Fox News likes spanking children
Fox News -- surprise, surprise -- is playing up a new study purportedly showing that "[y]oung children spanked by their parents may grow up to be happier and more successful than those who have never been hit."
That is to say, that corporal punishment is good for you -- so just bend over and take it. This, presumably, is the message, firm and clear, that Fox wants you to take away from this.
I must add, though, that the study was conducted by Marjorie Gunnoe, a psychology professor at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Calvin College is a conservative Christian college:
We pledge fidelity to Jesus Christ, offering our hearts and lives to do God's work in God's world,
the college states in its Mission Statement. It's a college full of Republicans. President Bush even gave the Commencement Address there in 2005.
I must add that John Calvin, after whom this college was named, was hardly known to be soft with respect to violence and punishment.
I must add that perhaps America's leading proponent of corporal punishment of children is James Dobson, a leading evangelical Christian.
Finally, I must add that other studies refute the results of this one. In 2002, for example, a psychologist at Columbia University, Elizabeth Thompson Gershoff published "a large-scale meta-analysis of 88 studies" on relationship between corporal punishment and positive/negative behaviours in children. As George Holden of the University of Texas put in in a commentary that accompanied the study, Gershoff's findings "reflect the growing body of evidence indicating that corporal punishment does no good and may even cause harm."
I cannot comment specifically on Gunnoe's study, nor on what motivates her. She may be doing what she thinks is "God's work in God's world," or she may be a serious academic engaging in serious, meaningful work. (There are some seemingly serious academics who have disagreed with Gershoff's findings, and I suppose we ought to take their findings seriously, even if we oppose corporal punishment.) I just find the above connections rather curious.
Labels: children, Christianity, corporal punishment, Fox News
posted by Michael J.W. Stickings at
1:15 PM
9 Comments:
What a lot of evil,vile idiocy.If hitting an adult is wrong,hitting a child is even more so.Every slap is a humiliation.Spanking children is even a form of sexual abuse,since spanking is a sexual act (don't think so? just google "spanking" and check out the results...).Corporal punishment erodes empathy and promotes identification with the aggressor.Personally,I think that Dobson and his ilk are so obsessed with abortion partly because they suffered corporal punishment.They couldn't allow themselves to feel the pain of this situation,denied this part of themselves,thus mutilating their own souls,metaphorically aborting their true self.The resulting rage is conserved and finds an outlet in the "evil babykillers" while the truly evil,hitting parents are spared.
By
resident_alien, at 2:11 PM
Sir:
You make an interesting set of observations all of which serve to paint professor Gunnoe with a specific kind of brush (conservative, Christian, Republican, John Calvin, etc), while still maintaining that you "cannot comment specifically on Gunnoe's study, nor on what motivates her."
Yikes. I guess you were charitable enough at least to say that "she may be a serious academic engaging in serious, meaningful work." I suppose she should be grateful for that bit of faint praise/speculation.
In fact professor Gunnoe earned her PhD in developmental psychology at the University of Virginia. Before coming to Calvin she worked at Child Trends in Washington D.C., conducting policy-relevant research on children and families. She did post-doctoral work at Arizona State University developing intervention programs for at-risk families. She is on the steering committee for the Midwest Division of Psi Chi, the National Honor Society for psychology. She directs the youth component of the American Study of Religiosity and Ethnicity and her research focuses on how different models of family authority impact family members’ adjustment.
So, yes, she is a serious academic doing serious, meaningful work. Feel free to disagree with the conclusions of her study. But please be more charitable about what motivates her or what you think you know motivates her. She deserves an honest hearing; not the guilt by association you tried to paint her with.
Phil de Haan
Calvin College
By
Phil de Haan, at 3:03 PM
Child buttock-battering vs. DISCIPLINE:
Child buttock-battering (euphemistically labeled "spanking","swatting","switching","smacking", "paddling",or other cute-sounding names) for the purpose of gaining compliance is nothing more than an inherited bad habit.
Its a good idea for people to take a look at what they are doing, and learn how to DISCIPLINE instead of hit.
I think the reason why television shows like "Supernanny" and "Dr. Phil" are so popular is because that is precisely what many (not all) people are trying to do.
There are several reasons why child bottom-slapping isn't a good idea. Here are some good, quick reads recommended by professionals:
Plain Talk About Spanking
by Jordan Riak,
The Sexual Dangers of Spanking Children
by Tom Johnson,
NO VITAL ORGANS THERE, So They Say
by Lesli Taylor M.D. and Adah Maurer Ph.D.
Most compelling of all reasons to abandon this worst of all bad habits is the fact that buttock-battering can be unintentional sexual abuse for some children. There is an abundance of educational resources, testimony, documentation, etc available on the subject that can easily be found by doing a little research with the recommended reads-visit www.nospank.net.
Just a handful of those helping to raise awareness of why child bottom-slapping isn't a good idea:
American Academy of Pediatrics,
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry,
Center For Effective Discipline,
Churches' Network For Non-Violence,
Nobel Peace Prize recipient Archbishop Desmond Tutu,
Parenting In Jesus' Footsteps,
Global Initiative To End All Corporal Punishment of Children,
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
In 26 countries, child corporal punishment is prohibited by law (with more in process). In fact, the US was the only UN member that did not ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
By
Anonymous, at 5:15 PM
The vast majority of professionals agree that child buttock-battering isn’t healthy. A marginal few (mostly religious fundamentalists as those at Calvin) think that child bottom-slapping is good. They use the same selective literalist interpretation of the Bible as was used to justify “witch”-burning, depraved torture methods for those accused of sin and heresy, slavery, racism, wife-beating, oppression of women and a host of other social ills.
By
Anonymous, at 5:15 PM
With all due respect, any voice crying in an academic wilderness must be treated with skepticism particularly when that voice sounds like it may be justifying inflicting pain and suffering on children - or adults for that matter; particularly when her study is so much at odds with so many other studies.
I have no idea whether Gonnoe's study has any statistical validity -- so many things pose as science these days and so many of them come from institutions with something very unscientific to prove. So many of them are heralded exclusively by Fox News that one has to expect that anything emanating from them will inspire cynical responses. My initial reaction was frankly the same as Mr. Stickings' -- one does not expect truth from Fox and sadly one needs to examine the religious attitudes and pressures at the institution from whence this study comes. The benefits of inflicting violence upon family members is, after all, not the sort of thing one expects to hear from a secular and presumably less biased institution although I am not asserting that Calvin is not a good, authentically liberal arts school. As an aside, the CC archive of German propaganda has been a useful resource.
I do suspect Fox of supporting her only for political reasons. They certainly have a strong authoritarian, theocratic bias and they certainly have no credentials in psychology. Beating children for their own good has Fox written all over it.
I don't know how her work will be received by her peers and that of course is where the meaningful skepticism will play out as we both know. I do know, that having raised two children successfully, the decades worth of child care gurus didn't seem to have a clue and have since been repudiated by several generations of other gurus and I don't see the process ending soon -- another reason for skepticism.
As to my own opinions as a parent: hitting my kids is a sentence of death and I don't care who says it's good for them or how many degrees they have or what gods they worship. I'm inclined to include all kids in that fatwa actually. I'm sure Michael feels the same way. You have to cut parents some slack, you know.
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Capt. Fogg, at 5:21 PM
Thank you for your comment, Phil. I appreciate that you took the time to come here and provide some background on Prof. Gunnoe.
(I see, by the way, from your bio page at Calvin that you're from Ontario and lived in Toronto. I'm from Montreal and now live in the Toronto area, via several other places, including Tufts Univ. in Massachusetts.)
Obviously, the point of my post was not to ridicule Prof. Gunnoe but to note Fox New's interest in the story. I do think it only right, though, to wonder about the motives behind the study.
The Fox story included this:
"Research into the effects of spanking was previously hampered by the inability to find enough children who had never been spanked, given its past cultural acceptability.
"But Gunnoe’s work drew on a study of 2,600 people, about a quarter of whom had never been physically chastised."
From this, I suppose Gunnoe can claim that her study differs from, and may be more accurate than, previous ones. Still, her findings do depart markedly, from what I can tell, from most of the research in the field, and I find it striking that she didn't just report her findings neutrally but use them to support her own support for corporal punishment: "I think of spanking as a dangerous tool, but there are times when there is a job big enough for a dangerous tool. You just don’t use it for all your jobs." That's an odd, and, to me, disturbing way to put it. How is hitting a child a "job"? I suppose she could say that parenting is a job, but, even then, what she's saying is that spanking is not just okay but recommended, as it will, according to her, make children better, happer people. You'll excuse me if I find this pretty dispicable.
She may say that she's basing her view on her findings, not the other way around, and therefore simply reflecting the facts, but it seems more likely that her findings simply reinforced already-held views.
Otherwise, I agree with what my friend and colleague Capt. Fogg writes above.
By
Michael J.W. Stickings, at 8:39 PM
Gunnoe's study has not been completed!
"One of those new population studies underway is called Portraits of American Life. It involves interviews of 2,600 people and their adolescent children every three years for the next 20 years. Dr. Marjorie Gunnoe is working with the first wave of data on the teens."http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/nurtureshock/archive/2009/12/30/never-been-spanked.aspx
Also, note the asterisk. Broson points out that "Even in cultures were spanking is more common, its use is still very rare (perhaps once or twice in a kid's entire lifetime), and we aren't talking about severe beatings of a child, but a swat across the behind."
However, the article aslo talks about the importance of "consistency of discipline" . Hm..a complete contradiction.
I urge others to send a note to Fox,considering their slogan is "fair and balanced" asking them to tell the facts about this study- the fact that it's ongoing.
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Shell Rowe, at 10:13 PM
For those who want to work toward banning corporal punsihment of children: there is a petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/america39s-behind--ban-the-physical-assault-of-children
To join a moderated site toi discuss practicle ways in which to stop the barbaric practice of hiotting the youngest of our citizens,, please visit:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bancorporalpunishmentofchildren/?yguid=328760158
By
Shell Rowe, at 10:21 PM
Its very sad to read articles like this one. The words Dr. Alice Miller wrote to one of her readers are so True:
“….We will never be able to stop child abuse as long as we say: "I put the past behind me, I don't feel anger, have forgiven and forgotten and get on with my life." This advice, given very often, never actually helps. Why? Because the endured abuse, if it is not worked out, drives the former victims to do the same with their children as long as they deny the pain and the anger, which the abuse left in their bodies. Our feelings may stay for a long time repressed, unconscious, but they wake up when we become parents. Advice like the one given by Oprah wants to help people who suffer by saying: "Enjoy your life, you should no longer suffer because of things that happened so long ago". We must know that this advice works at the expense of the next generation, supporting our blindness. Feeling and understanding the causes of our old pain does not mean that the pain and the anger will stay with us forever. Quite the opposite is true. The felt anger and pain disappear with time and enable us to love our children. It is the UNFELT, avoided and denied pain, stored up in our bodies, that drive us to repeat what have been done to us and to say: "Spanking didn't harm me, it was good for me and will thus also not harm my children." People who talk like this go on writing books on how we should spank babies early enough so that they learn to behave and NEVER EVER realize what had been done to them so early in their lives….”
http://www.alice-miller.com/readersmail_en.php
By
sylvie shene, at 12:06 AM
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