A smacked child ?is a successful child?

[silverfox]

A study has found that young children smacked by their parents may grow up to be more successful than those who have never been hit.

"...parents who rule out smacking as a matter of principle may be less likely to help their children develop the self-discipline and social skills needed to succeed in life."

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article6974059.ece

While this may seem to go against the grain, there can't be many parents who haven't smacked their children at one time or another. Now it appears it may be a good thing.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Yep. All those countries where smacking is banned... Losers the lot of them.

[silverfox]

Maybe 'losers' is a bit harsh. Potentially just less successful

[SeanMacGabhann]

Germany. Sweden. Finland. All less successful than "broken Britain" are they?

If you want to smack kids just say so. Dont dress it up as a recipe for success

[Bellenden Belle]

How do you define success silverfox? Good exam results? High earning potential?

Doesn't necessarily make for a well-rounded individual; able to distinguish from right and wrong; who knows how to handle themselves and to treat those around them with respect and humanity.

[silverfox]

The implication of this research is that there will be a time lag until the untouched little darlings in Germany, Sweden and Finland reach adulthood. Only then will be be able to judge whether it is accurate or not.

Sweden and Finland could be measured against their high alcohol and suicide rates before and after smacking was abolished. It will be slighly more difficult to assess the effect on Germany given that its dominance of the EU will muddy accurate economic figures.

[taper]

A good review of the evidence and consequent controversy on smacking -

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125548136491383915.html

Fraught territory it seems. Best dealt with as a moral issue.

[huncamunca]

parents with hard & fast rules incl the use of smacking as a sanction will probabaly have equally strong opinions on success and achievement and will push their kids harder.bogus headline.

Rather like stating that because Howard Hughes, the mad billionare, had rooms full of his own bottled urine, that following his example would also mean you would eventually become a rich man.

fail.

[Marmora Man]

There's probably a better correlation between the "unindulged child" and success.

Children that are rewarded for success and either penalised, or have rewards witheld for lack of success, probably tend to be more successful than otherwise. Such an unindulged child may also, occasionally, receive the odd smack as part of a disciplined tough love approach?

Children to whom all is given with no need to strive or deliver beforehand probably tend to be less successful.

The over indulged and conspicuously unsuccesful children of many a successful business person, entrepreneur, film star, pop star etc give some credence to this theory.

[SeanMacGabhann]

very nicely put MM.

[hellosailor]

I wonder if every time a parent hit a child the child hit the parent squarely back in the face it would encourage more 'successful' parenting, or at least be a deterrent against adults being violent towards children on the basis that they are their own. :)

[mockney piers]

Indeed, I'd go further. Many successful people talk of having childhoods where they were neglected, unloved and even abused. Ambition can be driven from deep seated needs to please, be loved, validated even just plain bloody noticed.

It's no coincidence that they are often workaholics and feel unfulfilled by their successes.

So I'm with taper, keep this about morality. Damaging people may e a recipe for a narrow definition of success but hardly seems conducive to a healthy society.

If empires are your thing then children being seen and not heard and packed off to boarding schools full of disciplinarians certainly worked wonders, but let's face it, all that opium addiction, mothers ruin, repressed sexuality and terrible food has taken us the best part of a century to recover from (made for some great literature too mind).

[Timster]

It's always worth reading to the end of these articles..

"The results were less clear for a separate group of teenagers who had been smacked until they were slightly older ? aged seven to 11. They fared slightly worse on negative behaviour scores ? they reported being involved in more fights, for example ? but were also likely to be more academically successful than those who had not been smacked.

Teenagers who were still being smacked, however, scored significantly worse than every group on all the measures."

It's only one study and at best it's inconclusive. The children who were smacked between the ages of 2 and 6 performed "slightly better" which could well be within the margin of error on studies like this. And it would be worth investigating what other characteristics the groups that performed better academically etc had in common. Studies like this are of very limited value (if any) and the article could easily have been headed "smacking children leads to bad behaviour" and still been a fair reflection of its conclusions.

And if the best conclusions that can be drawn from this are that children who are smacked perform no worse in terms of behavour and academic results than children who aren't smacked, then that means children who aren't smacked perform just as well. So....why smack children if it makes no difference.....

[Chick]

What exactly do you mean by "smack"? Thrashings from the SVDP brothers or vicious nuns in Ireland? A smack on the back of the hand? The cane or slipper from a school teacher, a leather belt across the hand in Scotland?

[Timster]

well more to the point, what did the study mean by 'smack'?

of course, it's been quite a while since it was legal for schools to cane or slipper pupils..

[SteveT]

Early sixties I believe.

[buggie]

As someone who often gets to see family dynamics (albeit at a time of stress) I can see no benefit in the smacking of children - without trying other means first.

It seems to be used only when the parents don't have the confidence or skills to try and calm situations without resorting to physical assault (as it would be called in a boss/employee dr/patient teacher/pupil relationship).

I caught something on daytime telly today about this report (the joys of shift work!) and one of the panelists was saying how she and her siblings had been smacked when they were kids and they'd all gone on to uni so it obviously the report was completely right and it does no harm.

She then went on to say that she had seen children upset more and for longer by sitting on a naughty chair/step than if smacked so surely smacking was better... my jaw dropped as much as the other panelists.

I'm ashamed to say I text the programme suggesting this would indicate that the smacked children were being numbed to the violence of it and if smacking children how could you then tell them off for smacking/slapping their peers - the comment was read out and blimey did she squirm and didn't have an answer back to it.

[buggie]

Timster Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> well more to the point, what did the study mean by

> 'smack'?

>

> of course, it's been quite a while since it was

> legal for schools to cane or slipper pupils..

SteveT Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Early sixties I believe.

Fairly sure it was later than this - was born in the late 70's and sure I remember seeing about this finally being completely banned on John Craven's Newsround so that would be early/mid 80's.

[womanofdulwich]

definitely still slippered on Isle of Wight in 1973 ( ouch).

[Keef]

This report is just a simplistic load of nonsense based on feck all evidence. End of.

[vinceayre]

Slippered , caned, and hit over the knuckles with a plastic rod that the physics teacher referred to lovingly as Candy, as in "Do you want some candy boy" all the way through the 70s and early 80s. Thats not to mention what the Fencing Prof used to do with Epee's and Foils to boys who didn't perform well.

Never did me no harm!

*Twitches uncontrollably and reaches for his pills*

[EDOldie]

As Bob Dylan says, 'When something ain't right it's wrong'. Hitting children (or anyone else for that matter) is wrong. A spurious, possibly right wing, report on how 'smacking' children could improve their chances in life deserves utter contempt and rejection.

[ironjawcannon]

smacking children, (who are smaller, dependant and less powerful)is still legal, but I am not allowed to smack someone my own size ???? Smacking children teaches them to smack in turn. There are many better and more respectful ways of teaching a child social skills, caring for others, right and wrong etc.

It is hard for us to realise that perhaps our parents were wrong.

I am a counsellor and have seen many examples of where physical assault on children has affected the lives and happiness of the adult they became.