Catherine Woodgold wrote:
Betty Woolf said:

(I am not talking about black-and-white studies of adult violent
criminals - I'm talking about attempts to prove that *any* spanking has
a long-lasting negative affect.)

I'm going to snip liberally to keep this from getting too long, but if I
inadvertently miss a point please correct me.

I'm not attempting to prove that every single
spanking causes more harm than good. However, in general,
on average, when parents do it with intention to control
misbehaviour, it causes more harm than good. On average,
it doesn't even improve behaviour in the long run. No one
has succeeded in identifying particular subclasses
of spanking situations where it does more good than
harm on average. In fact, no long-term benefit from
spanking has been established in any scientific study as
far as I know. So I don't think a person about to spank
a child can reasonably know that it will probably do
more good than harm.

I'm not arguing that spanking is the best way to deal with any
particular situation, and I don't do it myself. However, it is not
required of me to establish that spanking is beneficial, as you imply
above; Straus et al. hypothesize that it is harmful, so it is up to them
to "prove" it as best they can. The null hypothesis is that spanking
does no harm, not that it does good.

Spanking always causes pain, which is a form of harm.

One could substitute something else that causes pain into the above
sentence, such as "Falling off your bike always causes pain, which is a
form of harm." Yet no-one would suggest that kids should not learn to
ride a bike because of the pain involved in the inevitable falls.

I think that the valid arguments against even mild spanking are that it
sends the wrong message and that it can be a betrayal of trust. The
"any pain is harm" argument does not convince me in the least.

Betty Woolf said:

I think the purpose of citing, unasked, an over-simplified
study summary, coupled with an opinion that the poster is damaging her
children, *is* to make parents feel bad.


I don't know whether you were talking about me here, but
if you were you were mistaken. Making people feel bad
is not the purpose of any of my posts. I realize that
some people feel bad when they read material, whether
written by me or by others, which provides information
comparing the relative effectiveness of various
parenting methods. However, the purpose of providing
the information, at least when I do it, is not to make
people feel bad but to provide people with an opportunity
to make a more informed choice. I hope that choosing
better parenting methods will make both parents and
children feel better in the long run. The more good
information available, the better informed choices
people can make.

I obviously can't argue with people about what their intent is. It is
however possible to offer alternatives (which you do very well) without
playing the "studies say X causes harm." This is a hot button with me -
not directed at you - and the reason that I stopped reading
misc.kids.breastfeeding.


I am not sure the studies can isolate spanking from other aspects of
parenting that may cause increased misbehavior.


Numerous studies have found correlations between spanking
and misbehaviour. These correlations continue to be
found in spite of controlling for many possible confounding
variables such as socio-economic status.

(CW had said

Straus & Mouradian (1998) reported that children whose mothers never
spanked them in their entire lives were significantly less antisocial than
even
the most infrequently-spanked children.


I would need to know more about the design of the study.

If the results are based on the mothers filling out surveys, why should
we believe the mothers are not lying?


Why should the mothers lie on an anonymous telephone survey
conducted for scientific purposes?

I shouldn't have said lying - I should have said misremembered or
mis-answered.


If the mothers lied, why should a large enough number of them
lie and why should they just happen to lie in such a pattern as
to produce a statistcially significant correlation between
reported spanking and reported misbehaviour?

Respondents can be very sensitive to the wording of the question and try
to guess the "correct" answer, even in anonymous surveys. I personally
have a terrible time with telephone surveys because I see shades of grey
everywhere and I could choose one of several answers. For example, if
the question is "Have you ever spanked your child?" the answer is no.
If the question is "Have you ever physically disciplined your child?"
the answer is technically yes - I have physically carried him places he
doesn't want to go, and physically restrained him from doing things he
wants to do.

I'll look up the study when I can but I just don't see how you could ask
specific enough questions to reach a reasonable conclusion without
subconsciously leading the survey-taker to answer the way you want them to.


Is it only mothers this study was concerned with, as the above summary
suggests? If so, why?


"The limited budget for this study prevented interviewing both
parents. Mothers were chosen as the respondents because
mothers have much more of the day to day responsibility
for child care."

Was the question whether the mother had ever spanked the child (as both
your original quote and the study title indicate) or whether the child
had ever been spanked at all, to the mother's knowledge? If it's the
former, I have to say that I have huge doubts about the validity of this
study. How can you draw valid conclusions from a study that disregards
the input/behavior of the father?


What was the age of children assessed? How was antisocial behavior defined?


Ages 2 to 14.

ASB (anti-social behaviour) was measured using questions about 11 behaviours,
3 of which were modified based on the age of the child.
The 8 constant items asked how often in the past six months
the child was "cruel or mean to other kids, bullies;
cruel or mean to or insults you; denies doing something he
or she really did; hit a brother or sister, hit other kids;
hit you or other adults; damages or destroys things; and stolen
money or something else."

I don't expect you to summarize the whole thing, but here are my
thoughts on the above, in case anyone is interested in the kinds of
questions these statements raise for me:

First, IMO "In the last 6 months" is a *huge* amount of time when you're
asking a parent to recall behavior, and second, the questions are so
vague that they can be misinterpreted easily. Also, unless the mother
is with the kid 24 hours a day, she can't possibly answer with 100%
certainty.

If I was asked right now about my son's behavior in the last 6 months
(he's 3y 9 mo), I can tell you that there were a few times when his
behavior was a bit too physical for my taste. One was when my uncle
died suddenly and I was not very available to DS. One was when we got a
puppy and DS started playing with his friends the way the puppy was
playing with our older dog - lots of tackling and shoving. One was
right after my parents left and he was frustrated by the return to
structure. Depending on how the questions were worded, I could easily
end up misrepresenting the frequency or magnitude of his poor behavior.

It is possible to estimate the amount of harm from a single
spanking by measuring the approximate average amount of harm
from a large number of spankings, and then dividing.

I don't believe that is valid.

Rare spankings could cause either more harm (because of
the surprise factor, the feeling of betrayal and loss of
feeling of safety, etc.) or less harm (because each
spanking may increase the child's anxiety level and
propensity to feel startled or traumatised).

More harm or less harm than what, though? Is there anybody arguing that
frequent spanking is better than rare spanking? I don't think so - I
think the argument is whether rare spanking causes measurable harm over
no spanking.

I see no reason to assume rare spankings would cause
no harm.

I think this is the crux of our disagreement. I see no reason to assume
rare spankings would cause harm, just as I see no reason to assume that
one cigarette or one Big Mac or one alcoholic drink would cause harm, on
average.


Do you think that the reason for spanking, a major safety infraction vs
an end-of-her rope mother swatting her toddler, make any difference in
the amount of harm? If not, why not? If so, how much?


The things which determine the amount of harm are not
the parent's motivation for spanking, but the way the
spanking is perceived by the child: expected versus
unexpected, perceived as just versus unjust, very painful versus
slightly painful, etc. The spanking is always perceived
by the child as an attempt to control the child's
behaviour using hitting -- that doesn't vary, and on average
tends to increase the child's tendency to hit others.

I'm not comfortable taking anyone's word for how a toddler or
preschooler perceives the world. My son once ran into me and fell down
when he wasn't looking where he was going; I was standing still, talking
on the phone. He then started crying and announced to DH that I had
"pushed him down."


I don't understand how addressing a particular
behaviour problem makes the "slippery slope" analogy
invalid. What I mean is that using spanking (even once)
not only has some effect on the particular behaviour it's
aimed at, but also affects the whole relationship: it
demonstrates the use of violence, which necessarily changes
the child's ideas about violence one way or another;
and it makes the parent-child relationship more control-
oriented. This has repercussions for other situations
later on, possibly leading to increased use of spanking.

The "slippery slope" argument is that you shouldn't spank even once
because it will inevitably lead to more misbehavior, more spanking and a
spiral toward abuse. This is not the same as saying that even one
instance of physical punishment is going to damage your relationship
with your child.



What is the evidence that spanking makes other discipline methods less
effective?


Well, think about it. What do you do when someone tries
to forcefully make you do something you don't want to do?
Most people react by digging in their heels. If that
same person later comes to you and tries to ask you
nicely to do that same thing -- or even something else --
how are you going to react?

Are you speaking purely of physical force? If so, I can only imagine
how I would react, as that has not been a reality for me. I think I
would react as you describe. However, spanking is generally not used to
force someone to do something, but to deter them from doing something,
which is a different thing, behaviorally speaking.

Betty Woolf ) writes:

I don't think it's possible to separate one particular parenting
behavior from a whole parenting style and blame that one thing for how a
child acts on a particular day/set of days when they are being observed
for "antisocial behavior."


There are huge numbers of variables involved. When a statistical
study is done, averages are calculated and the other variables
generally average out and therefore have little or not effect on
the result. If a correlation is found, (and if it's not a fluke),
then there is some reason for it. The reason may be something
complex, such as that breastfed kids behave better on average (if they do)
or whatever. However, for a more complex relationship between the
variables to be the cause of the correlation, the correlation between
each pair of variables has to be even stronger than if it's a
direct causation one way or the other. The most parsimonious
explanation is that spanking causes misbehaviour in the long term.
Besides, there are theoretical reasons to explain why it would.

I'm not going to comment much until I do read the studies but if you
start with "theoretical reasons to explain X" I guarantee that you can
come up with a study design that will support your conclusions.


Do you have particular reasons for believing that some
particular variables, other than a direct cause-and-effect
relationship, may have caused the correlations in particular
spanking studies? That is, do you have reasonably plausible
alternative explanations for the results other than that
spanking causes misbehaviour in the long term?

I would have to read the studies before answering with specifics. I
would also have to think twice before accepting ASB between the ages of
2 and 14 as "long term" misbehavior.

I think that the question is too complex to be handled by surveys - you
would need a long term study (on the order of 20 years), frequently
interviewing both parents and children and also videotaping interactions
between parents and their children, interactions between children and
their peers, and possibly even between the parents for objective
characterization of behavior (not "how often did Johnny hit his sister
in the last six months?")

Possible alternative explanations to "spanking causes misbehavior" -

-Children who are neurologically atypical are more likely to engage in
behaviors that are both antisocial *and* on the list of behaviors that
average parents will spank for.

-The surveys are failing to even attempt to look for other explanations
and therefore don't question things that would provide alternative
answers.

-The study subjects are inappropriately chosen or classified.

I hope I answered your questions about the studies.
I'm interested in further discussion but I don't know
whether I'll have time for it or not. I hope I've
clarified for you my position. I think it would be
interesting to further clarify our positions and exactly
what we agree and disagree on.

I'm glad you got involved in this discussion and I hope
we can come to some understanding about what exactly
we disagree about (if anything) and why.

I think we agree that spanking is not desirable or effective and that
parents should be encouraged to practice other discipline strategies.

I think we disagree on the possible harmful effects of a few spankings.
I think we disagree about the place studies have in the discussion - I
don't trust them as you do.

If you have time, I'm interested in your responses but I don't think
there's a lot more to be said. I don't think we're going to see
eye-to-eye on the validity of the studies.

Thanks for an interesting discussion

Betty


References:

Straus, M. and V.E. Mouradian, 1998. Impulsive
Corporal Punishment by Mothers and Antisocial Behavior
and Impulsiveness of Children. Behavioral Sciences
and the Law, 16, 353-374.

MacMillan, H.L, et al., 1999. Slapping and spanking
in childhood and its association with lifetime
prevalence of psychiatric disorders in a general
population sample. Journal of the Canadian Medical Assocation,
161 (7), p. 805-822.