Spanking may lower kids' IQs

Spanking may lower kids' IQs

news.yahoo.com

FRIDAY, Sept. 25 (HealthDay News) -- The bad news is that youngsters who are spanked might lose IQ points.

The good news is that it appears that children's IQs are on the rise -- and at least one expert believes that part of the reason why is that corporal punishment is falling out of favor in the United States and elsewhere.

That's the view of discipline and domestic violence expert Murray Straus, a professor of sociology and co-director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire. Straus was scheduled to present the findings from recent research on spanking o

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In looking at spanking just in the United States, Straus and a fellow researcher reviewed data on IQ scores from 806 children between 2 and 4 years old and another 704 kids aged 5 to 9.

When their IQs were tested again four years later, children in the younger group who were not spanked scored five points higher, on average, than did children who had been spanked. In the group of older children, spanking resulted in an average loss of 2.8 points.

"How often parents spanked made a difference," Straus said in a news release from the university. "The more spanking, the slower the development of the child's mental ability. But even small amounts of spanking made a difference."



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Well there you go. Proof that spanking is harmful.

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I wonder if they measured the IQs of the parents. It occurs to me that parents with lower than average IQs are more likely to use corporal punishment as opposed to more "cerebral" methods of disciplining children, and those same parents are also more likely to produce offspring with lower IQs. Hence the relationship between spanking and lower IQ's is not causative, rather it is circumstantial.

My old man spanked my sister and she's a PhD, in turn she didn't spank her son (my nephew) and he's a complete dumbass. So there. Disclaimer to that is his father was a dumbass too, so I guess the dumbass gene is dominant. Okay, now I'm rambling...



[edit on 2009-9-25 by wecomeinpeace]

Yes. A whopping 2.8 points. Whopteedoo!

If this it true, though, how come American kids are still stupid? (It's would HAVE, not would OF! )

BTW, I see a gain of two hundred thosand in America's prison population as the idiot American parent follows the advise of this study.

Originally posted by wecomeinpeace
I wonder if they measured the IQs of the parents. It occurs to me that parents with lower than average IQs are more likely to use corporal punishment than more "cerebral" methods of disciplining children, and those parents are also more likely to produce offspring with lower IQs. Hence the relationship between spanking and lower IQ's is not causative, rather it is circumstantial.

My old man spanked my sister and she's a PhD, in turn she didn't spank her son (my nephew) and he's a complete dumbass. So there. Disclaimer to that is his father was a dumbass too, so I guess the dumbass gene is dominant. Okay, now I'm rambling...

I think your point is well taken - there are way too many other factors involved in a child's intelligence to create a cause and effect from just spanking.

I completely agree, and am glad that there has been a study on this!

Growing up, I was only spanked once or twice -- but my eldest brother got whipped nearly every day of his childhood. Since I was the only girl, I was spared, I suppose.. but I still had to helplessly listen to my big brother getting beat and I could do nothing about it.

Now, as we're older.. he is clearly lacking in IQ and doesn't have very much common sense. I love him the same, but I've always believed that the beating he endured DELAYED him in some way..

And now, a study..

So thank you for posting this!

Star & Flag for your contribution!

- Mea

any time one human strikes another, nothing good can come of it.

Spanking is violence, and violence should NEVER be a solution.

reply to post by Veritas Lux Mea


Veritas Lux Mea: i love your Avatar. who is the artist?

Originally posted by wecomeinpeace
I wonder if they measured the IQs of the parents. It occurs to me that parents with lower than average IQs are more likely to use corporal punishment as opposed to more "cerebral" methods of disciplining children, and those same parents are also more likely to produce offspring with lower IQs.

I'd love to agree with you and I do for the most part.. But I have to say my father was very intelligent and educated -- yet he still spanked my brother nearly EVERY day.

He was old-school and believed that boys should be toughened up when they acted up.. (something HIS father did to him).

- Mea

Originally posted by Mathius
reply to post by Veritas Lux Mea

 

Veritas Lux Mea: i love your Avatar. who is the artist?

Thank you -- but I really don't remember!

I found it while browsing different art sites and lost track of which one it came from..

- Mea

Wait what?

You mean pointless violence towards your children actually affects them negatively? Well who would have thought.

I don't really need a study to figure out that if I hit my kid in response to him doing something bad, instead of "teaching" him the proper way of doing things, that his IQ will be lowered.

It's called parenting folks.

~Keeper

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
It's called parenting folks.

~Keeper

Exactly..

Bad parenting continues until someone is aware enough to change. Its like a virus that passes through every generation..

I strive to TEACH my son properly -- and I never hit!

- Mea

Like a lot of things, it is not a simple black and white issue.

Some kids don't need it.

Some work well with the threat.....

Some kids are just wild and crazy enough to need it and need it at a young age.

I have seen kids who were not disciplined as kids and turn out to be thugs as adults, because they have never seen consequences of their actions.

There is also a wide range from spanking a child to show discipline and beating the snot out of a child.

i don't believe this is true. i believe it is more a factor of people who don't spank are usually the more educated, more affluent. You don't become affluent by being dimwitted, and you don't see as many dimwitted people born of affluent families.

I think they have the cause and effect reversed here. There was a similar story on Yahoo recently about another type of trend that was proposing a similar explanation. Babies born in winter months do more poorly.

online.wsj.com...

The two economists examined birth-certificate data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 52 million children born between 1989 and 2001, which represents virtually all of the births in the U.S. during those years. The same pattern kept turning up: The percentage of children born to unwed mothers, teenage mothers and mothers who hadn't completed high school kept peaking in January every year. Over the 13-year period, for example, 13.2% of January births were to teen mothers, compared with 12% in May -- a small but statistically significant difference, they say.

Socio-economic status is a soft form of discrimination, it would seem, and people who are disadvantaged are being seen to have measurable negative effects which perpetuate this disadvantage.

SPank you kids if you need to, people. It won't make them dumb, but it might keep them out of prison.

reply to post by mrmonsoon


I would disagree. I have never needed to hit any of my children, and trust me there are times where they would have deserved it.

However, consequences for their actions never need to be physical. There are moral and social consequences that can be used to better educate your children when they do something that you as a parent think is not appropriate.

Unfortunetly in today's climate parents are far too busy with their own lives and illusions to actually sit down and think out they're parenting strategy.

Preperation is key.

~Keeper

reply to post by Donnie Darko


Oh my GOD what a joke!!

Trust me, spanking INCREASES your IQ.

If spanking decreases IQ, then I must have been the smartest damn person on the planet!!

And by the way, if IQ's are on the rise, then why do I notice that all kids are getting incredibly dumber? I work retail, so I see a lot of parent/kid interaction. I'm telling you, kids are getting dumber. No, it is not brave to tell your parents that you'll kick them in the head in their sleep if they don't get you your favorite toy car and if they hit you back you'll call the cops. That's just plain stupid. What's even dumber is that those parents don't realize how stupid that kid is sometimes! Why? Because parents have this retarded obsession with making sure their kid "has more" than they did. OKAY... whatever.

The "more" you give your kid, the more you're actually taking away from him/her!

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Ok, lets get a few examples..............

What if your child..........
1) set an animal/pet on fire on purpose?
2) tortured a pet?
3) tortured another child?
4) killed a pet on purpose?
5) tried to kill another person child or adult?
6) burned down someone's house on purpose?

I am in no way suggesting your child/children have done these things, I am asking what you might do in reaction to these kinds of events?
These are just a few examples off the top of my head.

I would have no problem with spanking my kids (when i have some) if deserved. But i think it depends on the kid, if the don't listen to reason you have told them over over again NO and they still disobey - a smack across the bum usually helps get your point across.
The things kids do these days and the way they act i think a lot of them could do with a good spanking.

reply to post by mrmonsoon


Well, those are all situations in which the child displays some sort of psychological problem. Well grounded children don't behave in these extreme conditions.

I've never encountered the situation, but I would probably make them work at the SPCA for a few months on their weekends, and enroll them into multiple other community service programs.

Probably have them checked by a professional as well.

In any case, I would not hit them, it would simply enforce that type of behaviour.

"Here look, I hit the cat, and Daddy hit me!" The child will automatically associate the harming of another animal with more harm to either himself or something else around him.

Either way it's a loose loose.

Like I said, education and preparation.

~Keeper