Does spanking one's kids teach them to be violent?

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Mars80
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Does spanking one's kids teach them to be violent?

Postby Mars80 » 2013-09-03, 10:55

Does spanking one's kids just teach them to be violent?

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Re: Does spanking one's kids teach them to be violent?

Postby linguoboy » 2013-09-03, 12:40

We sort of had this discussion already: http://unilang.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=28036.
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Re: Does spanking one's kids teach them to be violent?

Postby Mars80 » 2013-09-03, 13:04

That discussion is not quite the same though. It's more about laws against it, as opposed to whether or not it's bad, wrong or harmful for someone to spank their kids.

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Re: Does spanking one's kids teach them to be violent?

Postby linguoboy » 2013-09-03, 14:25

Mars80 wrote:That discussion is not quite the same though. It's more about laws against it, as opposed to whether or not it's bad, wrong or harmful for someone to spank their kids.

It's about both. You can't really debate the former without discussing the latter.

This discussion is a bit more focussed on the morality of corporal punishment and its link to violence: http://www.unilang.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=38075.
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Re: Does spanking one's kids teach them to be violent?

Postby Varislintu » 2013-09-04, 13:56

linguoboy wrote:This discussion is a bit more focussed on the morality of corporal punishment and its link to violence: http://www.unilang.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=38075.


Reading that thread again, I got hung up on how many people said "I would spank but not out of anger". I actually don't really know what people mean by that. That they will, after no longer being angry, simply spank their child out of principle? How does that work in people's heads? "Sorry kid -- you're just going to have to get your dose of pain and humiliation now even if I don't actually feel upset over what you did anymore"?

I don't know, it gives me the creeps.

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Re: Does spanking one's kids teach them to be violent?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2013-09-04, 16:20

Varislintu wrote:Reading that thread again, I got hung up on how many people said "I would spank but not out of anger". I actually don't really know what people mean by that. That they will, after no longer being angry, simply spank their child out of principle? How does that work in people's heads? "Sorry kid -- you're just going to have to get your dose of pain and humiliation now even if I don't actually feel upset over what you did anymore"?

I don't know, it gives me the creeps.
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Re: Does spanking one's kids teach them to be violent?

Postby Varislintu » 2013-09-07, 21:17

mōdgethanc wrote:The standard cliché is "This hurts me more than it hurts you". (Blatantly untrue.)


I think that saying hints at a profound inability to see children as emotional beings. It's like it assumes that children only feel a bit of mild physical pain, while the adult who spanks is the only one who goes through emotional anguish (and the saying emphasises how terribly severe this anguish is, which feels pretty self-centered in the circumstance).

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Re: Does spanking one's kids teach them to be violent?

Postby Ludwig Whitby » 2013-09-07, 23:11

Emotional anguish, come on. When I was a kid I prefered spanking. It was over quickly and I could get back to doing what got me spanked and hide it better from adults in no time. The alternative was getting grounded for days or weeks. Now that was real emotional anguish! Long conversations about what I did, making me realize why it was wrong, making me think about it and all that modern parenting jibber-jabber were also something I, as a kid, had considered much worse than spanking.


Also, I was really spiteful as a kid. There was this one time I got in an argument with dad (I don't even remember what the argument was about) and I'm not sure why or how but he began spanking me. I refused to apologize and he just kept hitting me and hitting me, harder and harder. I was in a lot of pain, screaming and crying, but I wasn't about to give up. At the end he gave up with tears in his eyes and said: "This hurts me more than it hurts you." That was my last spanking.

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Re: Does spanking one's kids teach them to be violent?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2013-09-07, 23:23

I'm not planning on ever striking my kids, because I think using pain as a method of compliance on a defenseless child is fucked up and a form of abuse. I think I would feel that if I have to resort to violence to discipline my kids, I have failed as a parent. The only justification I can see for it is if the kid's life is in danger or something.
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Re: Does spanking one's kids teach them to be violent?

Postby Varislintu » 2013-09-08, 8:16

Ludwig Whitby wrote:Emotional anguish, come on.


Well, with emotional anguish, I was referring to the parents. That saying, "this hurts me more...", pits the pain(s) of the child against the pain of the adult, and the adult draws the conclusion that theirs is the greater one. Since I don't think adults care about the physical pain in the palm of their hand, they must be speaking of their emotional pain. So in their opinion, their emotional pain trumps both the child's physical pain and emotional pain (humiliation, unsafe feelings, etc). I think to do that, they must either imagine their emotional pain to be ginourmous, or that the child doesn't experience much pains at all.

Ludwig Whitby wrote:When I was a kid I prefered spanking. It was over quickly and I could get back to doing what got me spanked and hide it better from adults in no time.


Yeah, I've read this a lot from adults looking back at their childhood spankings. Instead of learning to think about what's good or bad in their actions, they start measuring them against the "spanking-meter", i.e. "Is action X worth a spanking or not? What are the odds of getting caught?". They also speak of desensitising themselves to the spankings so that they care less, and thus get more value for the money, so to speak, each time they do something that's against the rules. This doesn't exactly make spanking look like a very effective method of child rearing -- it didn't work on you either, apparently.

But anyway, do you think your feelings (or lack of them) towards being spanked is universally generalisable to all children?

And would you spank?

Ludwig Whitby wrote:The alternative was getting grounded for days or weeks. Now that was real emotional anguish!


Oh please, I was grounded several times, didn't care a bit -- more time with my books! Oh wait, my experience may not be everyone's. ;)

Ludwig Whitby wrote:There was this one time I got in an argument with dad (I don't even remember what the argument was about) and I'm not sure why or how but he began spanking me. I refused to apologize and he just kept hitting me and hitting me, harder and harder. I was in a lot of pain, screaming and crying, but I wasn't about to give up.


So you were held fast by your father and hit, with increasing severity, with the purpose of forcing you to submit your will to him through an arbitrary token gesture (an apology under threat of pain), over a mere argument? And you felt no negative emotions whatsoever? You were a child of steel, I must say. I would have been humiliated, disappointed and angry beyond belief. And then, I suppose, I'd have been forced to live under the same roof as him for another 10 years, while pretending to respect his "authority" so I wouldn't be hit any more, and become very bitter. :lol: :|

But I understand that you don't like having it implied to you that you should have felt like a victim, if you didn't feel like one. I know that there's a lot of variation in how people experience things.

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Re: Does spanking one's kids teach them to be violent?

Postby Ludwig Whitby » 2013-09-08, 10:44

Varislintu wrote:
But anyway, do you think your feelings (or lack of them) towards being spanked is universally generalisable to all children?

I'm not the one generalising, it's you.
Varislintu wrote:And would you spank?

I don't plan having children, but I do feel very uncomfortable when I see parents hitting their kids on the street or in parks.

Varislintu wrote:So you were held fast by your father and hit, with increasing severity, with the purpose of forcing you to submit your will to him through an arbitrary token gesture (an apology under threat of pain), over a mere argument? And you felt no negative emotions whatsoever? You were a child of steel, I must say. I would have been humiliated, disappointed and angry beyond belief. And then, I suppose, I'd have been forced to live under the same roof as him for another 10 years, while pretending to respect his "authority" so I wouldn't be hit any more, and become very bitter. :lol: :|

But I understand that you don't like having it implied to you that you should have felt like a victim, if you didn't feel like one. I know that there's a lot of variation in how people experience things.

I won. He gave up. Why should I have negative emotions?

I don't think I was spanked more than 2 or 3 times in my life and that's probably why father had such a reaction. He never got the hang of it, apparently.

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Re: Does spanking one's kids teach them to be violent?

Postby Varislintu » 2013-09-08, 13:58

How am I generalising? About what?

I think having negative emotions when someone bigger than you who's supposed to take care of you hits you is kind of usual. I'm surprised if you really say "Why should I have them?". I can't really say anything to that, but I don't think you're drawing the best conclusion if you think that means all children find it preferrable to be spanked, and don't feel anything about it.

I'm also a bit surprised that you formed all these opinions based on having been spanked twice. How do you even develop a preferrence on that experience?

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Re: Does spanking one's kids teach them to be violent?

Postby Ludwig Whitby » 2013-09-08, 15:10

Varislintu wrote:How am I generalising? About what?

I think having negative emotions when someone bigger than you who's supposed to take care of you hits you is kind of usual. I'm surprised if you really say "Why should I have them?". I can't really say anything to that, but I don't think you're drawing the best conclusion if you think that means all children find it preferrable to be spanked, and don't feel anything about it.


You keep talking about "children" and "adults" and their thoughts and feelings and what are usual emotions and what is representative and what isn't, while I have been only talking about myself and my experiences as a kid. I never claimed that all children prefer spanking, I said that I, when I was a kid, preffered spanking. I didn't draw any pretentious generalized conclusions about this.

Varislintu wrote:I'm also a bit surprised that you formed all these opinions based on having been spanked twice. How do you even develop a preferrence on that experience?

Well, feel free to travel back in time and ask me.

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Re: Does spanking one's kids teach them to be violent?

Postby Varislintu » 2013-09-08, 17:49

Ah, so when you jumped into the discussion with "Emotional anguish, come on", you were only calling me out on claiming that spanking made you personally feel bad, and then explained to me that this is wrong, because you personally had no emotional pain at all.

I don't know, if that wasn't you stating a general opinion that spankings are no big deal in general, I must have broken my reading comprehension centre, then. i've been basing my part of the discussion on that initial assumption.


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