While I love and respect all doctors, I refuse to believe that spanking my child is/will make her less intelligent. I feel, however, that they are talking of borderline abuse spanking, because I most certainly NEVER spank my child out of anger, or when I am not sure she knows what she did wrong. I never spank her for crying.

BUT when my daughter outright tells me no and throws a tantrum, or deliberately gets into something she is well aware she should not touch (you can tell when she looks to see if you are watching) then she will recieve a swat. Also without question she gets one when she does something dangerous to her health, or dangerous to her sister (Like trying to stomp her head because sissy wont hand over the toy)

But spanking is not my only method, its more of the highest level I use when nessicerey. I also use time out chiar, and when she misbehaves in the chair I take the chair and make her stand. When she throws toys, or fights witha friend over them, I take the toy for 1 day.

When she gets worked up crying for any reason, I do not spank her, I hug her tight and count to three for her, and she will calm down by the time I get to three, I taught her to take a deep slow breath, and we talk about what made her cry.

I think it is very important when you punish a child for anything that you tell them what they did wrong, and why it was wrong, and apologise for needing to do so, but help them understand that the bahavior is unacceptable. We always hug and make up when its all done.

It is also important if you do feel you need to spank your child, that you always do it calmly not angerly. Never ever cause your child to bruise or bleed, or do it more times than nessicerey. Then you are releaseing your anger on your child, not teaching them the lesson they need. I use the rule she gets one quick swat for every year old she is. So she gets two when she needs it, and usually only enough to sting for a few seconds.

More importantly than punishing bad behavior, is rewarding good behavior. For example when I tell my daughter to clean up her toys before naptime, and she does not, I take all the toys she refuses to clean up and take them away until te next day. When she listens she gets to keep them. When she does it without asking and does a super job she may get to stay up an extra 10-15 minutes. Mommy does a happy dance with her, and I give her a big hug and lots of mommy kisses.

I Do not see my child as being any less intelligent than the next because I use spanking responsibly. I dont find myself or my siblings, or my husband or his sister any less intelligent because they were spanked. And certainly we are not any less confident.

I do however believe parents who are afraid to punish their children, afraid to correct them, are causing their children to make their unacceptable beavior a habit, and are in the long run affecting their child ability to grow into a productive member of society.

My son is almost 7 and he was spanked and he is a straight a student very bright kid so is my 4 yr old so I don’t believe the spanking theory.

I completely agree with JynVandy. I also spank my children as a last resort when they misbehave.  I believe that spanking in anger is abuse, and that the “hitting” Dr. Sears and some of the other people in the discussion were referring to is abuse as well, not spanking the way it is intended.  Spanking is abuse when done improperly.

I completely disagree with the remark made from the tape piece they showed where a “behavior specialist” stated that children who get spankings hang their heads low, have no confidence, and don’t want to learn.  I’d like to know how she explains my children’s confidence and LOVE of learning.  The children she described are, sadly, probably abused.

I do agree with one thing the doctors said regarding this topic: it is a controversy.  So why didn’t they have at least one person advocating for the other side?  When done correctly, spanking is a very useful tool used to train children to behave properly.  It definitely works for us.

I would like to add this slant to it. Some will say I’m wrong, but everytime I see this type of story I think of this.

I think the intelligent parents prefer alternatives to spanking, time outs, etc.

Lesser intelligent parents resort to spanking.

So in my opinion, smart people produce smart kids. To say it candidly, not so smart people produce not so smart kids.

With that being said, smart kids from parents that were also smart and didn’t spank equals what you have…. Higher IQ’s from kids that were not spanked. It’s that simple.

I agree with those above. My brother and I were both spanked as a part of our discipline. Our parents made sure that they did not spank us in anger and that we understood why they were spanking us. My brother overcame dyslexia and is now a project engineer and I am a teacher. I feel we both have above average IQs. Now, my brother and his wife spank their child who has been diagnosed as gifted.

There are a few concerns that I have about this research. First of all, how was the study conducted? How many childen participated? Were the researchers able to show that spanking was the cause of the IQ scores? I doubt that. As an educator and masters student, I know that it is impossible to control every aspect of a child’s life for research purposes. Usually these research papers show a correlation, but correlation is not causation. I can submit a correlation study that shows a link between your shoe size and scores on a test. If you knew, however, that I used subjects from 5 years old to 80, you would see that the shoe size is not the cause of the test scores. Age (a seperate factor) has to do with performance on the test. We really need to be careful about how we report findings of studies.

I would say that more enlightened parents have more intelligent children. It’s hard work to motivate young children, but it is much harder to influence them once a pattern has been established.

I am glad to know I am not the only one. I will say to dirtman, I thhink you are still thinking of it as a resort out of anger. And still that does not mean an unintelligent parent, just one who does not know what else to do.

Spanking out of anger is wrong, and abuse. But spanking out of love, and with understanding is an effective teaching tool. I don’t spank my daughter because I am mad at her behavior, I am spanking her because I see the behavior as disruptive, and love her enough to want to help her drop the bad one and adopt a new one, and when nessicerey yes spanking is my deterrent. But I also provide her with alternative appropriate behaviors, which I reward.

My child does not hang her head, she is not withdrawn (quite the opposite she is a little social butterfly) she does lack intrest in learning, and is certainly not afraid. Both my children are evaluated for developement by a professional every couple months (a free service to all where I live) and my 2 year old consistently scores 2-6 months ahead on developement and learning.

Spanking has no connection to confidence and intelligence but ABUSE does.

Responsible spanking produces healthy well balanced children.

I ecommend reading “The Strong Willed Child” by Dr. James Dobson. I agree with a lot, but not all, of his teaching in this book.

Ultimately it is up to the parents how they discipline their children, and I will never put down a parent who uses an alternate form, just so long as a child has and understands discipline and boundries. But no one is going to convince me I am wrong, and definantly I do not believe myself to be the exception to the rule.

I completely agree with spanking. My husband and I were both spanked growing up. I was always a a-b student. I spank my children. Yes,even my 10mo old gets his hand smacked or his butt once in a while. He is aold enough to know right from wrong. When I tell him no and he does it anyways and watches to see if I’m looking, I know he knows the diff. I believe that if more people got their “butts busted” as a kid, there would be less crimes. If more parents would quit being pansies and not let their children control them, the world would be a better place. We are the adults in charge, not the children.