatically child abusers, but what we are saying, or what this data is saying, is that if you frequently spank your children, you are more likely to report other harsh punishments, acts, consistent with physical abuse.
	Sexual problems.
	Children whose parents spank or inflict other corporal punishment on them are more likely to have sexual problems later in life, such as a greater chance of physically or verbally coercing a sexual partner, engaging in risky sexual behavior, engaging in masochistic sex, including sexual arousal by spanking.
	Social problems.
	Even minimal amounts of spanking can lead to increased likelihoods of antisocial childhood behaviors, such as cheating and lying and bullying.
	Children of parents who use physical punishment or yelling and shouting as punitive discipline are much more likely to engage in aggressive behaviors, fighting, bullying and being mean to others.
	Children in punitive environments at age 2-3 years of age scored almost 40% higher on a scale of aggressive behavior than children in non-punitive homes.
	Children 8-9 years of age scored 83% higher on a scale of aggressive behavior than children in non-punitive homes.
	Life problems. A study shows a link between childhood aggression and poor outcomes later in life, such as delinquency, crime, poor school results, and unemployment.
	It's just a link. It's not 100% causal, but there is a link.
	There is a risk. If you spank your children, there is a risk of these things occurring.
	That risk is significant, and you don't know ahead of time whether that risk is going to be realized or not.
	But, but, but, this can change.
	When punitive parenting changes at age 2 to 3 to non-punitive parenting, non-corporal punishment, non-spanking parenting, children eventually score just as low in aggressive behaviors as those in a non-punitive environment.
	It can change. You can change it.
	Anxiety. There appears to be a linear association between the frequency of slapping and spanking in childhood and a lifetime prevalence of anxiety disorder, alcohol abuse, or dependence.
	Crime. Corporal punishment is associated with increased levels of aggression and is a predictor of delinquency, violence, and crime in later life, and a risk factor for child abuse later in life.
	It's a predictor. Doesn't mean everyone who is spanked becomes a child abuser or a criminal, but it means that almost everyone who is a child abuser or a criminal was spanked as a child.
	Spanking is just hitting.
	Children who are spanked as one-year-olds are more likely to behave aggressively and perform worse on cognitive tests as toddlers than children who are spared the punishment, research from Duke University shows.
	Elizabeth Gershaw, associate professor in human development and family sciences, said the study adds to a growing body of research showing negative effects of spanking.
	Almost all the studies point to negative effects of spanking, Gershoff said.
	It makes kids more aggressive, more likely to be delinquent, and to have mental health problems.
	Because children tend to mimic parental behaviors, it's possible spanking creates a model for using aggression, Gershoff says.
	Spanking is just hitting.
	Less is known why spanking could inhibit cognitive development.
	One possibility is that parents who spank are less likely to use reasoning with their children, something that's good for development, Gershoff said.
	Parents, parents, parents really, really, really matter.
	Surveys of 23,000 parents and children find that parenting styles had a bigger impact on a child's behavior than any other factor.
	First place to look if your child is not behaving the right way is in the mirror.
	You are having the biggest effect on your child's behavior.
	Children who did not have positive interactions with parents were twice as likely to have persistent behavioral problems as those who had positive interactions.
	Almost 27% of the children surveyed had a clinically defined behavior or learning problem.
	Is spanking a strategy?
	Parents who spank are more likely to use other forms of corporal punishment and a greater variety of verbal and other punitive methods.
	When punishment fails, parents who rely on it tend to increase the intensity of its use rather than to change strategy.
	So if you spank a kid and he doesn't listen, you tend to spank more.
	You don't tend to look to other solutions.
	That's why this escalation is so dangerous.
	Silence about these issues.
	A recent survey indicated that almost 60% of pediatricians support the use of corporal punishment, at least in certain situations.
	An analysis of child development textbooks published from 1980 to 2005 showed an average of only half a page on corporal punishment and none that recommended that parents should never spank.
	This avoidance is really quite astounding.
	Why is so little space devoted to corporal punishment, which is experienced by over 90% of preschool children and at least a third of infants, when there is overwhelming evidence of its harmful side effects?
	It's an important question to ask.
	Let's look at the meta-evidence.
	All 20 recent studies associated corporal punishment with an increased probability of mental health problems.
	12 out of 13 recent studies found corporal punishment associated with a higher probability of delinquent and antisocial behavior.
	And 4 out of 5 studies found a relation between childhood corporal punishment and later adult criminal behavior.
	So, to summarize.
	Spanking leads to increased child aggression, increased delinquent and antisocial behavior, decreased quality of parent-child relationships, decreased child mental health, increased physical abuse, increased adult aggression, increased adult criminal behavior, decreased adult mental health, and an increased risk of abusing one's own spouse or child in adulthood.
	Okay, so there are excuses or reasons.
	People say, I was spanked and I turned out fine.
	Well, two-thirds of people smoke and don't die from smoking.
	That doesn't mean that smoking isn't dangerous.
	The problem is you don't know ahead of time whether smoking is going to kill you or not, which is why it's a wise thing to quit.
	And you probably did turn out fine.
	But that doesn't mean you couldn't have turned out better if you weren't spanked.
	Even better. So the statistical example of one is not particularly material to the general trend.
	You can't take that risk with your children about whether it's going to affect them negatively or not.
	Spanking, parents say, is necessary for good behavior.
	But the reality is that children who are not spanked are on average the best behaved and have the lowest rates of psychological problems.
	This has been called the best-kept secret of American child psychology.
	Spanking creates and exacerbates the very behaviors that spanking is designed to inhibit.
	Violence or aggression almost always achieves the opposite of its intended goal.
	People say, well, you can't reason.
	With a two-year-old or a three-year-old or a five-year-old, and therefore you have to spank.
	Well, I hope that now you've seen this evidence, and of course feel free to dig into the sources and to come to your own conclusions, but this is pretty compelling evidence and should give all parents pause about the use of spanking and hitting.
	In discipline. Because if you say, I can hit my five-year-old because I can't reason with him, then you should at least be open to reason yourself and accept reason and evidence and change your behavior thereby because you can't really have a higher standard for a five-year-old than you have for yourself and say that aggression is valid because you can't reason with a five-year-old and then reject reason and evidence yourself.
	That would be pretty hypocritical.
	So thank you, thank you, thank you so much for taking a look at this.
	Sources and resources are available at fdrurl.com forward slash spanking.
	I really, really do appreciate your time.

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