Science Forums 2

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Beorseun

Corporal Punishment.

What's you take on it? In raising kids, and in general?

As with most discussion of subjects that I (and likely most people) have personally experienced, often in a state emotional turmoil, I think it’s important to separate feeling, wishes, and anecdotes from scientific theory and objective observation.

Avoiding sentimental terms, “raising kids” means shaping the behavior of juvenile H.Sapiens. We (the parent) have a pre-determined collection of desirable behaviors (academic success, willingly helping with household chores, calm under stress, etc.) we want our kids to exhibit, and a collection of undesirable ones (physically attacking others, stealing, panic and debilitating fear under stress, etc.). Based on some theory – scientific or “common sense” – we interact in certain ways in order to shape our kids to maximize the occurrence of behavior from the desirable collection, and minimize the occurance of ones from the undesirable collection.

As people who have actually been parents will attest, this is easier said than done.

IMHO, theory and evidence fail to support a determination that, independent of a larger collection of behavior shaping techniques, corporal punishment should absolutely be used, not be used, or the frequency with which it should be used. Human children, even in their first years, are very behaviorally complicated, reacting to purposeful and accidental influences in both predictable and very unpredictable ways.

Rather than attempt to answer the question “should corporal punishment be used” separately from other considerations, it’s more useful, IMHO, to consider a few more general child (and, in general, social animal) psychological principles. I think the following are among the most important

• Like most social animals, human beings are approval-seeking. Parenting approaches that exploit this by focusing on praising children for desired behaviors are effective.
• Behavior can’t be shaped if the kid is unable to associate the reinforcer (praise or punishment) with the behavior being encouraged or discouraged. Parenting approaches that confuse kids are ineffective.
• intermittent reinforcement is more effective in shaping long-lasting behavior than continuous reinforcement. Parenting approaches that don’t always reward or punish a behavior are more effective than those that do.

Using these and other psychological principles, it appears to me that it’s less important if a parent uses or does not use paddling, than how they use it and other techniques, such as praise and “time out”. When used as part of a well-understood, carefully-administered parenting program, I believe approaches that don’t include corporal punishment and those that do are equally effective, as well as can be measured.

Unfortunately, many parents fail to understand or be careful in their parenting approaches, or even consciously consider that their interaction with their children constitutes an approach. Reckless praise or reckless punishment can be equally ineffective in raising human beings with desired adult behaviors.

Caning, and any other form of corporal punishment have now been banned completely. And all the schools are complaining that discipline has gone for a ball of crap since.

”Parenting” by school staff is complicated, because school staff are usually not aware of factors shaping a particular child’s behavior. One child may be chastised by a paddling into begin a model student, while another will increase the targeted bad behavior in proportion to the punishment. Rarely, a child may suffer mental trauma leading to mental illness. On rare occasion, a child will seize the paddle and beat the teacher bloody, a scene I witnessed in my school days in 1970s US (In the 70s US, many teachers who paddled used a heavy, shaped “board” given to them by their college fraternity or sorority. These paddles typically bear the signatures of their fraternity or sorority brothers and sisters, covered with a nice lacquer finish. Edge-on, they make surprising fierce weapons).

I think schools are correct in eliminating corporal punishment. They should be sure to let custodial parents know of any problems that occurring in school, and leave it to the parent to punish their children as they see fit.

Our schools are now falling apart because they have banned corporal punishment without providing a suitable alternative.

I’m not aware of data from Boersen’s schools, but in the US, the often expressed idea that the schools are “falling apart” due to student behavior is not supported by evidence. As measured by the per-student incidence of violent crime, schools have, along with the population as a whole, seen a marked decrease in such problems over the last 50 years. Sadly, many people believe the opposite, in large part, I think, because news outlets focus excessively on the most disturbing school problems, ignoring statistics and the laudable records of good behavior in most schools.