Stuff are running an interesting poll;
Were you smacked as a kid? If so, how did it leave you feeling?
Occasional smack: and no big deal (825 votes, 69.3%)
Occasional smack: I still really resent it. (50 votes, 4.2%)
Smacked hard: but I never think about it. (252 votes, 21.2%)
Smacked hard: and the trauma still there. (64 votes, 5.4%)
Accepting these on-line polls are not scientific the finding, that 5.4% were smacked hard enough to be traumatised and say so, roughly reflects the level of physical abuse found by the Christchurch Health and Development study - 4 percent of children reported they had experienced physical abuse by 18. Excerpt;
The general methodology used was similar to that used in the study of CSA. At the age of 18, young people were asked to describe the extent to which their parents used physical punishment. In addition, they were also asked to rate their parents' discipline practices on a four-point scale which ranged from those who reported that their parents never used physical punishment to those who reported that their parents treated them in a harsh or abusive way. In common with the analysis of CSA, this methodology suggested that there was a spectrum of child discipline/physical abuse patterns that ranged from none to severe, with 3.9% of the cohort reporting that their parents either used physical punishment too frequently or had treated them in a harsh or abusive way. Parents of this small group of children had a profile of childhood discipline strategies that involved the repeated use of violent methods of punishment. At the other extreme, 10.8% of the cohort reported that their parents never used physical punishment, with the majority (77.7%) reporting that their parents occasionally used physical punishment.
Evaluation of the relationships between reports of physical punishment or abuse during childhood and psychosocial outcomes in early adulthood clearly showed that young people reporting harsh or abusive treatment had increased rates of conduct problems, substantial abuse, depression, anxiety and violent crime. Those describing parental punishment practices as severe or harsh had rates of these problems that were 1.5 to four times (median = 2.2) higher than rates found amongst children whose parents did not use physical punishment. There were, however, no clear differences between the adjustment of young people who reported that their parents never used physical punishment and those who reported that their parents infrequently used physical punishment.
However, further examination revealed that patterns of physical punishment and abuse were also related to a wide range of social and family factors. In general, young people reporting high exposure to physical punishment tended to come from socially disadvantaged family backgrounds that were characterised by multiple sources of adversity that spanned parental divorce or separation, high levels of parental conflict, parental illicit drug usage, parental alcohol problems, parental criminality, depressed living standards and high levels of exposure to stressful life events.
Statistical control for social and contextual factors associated with child physical punishment or abuse suggested that to a large extent the elevated risks of adjustment problems found in children exposed to harsh or abusive treatment reflected the social context within which the child was reared, rather than the traumatic effects of abusive treatment on later personal adjustment. Nonetheless, there were suggestions that children exposed to harsh or abusive treatment were at slightly increased risk of making suicide attempts and had higher rates of violent crime. These findings may suggest that one of the consequences of physical abuse in childhood may be to increase the likelihood that individuals will react in violent ways to those around them or show increased tendencies to violent behaviour towards themselves. There was no evidence to suggest that those exposed to occasional physical punishment by their parents were at any greater or any lesser risk of adjustment problems than those whose parents did not use physical punishment methods.
I have highlighted two passages. The first shows the severe abuse comes from the type of parents who already ignore certain laws and the second shows that occasional physical punishment makes no difference to outcomes.
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6 comments:
Yes, I was hit. I know what a fist feels like. It was acceptable when I was a kid. It happened at school as well -- sometimes quite viciously. Teachers using their knuckles to hit you in the back of the head. Grown men using wooden paddles to swat hard and repeatedly small children. I remember one time they didn't know who did something wrong. So they lined everyone up and started handing out "swats" until someone confessed.
Some people convince themselves that this is love. It's discipline. It's good for you. It was not good for me. It caused a great deal of trauma that decades later I have not been able to entirely irradicate. I have a hard time watching any film dealing with such issues, it brings all the memories back and I end up an emotional wreck.
The polls are interesting, but they only deal with how people THINK the abuse influenced them.
I think there are a lot of effects of exposure to physical (or emotional for that matter) violence which the victim is not even conscious of. If you experience abuse it changes your general attitude towards it. If you have been smacked as a kid, your attitude is quite likely to be of the "smacking doesn't hurt anybody"-sort. Experiencing real (as opposed to virtual) violence of any sort or flavor (even if it is "just" a smack) will lower your inhibitions against violence.
Well it didn't lower anonymous's inhibitions. Quite the opposite.
Look, anyone can only know what they THINK they know. Subconscious effects can only be suggested. If the majority of people who were smacked happily shrug it off, why would you want to deny them that?
It smacks of "we know you better
than you know yourself" from which it is only a short step to "we know what is best for you".
I can't remember being smacked... I didn't need to be. My Dad had quite a thing going with fear and intimidation that was very effective - but not too healthy for me as I had to work hard to overcome the effects as an adult.
It's not so much the methods you use - it's how you use them. 'Violence' and using fear to drive behaviour is damaging. Using firm limits in a loving way is not.
Lindsay: No it didn't lower my inhibitions but there is plenty of evidence that children of abusive parents do become abusive themselves. And the idea that hitting children is acceptable makes it easier for these parents to hide their abuse under the guise of discipline. I share your values in general but I'm very conflicted on this measure and if I had a conscious vote and were an MP I would vote for the bill knowing that it would shock a lot of people.
I understand where you are coming from but my experiences is different. I wouldn't however, if I were you, say that the majority "happily" shrugged off being hit. I would say they shrugged it off but I doubt very many of them were happy about it. Obviously some people do enjoy a spanking -- I actually know of people who got a sexual fetish out of such discipline and they may be happy about it but most other people didn't.
We are each the product of our life experiences. I was smacked at home. The only time I remember being smacked at school it was by my own mother who had the dubious pleasure of teaching me for a term. It was embarrassing and it stung but it certainly wasn't traumatic. When I think about friends, some of them were not smacked but had parents who accorded them little freedom and less trust. Mine probably gave me more of those than I deserved:-) And that more than made up for the occasional smack.
That's the perspective I come at it from. I am sure you and I can have an amicable disagreement Anon.
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