if you beat your child when they are younger are they normal as an adult or do they
grow up with mental health issues?
bump
depends on thee kid
Context is important - are you talking a small smack to stop a misbehaving child from running out onto the road, or are you talking actual physical hurt which is constant? One is parenting, one is child abuse.
Beating was common where I grew up.
Beating was common where I grew up.
Erin Prizzey, the founder of the first women's refuge at Chiswick in 1971 observed that the violence wasn't so much gendered as generational. Very many of the battered wives that came in were violent to their children and other mother's and they themselves more often than not came from homes with violent parents.
This is not the same as a rare slapped leg .
This is not the same as a rare slapped leg .
Define beat them, as in punishing them with a hiding or beating them senseless?
Either way theres no causal link and considering every kid for eons before us was beaten as a matter of course then no. It may be morally reprehensible (and illegal) to abuse children but i see no issue with spanking as a form of discipline, within reason of course, and it is seriously dubious itll lead to 'mental health problems'.
Either way theres no causal link and considering every kid for eons before us was beaten as a matter of course then no. It may be morally reprehensible (and illegal) to abuse children but i see no issue with spanking as a form of discipline, within reason of course, and it is seriously dubious itll lead to 'mental health problems'.
physical punishment reinforces physical interaction as a way of solving problems. it can be effective short term (same as yelling/screaming/being intentionally scary), but its often done in anger and it prevents kids from copying healthy ways of dealing with their problems from you if done often enough. Depending on the way you do it, it can cause your child to avoid you/become anxious around you. That isn't necessarily a mental illness, but it may resemble one to an outside point of view.
(edited 2 years ago)
beating? like being wailed on by your parent? yes, i image you would likely have mh issues altho that doesn't mean you cannot grow up and be successful in life; indeed the most powerful woman in America Oprah Winfrey suffered horrific physical and sexual abuse as a child and look at her journey. ofc just cuz Oprah is successful and elequant doesn't mean she doesn't secretly suffer from some form of mh issue herself tho.
if you're just talking about spanking and if it causes damage then yeah it depends on the kid and the technique of the parent. spanking should not be a first resort and should not be done in anger and should not be used as the primary way to communicate with your child; think if a parent did that it would cause resentment from that child and perhaps low self-esteem.
if you're just talking about spanking and if it causes damage then yeah it depends on the kid and the technique of the parent. spanking should not be a first resort and should not be done in anger and should not be used as the primary way to communicate with your child; think if a parent did that it would cause resentment from that child and perhaps low self-esteem.
It depends what you mean by “beat”. I think there’s a difference between a light spanking that just indicates displeasure with them, versus a hard strike that is actually going to cause them pain.
I don’t think either is a good idea, but the latter is especially problematic in my view. Children are children, obviously they’re going to make many mistakes, usually without even realising. But it teaches them to fear their mistakes, rather than to be free to make them and then learn from them. Parents are also human beings, they’re not going to be able to apply their form of discipline with perfect consistency either, which creates a lot of unpredictability for that child regarding when to expect pain and when not to.
I think there are several undesirable effects that can come from this, including:
- Making the child much less confident and too risk-averse, more likely to avoid doing things in case of making mistakes and not doing it perfectly
- Making them more dishonest and more likely to want to cover up their mistakes once they realise they have made them
- Setting a bad moral example for the child, whereby violence/force is the way to get other people to do what you want
- Causing the child to consider only the immediate consequences to themselves in deciding whether an action is a good idea or not (e.g. immoral actions are fine as long as you don’t get caught). They may not consider the long term impacts or the impacts of their actions on others, because they haven’t been taught to make decisions in that way. So they may continue to do “bad” things, just not in front of their parents or authority figures.
- Damaging their overall relationship with their parents. Instead of feeling 100% safe and at ease, they may feel on edge, and as if they’re having to walk on egg shells. So they may prefer to avoid the presence of their parents where they can.
Now whether or not any of the above constitutes “mental health issues” is really just a matter of how extreme the problem is. But even in moderation, none of these are positive traits that we’d want to instil in our children.
And even besides the “effects” it may have, I’d hope it should be obvious to everyone regardless that being violent to a defenceless human being who’s supposed to be in your care is always going to be a highly immoral thing to do, just in terms of respect for another person?
I don’t think either is a good idea, but the latter is especially problematic in my view. Children are children, obviously they’re going to make many mistakes, usually without even realising. But it teaches them to fear their mistakes, rather than to be free to make them and then learn from them. Parents are also human beings, they’re not going to be able to apply their form of discipline with perfect consistency either, which creates a lot of unpredictability for that child regarding when to expect pain and when not to.
I think there are several undesirable effects that can come from this, including:
- Making the child much less confident and too risk-averse, more likely to avoid doing things in case of making mistakes and not doing it perfectly
- Making them more dishonest and more likely to want to cover up their mistakes once they realise they have made them
- Setting a bad moral example for the child, whereby violence/force is the way to get other people to do what you want
- Causing the child to consider only the immediate consequences to themselves in deciding whether an action is a good idea or not (e.g. immoral actions are fine as long as you don’t get caught). They may not consider the long term impacts or the impacts of their actions on others, because they haven’t been taught to make decisions in that way. So they may continue to do “bad” things, just not in front of their parents or authority figures.
- Damaging their overall relationship with their parents. Instead of feeling 100% safe and at ease, they may feel on edge, and as if they’re having to walk on egg shells. So they may prefer to avoid the presence of their parents where they can.
Now whether or not any of the above constitutes “mental health issues” is really just a matter of how extreme the problem is. But even in moderation, none of these are positive traits that we’d want to instil in our children.
And even besides the “effects” it may have, I’d hope it should be obvious to everyone regardless that being violent to a defenceless human being who’s supposed to be in your care is always going to be a highly immoral thing to do, just in terms of respect for another person?
(edited 2 years ago)
I was smacked as a kid. I learned that I didn't like being smacked and as I grew older I learned that it didn't actually hurt that much. Current no-smack methods of disciplining kids are much more effective.
Of course if you regularly beat kids to the point they die, well that turns into a national scandal.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-59400890
Of course if you regularly beat kids to the point they die, well that turns into a national scandal.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-59400890
(edited 2 years ago)
Original post by hotpud
I was smacked as a kid. I learned that I didn't like being smacked and as I grew older I learned that it didn't actually hurt that much. Current no-smack methods of disciplining kids are much more effective.
Of course if you regularly beat kids to the point they die, well that turns into a national scandal.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-59400890
Of course if you regularly beat kids to the point they die, well that turns into a national scandal.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-59400890
Whatre the current methods, out of interest?
Original post by Napp
Whatre the current methods, out of interest?
You set out a series of consequences. These can be anything from denial of something to timeout (denial of time) and you also explain a road map that lays out the pathway to those consequences if behaviour is not modified.
So in the home, you might have a set up rules e.g. when you are told to do something, you do it etc. If the child is not compliant, you issue a warning telling them that if their behaviour is not modified they will receive the consequence (timeout etc etc). They then have an opportunity to change their behaviour and if that is not done, you follow through with the consequence. For small children a naughty spot is usually sufficient and they must stay there for a predefined length of time, usually 1 minute per year of age. At the end you discuss why they were placed on the naughty step followed by them apologising. It is massively effective. For older children it is a bit more varied and might involved a time of reflection in their room followed by reconciliation which involves an apology.
A similar system is also used in many schools with the first infringement being a warning with a clear expectation of how the behaviour will be modified. Continuation involves a sanction which might involve a small breaktime detention. This then escalates through to after school detention to being removed from the classroom etc. It is massively effective because at each step of the process the ball is firmly in the child's court as to what happens next and the expectation of how they can either make things better or escalate the situation is clearly explained. Any consequence they receive is as a result of their own behaviour. This is in stark contrast to the old corporal punishment which took control out of the child completely as they were beaten with a cane. I have heard many accounts of people who dealt with that system talking about how it had no effect. They just sucked it up. There are some kids in my school who have after school detentions every week.
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