What are your views on corporal punishment?

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No, I didn't. I didn't mention it because it's too complex to consider it part of the punishment. But, if they become delinquents, let them be punished as such. Besides, if you keep them busy and isolated enough while they grow up, they're unlikely to become successful delinquents.

Parents are trying to raise kids into functioning adults, not get revenge on them for misbehaving. Sometimes parents cause dysfunction and damage in their kids through terrible choice in punishments. But this is an unintended outcome, not the kid "getting what's coming to them".

The goal of parents when punishing their kids is entirely different from the goal of school systems or judicial systems which also hand out punishments. The goal of the school systems and judicial systems when punishing is to maintain order. The goal of parents when punishing is to steer their children towards a path that will ultimately be better for them.

Schools (but not judicial systems) will say that their goal in punishing overlaps with parents in that they want to steer too, but they have nothing at stake as far as the ultimate fate of the kid goes. Parents are thinking about the entire lifespan of the child and trying to steer them in a way that will have lifetime benefits for the child's soul (if religious), morality, ethics and quality of life. Different parents weight these things differently which leads to different sorts of punishments, but none of them want their kids to have anxiety or cardiovascular disease or be a delinquent (unless a career criminal family). Those are unintended outcomes,not intended punishments. Schools say their goals are that too but at best their goal ends when the kid leaves their school system.

When you give an ok to punishments that could have really bad outcomes and call those outcomes 'part of the punishment', you aren't understanding why parents punish. The parents who go ahead with those punishments do so because they think the outcomes will be good, not because they want the bad outcomes as part of the punishment.

Hmm.......
The topic heading says "What Are Your Views On Corporal Punishment?"
So now we need peer reviewed studies to support our personal views?
Or does that just apply to people whose views are not in lockstep with yours?
Nice try.

It shouldn't be used because it just teaches kids it's okay to hit others and as an adult, if you hit anyone but a child, you get charged with assault so how is it okay to hit kids? Just doesn't make sense!

Parents sacrifice enough time and energy raising their children to deserve that they become functioning adults without causing much trouble. There's nothing wrong in showing your contempt to children too weak to achieve that, as they're draining your precious resources which could be better used on their stronger siblings.

In real life, people do take revenge, and force is what ultimately matters, so a truly functioning adult had better be ready to face this reality. Violence teaches them who is boss and that we're not all equal by any stretch of the imagination. It gets them rid of needless self-esteem and makes them aware they're at the bottom of the totem pole. It teaches them how lucky they are merely to be alive, so they'd better not ask for anything more, since they haven't earned it.



That's merely an opinion. If they didn't think the punishment was appropriate, they wouldn't have chosen it.

The law of the jungle is very clear: what you deserve is exactly what you get, whatever it is. Want better results? Be stronger.



It's solely their business to decide which outcomes are good and which ones are bad.

saying that studies are inherently flawed is making a claim, not expressing a view. hope this helps!

Now I'm suspecting that you are just pulling my leg with a devil's advocate argument. I suppose if I rebutted this you'd stay in character with this idea that parents are trying to sort out which kid is the runt of the litter and needs to be destroyed for the good of the clan.

I'm just trying to be rational. I wouldn't call it playing devil's advocate this time. Any emotional tendency I may have to sympathize with weak children can be ascribed to my own weakness and, hence, to my fear of being weeded out. But just because a policy wouldn't be good for me doesn't mean it wouldn't be the right one.

Eh, I don't think it's good, but I also don't think it's as bad as it's being made out to be, though to be clear, I'm not talking about anything more severe than an open hand spanking.

I figure we owe it to future generations to not give into our baser, more animal instincts and find some better way to raise children where we don't have to strike them.

Yes, it certainly does help!
You're such a helpful little fish and I just don't know what we'd do without you.

Like the Judge Rothenberg method with electricity?
Or just push pills in them. Hey, that's safe because the FDA said so.

Sorry, no citation this time either but here's a lollipop just for you.

You're not being rational though. You're happily disregarding evidence presented to you which suggests that violent punishment doesn't work, and using emotional reasoning to justify that.

No, it's wrong.

One problem I see though is that while some parents might not spank, they still can cause as much damage in other ways. Some parents who don't spank are still emotionally abusive which can be just as damaging in other ways.

If you force an abusive parent to not spank a kid, they are still going to inflict damage in another way. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be laws against it though.

The only way you can stop emotional and verbal abuse is by counseling but if hitting an adult is against the law, hitting a child should be, too.

It's not against the law for adults to emotionally abuse other adults but harassment can be. What's really weird is, people can get away with doing stuff to kids they would spend years and years in prison for doing to an adult. To me that's messed up.

"Fully seven in 10 U.S. adults agree a “good, hard spanking is sometimes necessary to discipline a child,” while less than half as many disagree (29 percent) according to the 2014 wave of the General Social Survey released Tuesday by NORC at the University of Chicago. After a modest drop in popularity in the late-1980s and 90s, support has stabilized, fluctuating between 68 and 72 percent in the past decade."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/03/05/millennials-like-to-spank-their-kids-just-as-much-as-their-parents-did/