Peaceful Parenting

JamesR

JamesR

Active member
I first posted this on another site and I feel that it's an important message to spread:

Let me make this clear. The physical effects of hitting children, even without leaving marks, are indistinguishable from assaults that do leave marks. Hitting children, even without leaving marks, has been shown to result in lower IQ scores and decreased self control. It is positively correlated with alcohol abuse, drug addiction, sexual addiction, and criminality. "I was hit and I turned out fine," is not an argument and is an anti-scientific approach. The consensus in the psychological community is that hitting children is invalid in all circumstances. Not only is it ineffective in decreasing bad behavior, it often leads to its increase. There is no argument to be made in support of hitting children in any manner whatsoever. Denying the harms of spanking is as intellectually dishonest as denying evolution, gravity, or the germ theory of disease. It's time we extend the same rights to children that we have extended to minorities and women.

 
Around 80-90% of parents in the states hit their kids. I think the problem is largely due to lack of information and partly due to a lack of empathy.
 
If all your statements are true, Then there is no argument to be made. I'm not really that interested so for now I'll take your word
 
That's how a lot of people think. What's tragically funny is that if you were to replace "the kid" with "my girlfriend", people would be horrified.
 
I mean I'm 16 and my dad get hella physical with me.. Not like abuse but once he had me pinned on ye ground and was hitting my head into the floor (not hard at all, but hard enough to send a message) and a little bit of pee came out.
 
I think, in the same vein of nonviolence, parents should stop circumsizing their kids. The level of pain it puts the child through is so immense that it's been proven to do irreversible psychological damage, similar to that induced by hitting or otherwise assaulting a child. The difference: circumcision is masked by "good intentions" largely preserved by ignorance.Not to thread jack, but if you're skeptical, you should watch this video; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAGNnqyNidY
 
I don't consider that a thread jack at all. Circumcision is fundamentally an archaic mystic ritual. There's no place for it in a rational society.
 
source? i have a hard time believing tht in this day and age up to 90% of parents hit their kids. not saying you're wrong, but i would need to see a credible source in order to trust that statement
 
lol, sometime ya gotta slap a kid and he will learn. take bullies for example (this is a personal experience) this kid was a total jackass that wouldnt stop bullying my friend, so i told our dean of students and he got punished but he didnt stop. so i told my friend to beat him, so he stopped. (inb4 cool story bro)
 
ryano: yes, physical violence is inexcusable

horsecocktony and WillStart: the ~90% figure is from the late 90s. I would imagine it's lower now, if you're really interested and not just trying to call me out (though calling people out on asserted statistics is usually a good idea), I'd be willing to find you more recent statistics. But personally, even 1% would be far too high.

Grasso369: IQ is far from a useless measurement. However, even disregarding IQ, there are many other measurable effects from hitting children.

roddy116: self defense is perfectly acceptable. A parent hitting a child to "correct their behavior" is not an act of self defense.

 
looked it up- less than 50%. It was near 90 in the fifties according to the source I found.
 
80-90% where is this statistic found? Don't believe that for a second. I agree hitting children is wrong but 90% is just rediculous.
 
well, are we talking hitting, or spanking, because clearly spanking your girlfriend is perfectly acceptable.
 
JamesR, you're a fucking pussy. Teachers should still be allowed to hit kids as well, they'd actually get their work done, society started going down hill when that got thrown out the window. Kids are fucking punks these days, no respect whatsoever.
 
Don't coddle your kids either. Some of the most valuable things I learned were from me being a dumbass and hurting myself or being embarrassed. Your kids don't need protection, nothing teaches you faster than making mistakes. Success is the ability to move from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
 
My foreman and I had a long debate about this kind stuff, after many hours it was decided that women in power caused all the over-protective policies, from their natural mothering instincts. Because of this, kids lose a valuable learning curve of getting in small fights, defending their opinions, and not submitting to every claimed authority. Pretty interesting theory
 
Came here to post this. If you don't believe in spanking your kids, that's fine. However don't believe they never fuck up. Let them learn from their mistakes and don't spoil them.
 
my parents best way of getting me under control and to do things was to walk in my bedroom with a trash bag and start acting like they were going to throw my toys away. Worked every time. I was a monster of a child. I can't believe my parents didn't ship me off. A lot of it was my older sisters doing... she was a fucking bitch to me until she hit 25 or so. She most definitely hit me. Parents never really believed me.
 
i got the back of the brush a few times as a kid, which i think is acceptable. however parents who actually get violent with their children on a regular basis are obviously not doing it right.
 
i got plenty of (well deserved) spankings as a child and none of this applies to me. I think a spanking is more of a last resort than an initial punishment. Plus if your kid isn't more than half retarded they learn pretty quick the consequences of their actions. It is used as more of a threat towards kids to deter behavior and the action is not used as much as the threat.
 
op would have a much better argument with some sources. i think there is absolutely a place for physical force/punishment when parenting a child, but the lines a blurry one and its hard to know when its too much or when its unnecessary.

when i was really little my parents spanked me if i beat up my little sister, and i haven't been in a physical fight of any kind since the 2nd grade and i do quite well in other areas of life too thank you. call that an unscientifically founded opinion if you want, i call it learning from experience.
 
Spanking a kid is most defnately not the same as punching/hitting them. Don't agree necessarily but parents can do it the way they want and there's no doubt in my mind back when kids were getting smacked they weren't the same as the punks there are today. Kids today are incredibly disrespectful. Not saying they should get their ass beat but certainly seems they could use some discipline.
 
Or maybe it's the stupid fucking people that hit their kids genes that produce all these detrimental effects. I know when I think of who is most likely to hit their kid, they reside in a trailer park.
 
I think the OP is including spanking. But he hasn't yet responded to what he meant by "hitting" yet, so I guess we'll see. The way that I took his post is that he considers spanking, hitting.
 
Actually, that started with the 16th amendment, (giving congress the right to levy income tax), and later with....

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lol lower IQ scores. Yea cause they have the genetics of the dumbasses stupid enough to hit them
 
Snobunny: It was once considered acceptable to use force against women and minorities. Minorities were kept as slaves and forcibly kept out of certain areas. People used to say the same thing about women as they do about kids now. "If you don't give them a slap when they misbehave, they'll walk all over you." Or they're naturally bad and need physical "correction". Slapping or hitting your wife was seen as necessary and good. Now, it is rightly seen as abuse in the western world.

I'm not a parent.

The statistics on hitting children vary widely depending on the definition of "hitting". But the amount of parents who hit their children doesn't matter. The fact is it's wrong. It doesn't matter how many people do it.

Spanking is considered hitting. The size and power differential is too large for it to be considered anything less. There is no such thing as a light smack when you're 5 times bigger than a child. The measurable physical effects are also the same (in type, not in degree). I don't like to use the word spanking because the purpose of the word is to distance ourselves from the reality of the situation, children are being hit.

Consensual spanking with your girlfriend is a-ok. Non-consensual spanking is assault.

Ginko: Absolutely! Whenever I talk about peaceful parenting, people love to tell me how much of a pussy I am and throw out a strawman about how I think children should be suited up in pads and helmets whenever they go out. Not the case. Freedom is the most important thing in a child's life. Freedom from aggression, freedom to make choices, freedom to make mistakes and learn from them- that's what life is all about.

Rachy: I'm sorry to hear that. Threatening children is such an admission of failure on the parent's part. You've got to start from the beginning and build a healthy, trusting relationship. I'm not surprised your parents ignored how your sister treated you, sadly. I'm not saying your parents are bad people necessarily, most parents just don't have the information to understand that their parenting is wretched. That's why I'm trying to reach the next generation of parents on here.

Everyone: I'm glad you're interested in sources. I'll put together a list over the next couple of days. I wonder how many people asking for sources have ever looked for sources showing the positive effects of hitting/spanking though. I'm proposing not hitting children. That's the natural state. If you want to propose that hitting/spanking children is good, I'd like to see your sources too. If I'm doing fine without a pill and you say that taking the pill will make me feel better, you're going to have to prove it. Similarly, if children do fine without spanking, you're going to have to prove its benefits before anyone else can rationally implement it.

I can save you some time and tell you that there are no benefits to spanking. None. At best -AT THE VERY BEST- it represses behavior. It doesn't get rid of it. But if you can find counter examples, great. I don't want to be wrong on this. How about we meet back here in three days. I'll bring my sources and pro-hitting people can bring theirs. We'll see what the science says.

 
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