Parenting through corporal punishment

[brien]

Quote by: Fonceai @brien Excluding my own methods, I was thinking about the use of only positive reinforcement. If you consider reinforcement on a scale, say from -10 to +10, with +10 being the most positive, then isn't a 0 just as bad as a -10? Subsequently, won't you have to bombard the child with positive praise and reinforcement on a consistent basis so that the lack of it bears punishment? Or even worse... being used to constant positive stimulus means the child will become dependent on it?

Not quite Fonce. Positve reinforcement merely gives the subject a choice that is rewarded rather than punished. Given the choice, animals seem to adapt to reward better than they do punishment. This is the difference between corporal punishment and positive reinforcement.

Edit to add: I don't think children become dependent upon positve reinforcement rewards. For instance, in tolilet training, rewarding the child works until they understand that not messing their pants is the reward they eventually obtain through the training. Yet in the beginning of the training, it is best to reward them after a succesful event to initially "train" them. These immediate rewards aren't needed after the use of the toilet, because no messy pants becomes the actual reward of using the toilet. Children don't understand this at first, which is why we use an immediate reward during training rather than punishment.

[Sbh052]

I strongly disagree with hitting children as a form of punishment. Maybe send them to their room, ground them, or if they are younger, give them a time out. NEVER HITTING THEM! I think any parent(s) that hits their children should be arrested.

[Trent]

I was in a car park once and this family were getting stuff packed into their car and the mum really lost it and started smacking her son. She had him by the scruff of the neck and was whacking him in the back and smacking him on his legs and bottom really hard and shouting. Her old man just went on packing things away and sorting out the other kids and after a couple of minutes of this I found myself walking over.
I didn't have any idea of what I was going to say in my head - I just went.

I said something like:

I'm sorry to have to say something but I can't stand by and watch you hitting this child. You really shouldn't do it - you're out of control and frightening him badly. He does have rights, you know.

Wow.

She was dead shocked, I can tell you. Maybe she hadn't realised what she was doing, but she didn't say a word and nor do her husband.

I did it for the kid - not because I thought I could protect him for long - but I wanted him to know that there are some adults who do not find that kind of behaviour acceptable.
As they drove away, the kid looked back at me through the window - I've never forgotten it.

And I bet he hasn't either!

[The Bacon Guy]

I'm glad you did that, man; not a lot of people would have.

Though I don't agree with them, I can see where people are coming from with the argument that spanking can be used as a conditioning stimulus. However, people who assault their kids in anger simply aren't fit to be parents.

[Sbh052]

Thats such a nice thing you did for that child! I don't know how many times we have heard children in our neighborhood getting abused, or been walking through DisneyWorld and see a little boy get slapped across the face, but not only did he get slapped? It was for crying becuase of the heat!

One day I saw a women walking on the side of the road in the summer, with her two children. One of the children was in a stoller, and the other one, about four or five, was walking, and he was crying, I could hear her yelling at him, becuase it was hot out, and he didn't want to walk anymore. She backhanded this little boy, so hard, that he fell onto the ground. I stopped. And I told her I was calling DSS on her. She didn't even know me, but I was this and that, and all these terrible names. And I did this for her children. Not for her to like me or hate me. I didn't even know her. I did call the police though and she did get arrested for child abuse. Her kids are now safley away with family somewhere.

[brien]

Though I don't agree with them, I can see where people are coming from with the argument that spanking can be used as a conditioning stimulus

BG; Spanking is conditioning but it conditions a child to :

1) Be afraid of adults.

2) Avoidance. I know of no child that would run to a spanking.

3) Resentment. Child fails to associate spanking with positive behavoir.

These are not pyschologically healthy traits in children.

[The Bacon Guy]

That's why I don't agree with them: their argument about conditioning can work either way. I meant that they have a moral ground (albeit based on possibly false assumptions), whereas people who spank kids out of anger don't.

As for your points about its conditioning effect, I can see where you're coming from, but I need evidence before I take it as fact, as indeed I do before I accept the pro-spankers claims as fact. I personally oppose spanking because it would under any other circumstances be considered assault, and there is nothing solid to justify this assault.

[Epistemologist]

I was away from this thread for some time, but actually I think I was wrong when I called it classical Pavlovian conditioning. I think it's actually supposed to be operant conditioning.

I'm actually not saying here that spanking is necessarily operant conditioning, but at least that's the intended effect.

[brien]

Quote by: The Bacon Guy That's why I don't agree with them: their argument about conditioning can work either way. I meant that they have a moral ground (albeit based on possibly false assumptions), whereas people who spank kids out of anger don't. As for your points about its conditioning effect, I can see where you're coming from, but I need evidence before I take it as fact, as indeed I do before I accept the pro-spankers claims as fact. I personally oppose spanking because it would under any other circumstances be considered assault, and there is nothing solid to justify this assault.

BG Just as I wouldn't force anyone to raise their children as I saw fit, neither did I leave to chance the consequences of spanking my children, which incidentially, was the main reason for not doing it. imo, only frustrated and intellectually challenged people use violence to shape the behaviour of their chillens.

[Fonceai]

*cough*

You sure about that?

<grins>

In reality, any form of physical punishment can be abusive with unknown consequences.

The problem is in the parent, not the method.