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There's one argument with hitting the kids that I don't know to argue with. It goes like this. There are things in life with consequences that are dire yet can

There's one argument with hitting the kids that I don't know to argue with. It goes like this. There are things in life with consequences that are dire yet can only be felt in the long run (e.g. a smart kid can coast with bad work ethics until college / grad school / start up). As a parent, you can explain these consequences, and the kid may intellectually agree, but can not fully internalize. Hitting the kid is simply a way to translate these long-term consequences into short-term ones that can be more easily felt. It's simply the equivalent to celebrating milestones in a long project, translating long-term benefits into short-term ones that can be easily felt. Why is the former vilified, while the later touted as good practice?

simonbw 8y ago
I don’t think the turning long-term consequences into short-term ones is what’s vilified about spanking. There are other ways of doing this that don’t resort to violence.
- newtothebay 8y ago
  What would be other ways to do it (with similar level of efficacy)?
  - simonbw 8y ago
    I’m not a parent so I don’t think I have a super great understanding of which punishments are most effective, but ones I can think of: - Taking away something that they like - scolding them - giving them a time-out I’m not sure if they are as effective as spanking or not, but they can all be ways of turning long-term consequences into short-term ones, and I don’t think they are vilified the same way as spanking. My point being that the violent part of spanking is what is frowned upon, not the making-consequences-immediate part.
    - stevew20 8y ago
      These methods did not work with me. Or at least they didn't scale well... When I did something totally dumb (like stealing a piece of candy from a store), my parents upped the punishment to physical violence, and that showed me just how bad my action was. If I were to steal something as an adult and went to jail, i would face physical abuse. Spanking is useful is portraying that outcome, without me actually having to go to jail.
  - watwut 8y ago
    Are there studies to show that spanking is effective in that goal? If there is not convincing evidence that spanked children do better in school, then anything can be equally ineffective. E.g. your question assumes that spanking is effective in making the kid well organized and well focused, but what if that simply does not happen?
watwut 8y ago
> Hitting the kid is simply a way to translate these long-term consequences into short-term ones that can be more easily felt. It's simply the equivalent to celebrating milestones in a long project, translating long-term benefits into short-term ones that can be easily felt. Why is the former vilified, while the later touted as good practice? Cause kids ain't that dumb and fully know it is you and not the abstract consequences hitting them. It is you and with goal of not being hit, faking signature works equally good or better. Same with milestone celebration, but people on project like free food and fun, so they will not complain and toute it as good practice. Milestone celebration makes people feel good in short term and does not matter in long term. More importantly, spanking does not solve whatever reason for whatever caused that bad work ethics. It may be inability to control impulse, it may be an expression of anger, it may be bad organizational skill, short attention span, million other reasons and spanking does not address any of them. It does not address issue and does not make the kid to build good habits and routines, it makes them feel pain if they dont figure it out by themselves. And many kids don't figure it out by themselves.
marchenko 8y ago
I've seen an argument tangential to this advanced as an explanation for why spanking is more accepted in some minority groups: the consequences of not eradicating certain bad behaviours early (disrespecting authority, not following instructions, not working hard) can be particularly dire for certain demographic groups (e.g. black men, immigrants trying to gain a foothold) and parents need to use every tool in their arsenal to mold their child's adult impulses. Relying on time-outs or conditioning children to expect to be allowed to argue with authority is seen as the privilege of those who can be expected to be given the benefit of the doubt later. I'm not convinced of the efficacy of spanking for this purpose, but I can understand the impulse described here (though I doubt that this impulse motivates most spankings, which seem to be carried out in anger).
- blub 8y ago
  In that case, it might be smart for US parents to periodically stop their kids' toy car, search it for sweets and lunch money and confiscate them. This will create the appropriate expectations for their interactions with law enforcement. Also to stop them when going from their room to the living room and subject them to an interrogation. If they don't pass, they get sent back. This would prepare them for international travel.
  - justtopost 8y ago
    I sure as hell had 'random bedroom sweeps' as a kid, and it just made me better at hiding contraband, and heightened my attraction to it, whatever it may be.
jusssi 8y ago
Because the former teaches your kids it's okay to hit people who don't share your values. ELI5 for you: imagine your boss punched you in the face for less than 110% performance, and that society viewed him being right in doing so.
jemfinch 8y ago
> Hitting the kid is simply a way to translate these long-term consequences into short-term ones that can be more easily felt. That's a good argument for consequence-based discipline in general, but it doesn't make any case for striking children instead of imposing more effective consequences. I've made two and three year olds stand with their noses in the corner, taken four year olds' favorite blankets, made six and seven year olds write essays and copy selected sections of books, and made nine year olds rewrite homework and clean public areas in penance for their childish mistakes. There are any number of ways to bring long term consequences to bear in the short term; I haven't yet felt the need to strike these kids to accomplish the behavioral change I wish to enact. I also won't hesitate to yell and demonstrate anger if it's appropriate to the situation. I call it "silverback parenting". We are primates, and have evolved over millions of years to signal dissatisfaction vocally and respect social order even from a young age. When I do it, I'm just acting, but the kids don't know that. Watch cartoons for kids and look how exaggerated the characters' emotions are; kid's often miss nuance, but they're well versed in recognizing and responding to basic emotions. Spanking is just plain uncreative. We have so many options as parents I just can't conceptualize any situation where spanking was the best option. And I say this having been raised myself in a spanking household.
- SpanishConf 8y ago
  I assume this is not the case for most Hacker News Readers, who are rather warry of how much time their kids spend in front of screens, but just take their smartphone/favorite electronic device away and just observe how they _instantly_ internalize everything you tell them. This is my personal experience at least, or what my non-techy parents used to do to me when I was little and it was surprisingly effective to a geek like me.
- blub 8y ago
  Those are some brilliant examples of disciplining :) But... what do you do if they simply don't want to sit in the corner or rewrite homework? Where I live physical disciplining is forbidden by law, so I assume parents have to be quite adept at psychological manipulation. In the end the parent is bigger and theoretically smarter. I assume they can pick an uncooperative child up and deposit them in their room for some very boring time alone without toys, to reconsider what they did? My impression is that if a parent didn't do their job to instill respect and trust in their kids in ages 1-4, it might be very hard for them later. The child could simply be an ass and refuse anything, including the punishment.

simonbw 8y ago

I don’t think the turning long-term consequences into short-term ones is what’s vilified about spanking. There are other ways of doing this that don’t resort to violence.

newtothebay 8y ago
What would be other ways to do it (with similar level of efficacy)?
- simonbw 8y ago
  I’m not a parent so I don’t think I have a super great understanding of which punishments are most effective, but ones I can think of: - Taking away something that they like - scolding them - giving them a time-out I’m not sure if they are as effective as spanking or not, but they can all be ways of turning long-term consequences into short-term ones, and I don’t think they are vilified the same way as spanking. My point being that the violent part of spanking is what is frowned upon, not the making-consequences-immediate part.
  - stevew20 8y ago
    These methods did not work with me. Or at least they didn't scale well... When I did something totally dumb (like stealing a piece of candy from a store), my parents upped the punishment to physical violence, and that showed me just how bad my action was. If I were to steal something as an adult and went to jail, i would face physical abuse. Spanking is useful is portraying that outcome, without me actually having to go to jail.
- watwut 8y ago
  Are there studies to show that spanking is effective in that goal? If there is not convincing evidence that spanked children do better in school, then anything can be equally ineffective. E.g. your question assumes that spanking is effective in making the kid well organized and well focused, but what if that simply does not happen?

watwut 8y ago

> Hitting the kid is simply a way to translate these long-term consequences into short-term ones that can be more easily felt. It's simply the equivalent to celebrating milestones in a long project, translating long-term benefits into short-term ones that can be easily felt. Why is the former vilified, while the later touted as good practice? Cause kids ain't that dumb and fully know it is you and not the abstract consequences hitting them. It is you and with goal of not being hit, faking signature works equally good or better. Same with milestone celebration, but people on project like free food and fun, so they will not complain and toute it as good practice. Milestone celebration makes people feel good in short term and does not matter in long term. More importantly, spanking does not solve whatever reason for whatever caused that bad work ethics. It may be inability to control impulse, it may be an expression of anger, it may be bad organizational skill, short attention span, million other reasons and spanking does not address any of them. It does not address issue and does not make the kid to build good habits and routines, it makes them feel pain if they dont figure it out by themselves. And many kids don't figure it out by themselves.

marchenko 8y ago

I've seen an argument tangential to this advanced as an explanation for why spanking is more accepted in some minority groups: the consequences of not eradicating certain bad behaviours early (disrespecting authority, not following instructions, not working hard) can be particularly dire for certain demographic groups (e.g. black men, immigrants trying to gain a foothold) and parents need to use every tool in their arsenal to mold their child's adult impulses. Relying on time-outs or conditioning children to expect to be allowed to argue with authority is seen as the privilege of those who can be expected to be given the benefit of the doubt later. I'm not convinced of the efficacy of spanking for this purpose, but I can understand the impulse described here (though I doubt that this impulse motivates most spankings, which seem to be carried out in anger).

blub 8y ago
In that case, it might be smart for US parents to periodically stop their kids' toy car, search it for sweets and lunch money and confiscate them. This will create the appropriate expectations for their interactions with law enforcement. Also to stop them when going from their room to the living room and subject them to an interrogation. If they don't pass, they get sent back. This would prepare them for international travel.
- justtopost 8y ago
  I sure as hell had 'random bedroom sweeps' as a kid, and it just made me better at hiding contraband, and heightened my attraction to it, whatever it may be.

jusssi 8y ago

Because the former teaches your kids it's okay to hit people who don't share your values. ELI5 for you: imagine your boss punched you in the face for less than 110% performance, and that society viewed him being right in doing so.

jemfinch 8y ago

> Hitting the kid is simply a way to translate these long-term consequences into short-term ones that can be more easily felt. That's a good argument for consequence-based discipline in general, but it doesn't make any case for striking children instead of imposing more effective consequences. I've made two and three year olds stand with their noses in the corner, taken four year olds' favorite blankets, made six and seven year olds write essays and copy selected sections of books, and made nine year olds rewrite homework and clean public areas in penance for their childish mistakes. There are any number of ways to bring long term consequences to bear in the short term; I haven't yet felt the need to strike these kids to accomplish the behavioral change I wish to enact. I also won't hesitate to yell and demonstrate anger if it's appropriate to the situation. I call it "silverback parenting". We are primates, and have evolved over millions of years to signal dissatisfaction vocally and respect social order even from a young age. When I do it, I'm just acting, but the kids don't know that. Watch cartoons for kids and look how exaggerated the characters' emotions are; kid's often miss nuance, but they're well versed in recognizing and responding to basic emotions. Spanking is just plain uncreative. We have so many options as parents I just can't conceptualize any situation where spanking was the best option. And I say this having been raised myself in a spanking household.

SpanishConf 8y ago
I assume this is not the case for most Hacker News Readers, who are rather warry of how much time their kids spend in front of screens, but just take their smartphone/favorite electronic device away and just observe how they _instantly_ internalize everything you tell them. This is my personal experience at least, or what my non-techy parents used to do to me when I was little and it was surprisingly effective to a geek like me.
blub 8y ago
Those are some brilliant examples of disciplining :) But... what do you do if they simply don't want to sit in the corner or rewrite homework? Where I live physical disciplining is forbidden by law, so I assume parents have to be quite adept at psychological manipulation. In the end the parent is bigger and theoretically smarter. I assume they can pick an uncooperative child up and deposit them in their room for some very boring time alone without toys, to reconsider what they did? My impression is that if a parent didn't do their job to instill respect and trust in their kids in ages 1-4, it might be very hard for them later. The child could simply be an ass and refuse anything, including the punishment.