Spanking Linked to Mental Illness, Says Study

To drive you nuts... however if you were spanked as a child it's only one more straw to add to the camel's back.

I was smacked, though not daily or anything. I only remember a few times as a young child - once when I was about 3 and ran into the road, and similar things. Better than being run over though. Another time I was having a tantrum in a shop.

My Dad never smacked me. He did threaten to tickle me until I threw up though - what does that do to ones mental health? His punishments were usually a disappointed face, and some manual labour. Though there was the time with the Goblin Face and The Claw.

Seriously, I'm sure the mental scars and issues my parents gave me are from the non-smacking punishments.

My Dad used a metal pancake turner on me and when I put my hand back there he broke one of my fingers. My middle finger on my right hand still doesn't bend like the other fingers do.

J.R.

Wow... I'm real sorry to hear that.

Spanking is an excuse to feel around on your kid's ass.

I along with my two brothers were spanked as children as well as all 18 of my close cousins....
None of us use drugs, and as far as I'm aware, not one of us has any mental problems.
There is one cousin however, who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia... He's the eldest of us all and the only one who was never spanked or punished in any way...
fluke?
I know the article says the research is not just about the "taps on the butt" types of discipline but I'm sure there has to be more to these findings than people being spanked.
I was severely beaten by my biological sperm donor and have physical scars and health (not mental) issues to prove it.

I don't have any mental illness.... but then again maybe I'm not aware and I'm completely bonkers..

I used to have anger issues but I was like this since a kid. if anything.. I learned how to control it better after getting the beatings I received.

I'm not justifying that getting beat is a good thing by any means.

I just don't really buy this "spanking leads to mental blah blah" crap.
I'm sure that the studies found that certain forms of discipline / corporal punishment affect others far worse than they did with me but still, to say that spanking leads to these types of behaviors or illnesses is a bold statement. Sure it MAY lead to this in some or a large group of people.. but I also call bulls***.

Think about it, it's not rocket science.

If you will always experience pain when doing something, does it not teach you to primarily look after your hide when little?

It's a conditioning issue. You learn to do good primarily to avoid pain, rather than primarily because you care about the other person you are affecting.

Studies agree with this.

I think when people hear the word spanking, they think of Joe Jackson with an extension cord.

I think its ok to give three taps on the palms of your hands with a ruler, or a spanking with your hand on the bottom. I think people mix it up with these abusive images that result in bruises, broken skin or bones.

I think used in the proper way, it can be quite effective. There are so many many many people that I know who were spanked as children, and are not fck ups. They're productive, normal, happy people.

So I have to politely disagree with that study.

Perhaps in a Primal Tribe it worked because of the communication was lacking. I believe that if you result to violence to discipline your children, you've lost the ability to use your wisdom and insight to effectively discipline them. Remember, this IS the 21st century.

Bottom Line: Hitting children creates fear of the one hitting them.

J.R.

And it turns one into looking after him/herself in an attempt to avoid out of this fear. And it teaches violence to solve conflict.

And so on.

People who say, "Look at me, I turned out all right!" aren't really looking at the whole picture, especially because it hard to do so when being the very norm.

nope. I think that people who disagree with these studies assume that those who are opposed to spanking only mean beatings. Not at all. I dislike spanking because it doesn't teach the child what to do. It only teaches what NOT to do. It doesn't tell the kid what the preferred alternative is, and like Leon said, it only teaches them to do good to avoid punishment, a very low developmental level morally speaking. You can be productive and happy and still not be your fullest potential, and who knows, maybe it was made up for in some other way. But I don't think that the spanking deserves the credit for the goodness in people. No one is saying don't discipline. They are saying don't use that specific form of discipline. Besides, for every person you can name who was spanked and turned out fine, there is someone who was spanked and didn't turn out so great, or appears great on the outside, well accomplished and what not but is tormented on the inside.

Yes, such studies don't ever show 100% prevalence of any conclusive cause and effect. It simply shows a higher prevalence of one result over the other in a given population.

Besides, these causes make perfect sense to me, even without the studies. I don't know why others can't see it.

because then they would have to resolve their own cognitive dissonances.

Could it be that psychological abuse could result in psycological problems?

A good study uses controls such as these. So I'm sure it was covered.