Quote Originally Posted by hoosier View Post
Here is an example of a metastudy of spanking. Its conclusions are not entirely black-and-white and it finds that a large number of the studies done were flawed--not because they were politically motivated, as you assume, but probably because they were simply poorly conceived--but it still finds persuasive evidence of correlation between spanking and negative behavior.

Don't be too hasty in dismissing self esteem or in assuming that you know what someone else understands when they speak of it.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...bout-spanking/
I'm usually pretty hasty; you're just going to have to live with it.

There's a depth to corporeal punishment that shouldn't be missed. Drive by comments like Zool's look foolish. There are spankings that little kids get (smacks on their behind) that serve as a negative reinforcement when they do something dangerous like walk into the street. These are highly effective. There's actual punishment, like 5 hard shots with a belt for doing something pretty bad (this is the form things took in our house growing up). There's no doubt it was a strong reminder about consequences for bad behavior; I can report that it prevented bad behavior on my part. There are all sorts of bad hitting - the uncontrolled outbursts are all bad, even if they don't do damage , because having a parent out of control is really what sends a strong negative message. (based on history, I suspect this is true in the Green case).

On another note, there was a time when my brother and I were getting a little older (10-12 maybe), my Mom tried to spank us and she was so ineffective that my brother and I just laughed at her. It was all fun and games until Dad got home. Sort of a double backfire.