Spanking Your Kids Could Affect Their Vocabulary Down the Road

[razorsharp]

<p>

To spank or not to spank: For most American parents, it isn’t a question.</p>

<p>The majority of U.S. children have been spanked at some time in their life, despite a robust body of evidence that suggests spanking a child leads to problems in the future. </p>

<p>The latest evidence of the negative effects of spanking comes from researchers at Columbia University. After analyzing data from more than 1,500 families, they found that children who are spanked in early childhood are not only more likely to be aggressive as older children, they are also more likely to do worse on vocabulary tests than their peers who had not been spanked.

</p>

<p>[Spanking</a> your kids could affect their vocabulary down the road - latimes.com](<a href=“Spanking your kids could affect their vocabulary down the road”>Spanking your kids could affect their vocabulary down the road)</p>

<p>Interesting.</p>

[calmom]

<p>I saw that story too. </p>

<p>I didn’t spank my kids. I reasoned with them and explained things. I was a lawyer, their dad’s a lawyer. I don’t know about the negative impact of hitting kids, but on the positive side of things, I can certainly see how all of that reasoning and explaining was vocabulary building. (I was amused recently at my 3-year-old grandson’s novel pronunciation of the word “consequence” which I am sure that he learned when his Dad was doing some of that explaining stuff.)</p>

[Niquii77]

<p>Ah, yes. I now have a crutch. </p>

<p>Thank you, mother and father.</p>

[pugmadkate]

<p>I was never spanked and we did not spank our son. I just don’t understand hitting ones own child, or hitting anyone, really.<br>
Thank you for sharing the article. Yet another reason to reason!</p>

[moonchild]

<p>I will confess. I spanked my Dd one time, when she was three. I’m not sure what she did anymore but whatever it was, I lost my cool. One swat across the rump. She looked at me, astonished. “YOU HIT ME!”<br>
I think her quick and truthful response made me realize that spanking was not going to work and might change our relationship forever. She still remembers this incident, at age 28, but neither of us remembers her “offense.”</p>

<p>Her vocab has always been superb. That may be, in fact, what got her into trouble. ;)</p>

[busdriver11]

<p>Here I thought this was the explanation as to why me and my sister have such foul mouths…and use obscure words in conversation.</p>

[NJres]

<p>I was spanked fairly often growing up and I don’t think it did me any harm. I started out spanking my kids, and the younger of 2 sons really learned how to push my buttons at an early age. I figured out on my own (all by myself before any serious damage was done) that I would usually spank when I was angry which increased the probability of actually hurting my child, so I just stopped doing it, completely.</p>

[renoverchat]

<p>

But even when the researchers controlled for these differences, " we still saw that spanking is an influencing factor in future behaviors."</p>

<p>The researchers found a clear connection between spanking at age 5 and the child’s behavior at age 9. Compared to children who were never spanked by their mothers, those who were spanked at least twice a week scored 2.66 points higher on a test of aggression and rule-breaking, while those who were spanked less frequently scored 1.17 points higher, according to the study. To get a sense of how much extra aggression that is, boys tend to score 1 point higher on this test than girls, MacKenzie said.

</p>

<p>Hm, this is interesting. </p>

<p>My parents didn’t really spank me systematically, but my dad used to get very angry when I did badly at school, and did hit me once over it. I remember that it didn’t hurt, but it was very shocking and frightening. Even though it happened when I was very young, I still recall the incident.</p>

<p>I, too, will never spank my children. I don’t think it’s necessary.</p>

[Niquii77]

<p>I got spanked. Not a little tap on the butt. Bare behind. Leather belt. If I put my hand back there that meant I’d get a few more. It was he’ll at the time. Don’t really remember it now given it is about 10 years later. </p>

<p>Would I spank my kids? No, I don’t think so. I like the more passive aggressive route filled with delayed gratification. They will be plans that will truly make them miserable. Ah, yes. Mind games will be played.</p>

[limabeans]

<p>My mom pulled my hair. Not a lot of discussion in that. I remember one time when I got my dad SO VERY angry that he took out his belt and gave me a good woop. From not too far away, my sister and brother encouraged me to cry. “Cry Lima, cry,” they called out. Nope. Stubborn little me, I refused to cry out or whimper. Slam again. Ouch that hurt, but I wasn’t gonna let my dad know it. Ouch again. After that, I was glad my mom only pulled my hair.</p>

[coureur]

<p>I got spanked. I guess that explains why I didn’t turn out to be the new Shakespeare.</p>

<p>I spanked each of my two kids exactly once. Probably cost them about 10 big fancy words each.</p>

[apprenticeprof]

<p>No fan of spanking, but I have to suspect this is one of those “correlation is not causation” cases. It is far more likely that highly verbal parents don’t spank quite as often, which even the article posted cites as a possibility. I also noticed that the comparison was between kids who were never spanked and kids spanked at least twice a week, so it doesn’t account for occasional spanking. This is even more striking since I also suspect people are likely to underestimate how often they spank when asked,</p>

[emeraldkity4]

<p>I don’t believe in physical punishment either, but I think repercussions from neglect & emotional/verbal abuse can be far more long lasting & damaging.
( obviously, I’m thinking of swats on the butt, not horrific abuse)</p>

[Marsian]

<p>Agree with apprenticeprof. I was spanked growing up, at a time when nearly every parent spanked. There seemed to be no correlation between whether one was spanked and the level of one’s vocabulary.</p>

<p>Things are very different today. Many more parents do not spank their children, and those parents (in my experience and probably statistically) are more likely, on the whole, to be better educated and more highly verbal than parents who spank.</p>

[alh]

<p>I have mixed feelings about spanking. My parents spanked very small children engaged in prohibited and potentially life threatening behaviors. They had a lot of children and not so much time for reasoning. They could have lost a child while explaining consequences to a different one. I didn’t spank but pointed out road kill to my children while endlessly yammering about traffic fatalities. I am not sure that wasn’t a more damaging disciplinary method.</p>

<p>My main problem with spanking is it doesn’t seem very respectful of children and doesn’t model the best adult behavior. If we don’t want our children to hit others, probably hitting should be off-limits. If we want them to use their words, I guess we need to show them how to do so. Also, with my own children it would have been absolutely pointless. When they were young enough spanking would have been appropriate, they were so strong willed and defiant that it would have been necessary to beat them black and blue for it to have had a chance of changing their behavior. I doubt it would have been successful even then. I really had to wait for them to develop a conscience to effectively discipline them. Reasoning worked when they could understand logical consequences. Guilt worked. Again, I’m not really sure guilting my children was better than spanking them.</p>

<p>I know spanked children attending HYP :)</p>

[frazzled1]

<p>I don’t believe in spanking and I don’t know how much of that is because my kids responded well to other forms of discipline, and how much is because I was spanked as a child and remember only humiliation and fear, not whatever else the spanking supposedly taught me. Our parents only ever spanked us in anger, and so it seemed to me that spanking was a loss of control on their part.

Would I spank my kids? No, I don’t think so. I like the more passive aggressive route filled with delayed gratification. They will be plans that will truly make them miserable. Ah, yes. Mind games will be played.

You know, discipline doesn’t have to be either spanking or passive aggressive mind games. It’s a major part of parenting young children - it behooves parents to figure out a positive way to manage it.</p>

[alh]

<p>^^agree - and like with so many other aspects of parenting, there really isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Children aren’t all the same. Parents either. imho</p>

[abasket]

<p>Ugh. Was just in a discussion elsewhere about this very topic. Disclosure: I am fully against spanking and have worked several years with young children with behavior managment issues.</p>

<p>If you look at many of the reasons that “bad” behavior occurs, it’s often due to poor parenting. Examples: A parent isn’t supervising the child. A parent is not setting a good example. A parent is angry/frustrated/tired and doesn’t want to initiate any other behavior management technique. </p>

<p>So in many cases, who really needs the “spanking” here???</p>

[romanigypsyeyes]

<p>I never got spanked and neither did my parents by their parents. None of my grandparents believed in it so my parents didn’t either. (Though my mom did slap me once as a teenager and, to be honest, I fully deserved it.)</p>

<p>I hate when parents turn to violence in an attempt to control their children. I also sincerely hate when I see the mentality of we need to turn back to spanking/belting in order to control children mentality that I often see (“Back in my day, my dad beat me and I never thought about shooting up a school!” is often on my newsfeed… or one with a similar sentiment). Just after working with abuse for so long, I’ve learned that spanking can quickly get out of hand when done in anger and it really doesn’t do anything other than teach kids not to get caught. It does not teach them WHY something they’ve done is wrong and that’s the core issue. </p>

<p>With that said, another who doesn’t believe correlation = causation.</p>

[Dunboyne]

<p>But strangely, it was the lower vocabulary kids who understood what the word “no” meant.</p>