While growing up I had a friend who was spanked regularly for almost any reason by a surly father.
My friend was smart and inventive when we were together with nobody else around, but when anyone in his family came into the picture he became dense and slow. He mispronounced words, breathed out of his mouth, and just kind of glazed over when his family was around.
Maybe it had something to do with this new study that suggests the more a kid gets spanked, the lower his IQ.
Now that’s a big claim. Think about it. Makes you wonder if George H.W. Bush was beating Dubya daily with a tire iron back in his formative years. My god, Jessica Simpson’s obsessed father must still be walloping her with two-by-fours.
The survey touches on why this phenomenon might occur, such as whether spankings tend to happen more often in families with low educational opportunities or reduced inherited intelligence. But they don’t consider whether or not the kids might be faking it.
My friend pretended to be dumb, and I can only make assumptions about why. Maybe he thought he would be less likely to get hit if he were considered a “slow child,” a more sympathetic figure.
His behavior was confusing and I asked him about it one time. He clammed up. We never spoke about it again.
I ran into him years later as an adult and he was well educated and working a mentally demanding job, proving to me that he was never dumb, just pretending, just trying to fly under the radar and avoid a beating.
I, on the other hand, suffer from the inverse. Having rarely been spanked as a child, I pretend to be smart.
touché
I have an IQ of 120. I was disciplined when I acted the fool as a child. My mom spanked me when I got out of line and I’ll tell you what… I never repeated the offending action that got me a spanking.
In otherwords, I learned, I progressed and I adapted. That takes some intelligence.
Sometimes kids need to get disciplined when they get out of line. If you take the liberal approach to life, no concequences for bad actions, no accountability…
kids can run amok, do what they feel like, act the fool, and THAT is where low intelligence comes from. When you’re busy NOT going to school because you know you won’t be held accountable for playing hookie… how are you going to increase your intelligence?
if you’re too busy acting the fool to do your homework and study for tests… because you know the worst you’ll get is a firm talking to.. how will that prepare them for the harsh reality of the real world?
Seriously, some kids, when brats, need a good spanking. A spanking over a time out is proven to be effective in adjusting bad behavior and making the kids actually LEARN something about cause and effect.
my sister, who was also disciplined… has an IQ of around 120-125.
on the other end of the scale, my father was beaten sensless as a child by his drunken *#$@ of a “father”, yet my dad was not only the kindest man I ever knew, my father was EXTREMELY smart… with an IQ of 140 according to his military records.
Which proves that a man who is beaten and abused will not necessarily grow up to be a man who is stupid and abusive.
On the other end of that scale… one of my friend’s parents are extremely liberal, flower power, peace love and junk… who never spanked their kids at all. I love my friend and his family very much… but none of them are the brightest bulbs in the box as they say.
Lets put it this way… my friend was relieved when his IQ test came back at the normal level.
People are like snowflakes, no two are alike. Even identical siblings have their own personalities, thoughts, feelings, and learn at different paces.
This “study” is no pavlov’s dog. This study is a farce to just push a liberal agenda of no accountability, let kids do what they want when they want with no conequences for their actions. Don’t want to work? Let the rest of the nation take care of you with their taxes. Don’t want to go to school? Live at home with mom or dad, or get pregnant and get child support. Don’t want to follow the rules? Blame your status or the color of your skin for your problems.
it’s all about avoiding personal accountability, blame everyone else.
“Oh poor me, I’m so stupid because I got spanked. It’s my parent’s fault.”
I imagine your friend acted that way because he was nervous about getting hit. mispronouncing words and “glazing over” indicate he was affected by the prospect of being struck. Assuming he was faking is unfairly dismissing the impact of being hit “for almost any reason by a surly father”
I got spanked all the time as a kid. If the study was true, then I should be dumb as a brick. My I.Q. score is 132. I would venture to say that the study was done with a slant in mind to begin with.
When you go fishing for results, you’re probably going to catch what you want with the right bait. I think that is more likely the case, than this being a legitimate study.
A number of scholars and high achievers will tell you that they were spanked. This is just someone needing to get their PhD and what better way to do a research paper and put a spin on it. Go to the welfare office and point out the children who came from parents w/low IQs and suggest that their lower IQs is a result of spanking. This so called theory or research paper is flawed because it contradicts what other researchers have said…that higher IQs are inherited. There is also a study that shows parent going through Sperm and Egg banks seek couples with high IQs to guarantee that their child (InVitro) will have those genes. So are you telling me that you can spank the genes out of a child. Give me a Break! Also a number of Asians will tell you that they were spanked to perform well and become high achievers in the family. Go figure.
Moreover, I came from a family of 13 in the Bible belt area or midwest where whupping (beatings) was normal in the 80s. However, each of us siblings have gone on to become computer or mechanical engineers holding bachelors, masters and one a PhD. Two have finished in the top of both their high school and college classes. We have served in the Navy and Air Force to help pay our way through college. We were poor and so were a number of others in my family but we have 3 medical doctors where two are surgeons (one a Thoraic (chest) surgeon and the other is a NeuroSpine surgeon). They were a family of nine and yes Aunt Ethel B would use her shoe in the middle of a grocery store. (and we’re African Americans from the south…go figure) Moreover the researchers forgot to ask Bill Clinton (the genius) how many times he was spanked as well as a number of other high achievers and leaders in the country? This research is Flawed. Oh well, someone was required to produce a thesis or paper and at least they got their research paper out of the way for that PhD or Masters. All you need to do is put a different angle on a research and find people to help make your claim…the welfare office was a great place to start. Most of these children are the off-spring of a thug, drug dealer, convict, or someone with an IQ that only yields menial or low paying jobs. What can we expect? Again, flawed researched that failed to take a number of things into account. There’s a difference between beating and rarely spanking an unruly child to correct bad behavior.
You guys are taking results and jumbling them up for your own use.. What did the study say? That the IQ of a person is reduced by about 5 POINTS!. It didn’t say that everytime you got spanked you lost 5 points! So, Turtle could have conceivably had an IQ of 138, but spanking reduced him! Also, just because you dont spank doesnt mean there are no other forms of discipline! I have very effectively disciplined my kids. Read The Nanny’s book.. It works!. Get to your kids eye level, and look them in the eye, and very calmly mention why the behavior is unacceptable. Then based on if they repeat it again, use timeout etc.. Works like a charm. I used to yell at my kids and give them timeout.. never worked.. The moment I got down to their level, looked them in the eye and asked really nicely, they not only instantly stopped that behavior, but chose themselves to apologize and give me a hug! Violence begets violence! Treat them respectfully and they will show you respect! I was spanked as a kid, and I HATE my parents! Nuff said!
Mayu, this study wasn’t done by somebody who was spanked and claims that it lowered their IQ, so I don’t see how this is about avoiding personal accountability.
And perhaps smart kids only need to get spanked once before they realize how to avoid it in the future. So it isn’t that “Spanking lowers kids IQ” as much as “Smarter kids don’t get spanked”. Of course, there will still be some smart kids that get spanked often, and not-so-smart kids that are never spanked.
As is so often the case, correlation does not imply causation. It’s a shame the researcher had an agenda,and didn’t do a better job in her research.
Hesitant to bring the racial card in but,
Asians… get beat and disciplined quite often, ask the token Asian in your office; they’ll tell you of their parents beating them for the 98 they bring back on a test asking where the other 2 points are. The pots pans spatulas belts and havoc that is unleashed behind a angry Asian parent
I know plenty of people are going to come back and say a standerized test is not the defenitive measurement of all wits But using SATs for a measurement. They generally have the highest SATs scores in the nation.
what? This study is retarded.I refuse to entertain this.
Lamest thing i have read in months. Lower IQ cause you got spanked, LOL!
A worthwhile research would be to inform college students why laxatives are added to their meals to keep them sitting on the toilet. The research should also have undercover students to secretly film and control, and properly secure food retrieved for the study. This is ridiculous. It is not a myth…it’s the truth. The school will not admit to it but I’m sure some of the food preparers will secretly tell researchers about what goes on behind the scene. Parents should not have to fork out money to buy food that cannot be consume without consequences. Is it an attempt to turn students off to the food to charge their accounts but prevent them from choosing food due to a complex from having to run to the bathroom. Start with Loretto, PA, and so man others. Start with FaceBook and have students report their plight to hold colleges or dining services accountable to this abusive behavior. What is in the food that 99% of the students can bet on giving them diarrhea. Now, this is a worthwhile research to bring a halt to such practice and covering up by calling it a legend or myth.
Hmmm, people who were hit a children believe in hitting…… no cycle of abuse there…. Makes you wonder why it’s illegal to hit an adult. After all, if it’s OK to hit a child with a developing psyche, then surely a mouthy in-law can take a punch. Damn liberal laws!
Maybe less educated families are more likely to use corporal punishment. That’s no shocker. But to say a child with a higher intelligence gets hit less because “they get it” is grossly overestimating the amount of intelligence it takes to learn by negative reinforcement. A dog has that level of intelligence.
My daughter gets along just fine without being hit. She has learned, at 4 years old, that she has the opportunity to voice her feelings and talk about what’s wrong. She works things out and the problem is solved, all without her being hit like a mutt. No one can say that doesn’t have a positive effect on her intellect.
Ralph, thanks for trying to throw me under the bus. Just for future reference, IQ scores frequently vary by even more than 5 points on a weekly & even daily basis. A variety of things can affect that. Concentration level, distractions, stress level, diet, mood, vitamin intake, heck even exposure to adequate daylight can cause a fluctuation. These aren’t permanent decreases like the study suggests.
Only one thing will permanently alter the intelegence quotient rating a person has & that is physical damage to the brain & or nervous system.
Unless their brains are in their butts, spanking isn’t going to permanetly alter a child’s IQ.
Ben you make the assumption that spanking is abuse. I’ve met many people with kids like yours that don’t get spanked. The rest of us in America call those kids Brats. Oh one or two of them are actually good kids, but they are typically the exception & not the rule. We see children of all ages that are disciplined like yours speaking their minds all the time, heck we can hear them doing half-way across the store expressing them-selves quite well. Unfortunately, people these days are afraid to speak up without the offending child’s parents going off on them; a sure sign that their parents didn’t want to bruise their IQs either.
When I was four, I would have received a duly deserved spanking right in the middle of the store & no one would have batted an eye. Fast forward a few years & the same type of parents had to either take their child to the bathroom or leave the store to correct the child’s attitude. Neither option would be safe now. So children just go unpunished & parents walk around in shame & embarrassment or worse, they just ignore the problem & let the child disturb everyone around them.
I was not a child that a timeout would have worked on. Spanking wasn’t the only form of punishment my parents used. They took away privileges & sent me to my room. Sending me to my room, what a joke, they might as well have given me an all expense paid trip to Disneyland. With my ability to create & imagine other worlds, you would have had to literally confine me alone in an empty dark room before I would have even considered it to be punishment. Where’s the lack of abuse in that? Thankfully for me, even in those days that would have been considered abuse to lock a kid in a dark room.
Growing up, every spanking that I received was coupled with discussion & reiteration that my actions were wrong. I didn’t need the discussion or reiteration, I already knew they were improper actions before I ever did them & so do the children that live in homes where spanking is used in conjunction with discipline. All I needed was the spanking.
Maybe the authors of the “spankings lower IQ” study need to act dumb in some other way. Did they have before and after scores for the group studied? To say one event “leads to” behavior change requires an experiment, not simply an observed difference. Maybe low IQ leads to more spankings? If the difference observed is 5 IQ points, how large a sample is required for IQ tests to make that an observable real difference, not just sampling variability? Does writing about nonsense lead to lower or IQ or is it just we lower IQ types who waste our time this way?
I have some friends who raised their children very liberally, no spankings, no yelling, very gentle and easy, and those kids were really brats when they were growing up. I also had some friends who raised their kids very strict with spanking, groundings, and yelling. Those kids were well behaved.
But when all those kids got older and turned into young adults they were all pretty good kids, getting decent jobs and working hard and turning into cool adults.
So, since it doesn’t seem to matter in the long run which parenting method you choose, it makes more sense to beat and yell at your kids and keep them cowering in the corner. It makes your life easier to get the damn noisy kids out of your hair and yet they still grow up to be good people.
Spankings work if they are done correctly.
You give a warning first; unless it is extreme behavior. If they repeat the behavior, then you give the spanking. And it must be a real and effective spanking. If you have to go all the way home from a public place to do it, you do it.
They must understand that bad behavior will always be punished. If this is done between the ages of 2 and 4, you will rarely have the need to spank them again. All it will take is a simple warning or a serious look; and they will correct their behavior themselves.
A child who gets spankings learns a very important life lesson early. This lesson, which some people never learn, sets the child up for success in life.
This lesson is, that there are consequences for your actions. They will always think , “what will the punishment be if i do this?” And what reward will there be if i do this “good thing”.
For a child these “bad things” can be as simple as screaming for no reason at a grocery store or interrupting adults.
But these “bad things” can progress to skipping school, shoplifting, drugs, sex . At this point the criminal justice system will take over and that is not a good thing.
Teach the lesson early and give them a real head start in life.