A study found that youngsters smacked up to the age of six did better at school and were more optimistic about their lives than those never hit by their parents.
They were also more likely to undertake voluntary work and keener to attend university, experts discovered.
The research, conducted in the United States, is likely to anger children’s rights campaigners who have unsuccessfully fought to ban smacking in Britain.
The research questioned 179 teenagers about how often they were smacked as children and how old they were when they were last spanked.
Their answers were then compared with information they gave about their behaviour that could have been affected by smacking. This included negative effects such as anti-social behaviour, early sexual activity, violence and depression, as well as positives such as academic success and ambitions.
Those who had been smacked up to the age of six performed better in almost all the positive categories and no worse in the negatives than those never punished physically.
However, Parents Outloud, the pressure group, welcomed the research, saying parents should not be criminalised for mild smacking.
Its spokeswoman, Margaret Morrissey, said: “It is very difficult to explain verbally to a young child why something they have done is wrong.
“A light tap is often the most effective way of teaching them not to do something that is dangerous or hurtful to other people – it is a preventive measure.
“While anything more than a light tap is definitely wrong, parents should be allowed the freedom to discipline their children without the fear that they will be reported to police.”
Aric Sigman, a psychologist and author of The Spoilt Generation: Why Restoring Authority will Make our Children and Society Happier, told the Sunday Times: “The idea that smacking and violence are on a continuum is a bizarre and fetishised view of what punishment or smacking is for most parents.
“If it’s done judiciously by a parent who is normally affectionate and sensitive to their child, our society should not be up in arms about that. Parents should be trusted to distinguish this from a punch in the face.”
source http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/6926823/Smacked-children-more-successful-later-in-life-study-finds.html
I’m sure this will probably shock and offend many attachment parenting advocates, but with all the hype about co-sleeping and baby wearing out there, I think it’s important to share my story about how attachment parenting nearly ruined my life.
Sure, after 6 years or so, I’ve restored my sanity (more or less) and my back has recovered after extensive rehabilitation, but I blame this “peaceful” parenting style for stealing years of my life via sleep deprivation and pain as well as imprinting me with an unattainable expectation that a good parent must be an ‘attached’ parent. I also think the AP community deserves a smack on the wrist for unabashedly treating any other style of parenting with scorn.
source http://holisticsquid.com/why-we-ditched-attachment-parenting/
This concept is a filthy one in the fragile biosphere of modern parenting. Parents who fear discipline also tend to eschew scoring in sports and awards that single out achievement of any kind.
This is moderately tolerable in preschool, but when it bleeds into later grades and especially high school, it is downright dangerous. How on earth are modern moppets to survive if they can’t get a handle on the real emotional marketplace that makes up life outside the nest? Your boss won’t care if he steps on your piggy toes and hurts your feelings by firing you for poor performance and absenteeism. There are no gold medals for almost first in the Olympics, Kelly Slater didn’t share his 11th world title with Owen Wright and Adriano De Souza, and I’m pretty certain Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t send Twitter’s Jack Dorsey a check each year because Zuck earned a little too much and frankly that’s unfair.
In the future, when the parenting collective insists on nut free zones, scoreless athletics, and holiday-free childhoods, do the one thing that might run counter to your lone wolf individualism: Start a coalition! Beneath sensible button-ups and shift dresses you might be surprised to find an analytical army of rugged individuals ready to wage war against groupthinking nut haters everywhere.
source https://reason.com/archives/2012/04/29/why-i-mock-attachment-parenting-and-the
stopmockingman 4 years, 4 months ago.
