[toomuchtodo]

I could not disagree with this more. One of my children has sensory issues, is on the spectrum, and has problems controlling their emotions, and we’ve been able to help them without any physical harm learn to manage their feelings when they anger quickly or have the urge to be violent with another child (including their older sibling).

I don’t think spanking is ever warranted, and I’m shocked someone would recommend it.

> Research has long underscored the negative effects of spanking on children’s social-emotional development, self-regulation, and cognitive development, but new research, published this month, shows that spanking alters children’s brain response in ways similar to severe maltreatment and increases perception of threats.

> “The findings are one of the last pieces of evidence to make sense of the research of the last 50 years on spanking,” says researcher Jorge Cuartas, a Ph.D. candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, who coauthored the study with Katie McLaughlin, professor at the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. “We know that spanking is not effective and can be harmful for children’s development and increases the chance of mental health issues. With these new findings, we also know it can have potential impact on brain development, changing biology, and leading to lasting consequences.”

> Perhaps surprisingly, says Cuartas, spanking elicits a similar response in children’s brains to more threatening experiences like sexual abuse. “You see the same reactions in the brain,” Cuartas explains. “Those consequences potentially affect the brain in areas often engaged in emotional regulation and threat detection, so that children can respond quickly to threats in the environment.”

https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-knowledge/21/04/eff...

https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cdev.13...

[valunord]

I must say that I do not think you read my remarks to have the visceral and unwarranted response that you did. There was nothing in my remarks that recommends spanking in a negative manner.

Being on the spectrum myself and having worked with many in these situations and with this, I will tell you that my personal experience says otherwise. Believe what you will, and I will believe what I will. I can assure you that wonderful and salutary results come through helping children to learn not to harm other people in proper and healthy ways.

[toomuchtodo]

I’m calling CPS if I see a parent do it or they divulge they do it, belief systems don’t justify abuse when the evidence is clear with regards to the harm it causes. If you don’t believe spanking is abuse, there is no middle ground to meet, regardless of justification.

[valunord]

That is your choice to do it. I have worked with CPS who has recommended it in multiple states. Furthermore, this is not something that should be done publicly neither should a spectacle be made of such a thing. I really do not think you understand what was written.

[yorwba]

I assume "CPS" expands to "Child Protection Services"? How ironic that they would subvert their mission by encouraging parents to beat their children.

[valunord]

You clearly did not understand what was written.

[yorwba]

I understood perfectly. You live in a society where parents beating their children is so normalized that even people whose job is ostensibly to protect children from harm fail to see anything wrong with it, and elaborate rituals have been constructed to justify continuing the tradition. Yet I suspect an employer exactly following the prescribed procedure when spanking his employees would nonetheless be charged with battery.

You might want to read about the time when a third of all men on Pitcairn Island were convicted of rape: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/01/pitcairn200801 If you had grown up on Pitcairn, would you have realized that something was wrong, or would you have justified the practice like the wife of an islander did? “It’s Polynesian to break your girls in at 12.”

Something to think about.