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do you have any repoed studies that show kids who were spanked as kids (not beaten) needed therapy as adults? AFAICT, all the parents I know that don't punish their kids have the worst kids with the most problems.

I'm not saying you should spank your kids. I'm only questioning whether it actually causes any problems. I was spanked, my sister was spanked. All my cousins etc. None of us have any issues. We love our parents and loved that they loved us enough to punish us when we were bad.



Do you normally solve interpersonal conflicts in your life with physical violence?

If the answer is no: why do you think it's appropriate to do so when dealing with children?

(If the answer is yes, then consider anger management classes, I guess)


The responsibilities and duties one has to their child vs an adult are quite different. Virtually every authority charged with last-resort solving interpersonal conflict issues (government) uses violence, as when all else fails some at least respond to that.

The reason why corporal punishment isn't used privately man to man is because we've delegated that to government, who happily sends men with guns to drag people violently in for reform. Spanking a child before they get to that point would be a favor.


Normal punishments and last resorts are nowhere near each other.

And when you say "drag people violently in" I feel like very different definitions of "violence" are getting conflated here. Forcibly moving a child is needed sometimes, and is not corporal punishment.


>Do you normally solve interpersonal conflicts in your life with physical violence?

There are tons of situations where violence is appropriate for interpersonal conflict, usually when someone won't listen to reason.

If I went into your house, ignored what you were saying, and then started smashing things or molesting your children, would you just sit there and protest politely?


When they ask about conflict, they're not talking about a scenario that is already violent. And why are you going to such an unpleasant extreme?


because they dont get to define the scenario in the most favorable conditions if they are claiming violence is never appropriate. Doubly so when they include a bunch of condescension about how anyone who thinks violence has a place should seek therapy.


> because they dont get to define the scenario in the most favorable conditions if they are claiming violence is never appropriate.

The earlier poster was arguing that corporal punishment is never appropriate. When they said "better alternatives than violence", they were speaking in the context of punishment.

A scenario about an urgent intervention can't prove them wrong, because it's not related to what they were saying.

> Doubly so when they include a bunch of condescension about how anyone who thinks violence has a place should seek therapy.

Are you actually reading their comments, or are you too busy being righteously mad at them?

They didn't ask if you think violence "has a place". They asked if it's what normally happens for your interpersonal conflicts.

Those two ideas are not at all close.


Im talking about corporal punishment too, or at least im not drawing a distinction. the commonality I was illustrating is that violence can be a solution of last resort when other methods have failed, and it is possible for other methods to fail.

>They didn't ask if you think violence "has a place". They asked if it's what normally happens for your interpersonal conflicts. Those two ideas are not at all close.

I think it was an intentionally loaded and insulting question. yeah, im sure the poster normally resorts to violence interpersonal conflicts when they cant agree on a move with their partner.

Plus, it is just a crappy argument. The parent wasn't arguing that corporal punishment should normally be the tool to resolve issues, so it is a faulty comparison.


Sometimes violence is necessary in an urgent situation. This is easy to prove.

This does not prove that violence is sometimes necessary as a punishment. Punishments are very different from urgent situations.

You very much should be drawing a distinction.


"Child abuse" is a fuzzier term than many seem to acknowledge, subject to passing conventions and fads. This isn't to say there aren't obvious examples of child abuse (beating your kids, sexual abuse, gaslighting, or all sorts of emotional and psychological manipulation or whatever), but today, giving an incorrigibly disobedient child throwing an interminable tantrum a swat on the tush to shake them out of it gets CPS involved, but teaching strange ideologies approved by the state is fine (in fact, refusing to teach them is now abuse). Even worse, grotesque "medical" procedures and treatments against which that swat pales in comparison.

Generally speaking, corporal punishment as such is not abuse, either. We've just become very sentimental, operating with a flawed understanding of human nature. It shouldn't be used lightly, but it shouldn't be demonized categorically.


> giving an incorrigibly disobedient child throwing an interminable tantrum a swat on the tush to shake them out of it gets CPS involved

It really doesn't.

> Even worse, grotesque "medical" procedures and treatments against which that swat pales in comparison.

Ahh, I see what you've got going on here...


> I'm not saying you should spank your kids. I'm only questioning whether it actually causes any problem

If you're actually interested in an answer here, it's pretty easy to find people for whom it did cause problems.

If you say it works great in your family, fine. For you to extrapolate and say it's okay for everyone is not fine.

In my own experience, my parents reached for violence instead of taking the time to connect and understand. Now I know I cannot trust them to listen or to take time to try to understand where I'm coming from.

It is super easy to find people whose lives were greatly negatively impacted by domestic violence, especially coming in the form of "loving punishment." That can fuck a person up even more, leading them to believe violence is a part of love.




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