You’re Not Raising Better Children By Spanking Them – You’re Raising More Aggressive Ones

shutterstock_96046673__1382389208_142.196.167.223You’re not raising better children by spanking them – you’re just raising more aggressive ones, says a new study. Is anyone surprised by this? I’m not.

From Today Moms:

Researchers found kids who were spanked as 5-year-olds were slightly more likely to be aggressive and break rules later in elementary school.

Those results are in keeping with past research, said Elizabeth Gershoff. She studies parental discipline and its effects at the University of Texas at Austin.

“There’s just no evidence that spanking is good for kids,” she told Reuters Health.

“Spanking models aggression as a way of solving problems, that you can hit people and get what you want,” said Gershoff, who wasn’t involved in the new study.

I don’t understand parents who can’t grasp this concept. I’ve never been hit or hit anyone else either, so spanking is something that I am wholly uncomfortable with. I may feel different about it if I were raised in a house where spanking was the norm. That doesn’t logically make sense to me, but those parents who I hear defending spanking as a means of discipline were usually spanked themselves.

It seems as if some people feel “I was hit and I turned out okay.” Yeah, but wasn’t there a certain amount of fear or anger that you experienced during these spankings? That’s what I always wondered. All of the people that I know personally who defend spanking as a practice are frankly more aggressive people themselves. I guess this points back to the study.

When it comes to disciplining children, she said there’s more evidence on what doesn’t work long-term than what does.

“We know that spanking doesn’t work, we know that yelling doesn’t work,” Gershoff said. “Timeout is kind of a mixed bag. We know that reasoning does work.”

I think a 5-year-old is old enough to be reasoned with. We’ll see how I feel about it when my son actually turns five, though. I can’t imagine I would ever resort to violence. If I haven’t resorted to it during these frustrating-as-hell terrible two’s – I don’t see it happening in the future.

(photo: ollyy/ Shutterstock)

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