Comments on: Study Links Spanking to Lower IQ

By: Emilia

Emilia — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 22:00:22 +0000

I think the elusive question is: will children be less intelligent if they’re spanked, or are less intelligent kids more likely to elicit spankings? It’s hard to tease cause and effect apart here.

Also, I noted that at least in the case of toddlers, children were classified as being spanked if they were spanked once or more a week. What about parents who spank, say, once a month or once a year? Somehow spanking a child once or more a week, especially past preschool age, seems a little excessive. I tend to agree more with psychologist John Rosemond’s statement that spankings should occur “out of the blue, once in a blue moon” rather than a regular disciplinary strategy. So maybe parents who spank their children once a week or more have larger issues that are affecting their children’s development.

Regarding breastfeeding, I think there’s convincing evidence that it does have some effect on children’s intelligence even when factors like maternal socioeconomic status, etcetera, are taken in account. But it seems that that effect is probably relatively minor, and I don’t really see who benefits by morally forcing a woman who truly does not want to breastfeed to do so.

By: Timothy Mills

Timothy Mills — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 15:12:09 +0000

“and breast feeding as a behavior is impossible to separate from other confounding factors like class, socio-economic status, etc.”

I disagree. As long as you can measure all of the factors you think are relevant, such as class, economic and social factors, etc, and you have a large enough sample, there are statistical techniques that can factor them out from any apparent effect of breastfeeding (or spanking).

Of course, that still leaves the question of causality open.

By: teacherninja

teacherninja — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 08:08:53 +0000

I also wonder about socio-economic status. IQ and school achievement seem to be most impacted by poverty and it is traditionally lower SES parents–in my experience–that consider hitting an appropriate disciplinary method.

By: Julie

Julie — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 01:29:54 +0000

Yes, although the article I read seemed pretty decent, it did not point out the many flaws of this study. Old data, and the kids were only observed for a total of two weeks! And the reporting was all from the moms. It doesn’t seem like a very good sample of data, really.

How to discipline is really an interesting issue and I wonder how much of it is mere personal choice or effectiveness with regard to specific kids. If there is a “right” way, I’m definitely interested in knowing what it is. But I was skeptical of this spanking study from the git go, and I’m moreso now.

By: Jodi

Jodi — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:52:58 +0000

This was an interesting study, and one I’m curious about. A web site I follow looks at all these big European studies and breaks down the scientific jargon in layman’s terms. Sometimes they find that the media has totally misinterpreted the data (surprise).

NHS looked at this study, and here’s a link to their write up.

http://www.nhs.uk/news/2009/09September/Pages/Does-smacking-make-children-stupid.aspx

Two interesting points were that the data was collected over 20 years ago and only from the mother’s perspective. Parenting styles may have changed since then, and who knows what kind of paternal influence was going on outside the time period observed.

Hopefully the results will prompt more research on this.

By: perceval

perceval — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 23:53:51 +0000

There’s also something else – overall parenting style. There’s substantial evidence that authoritative parents, who impose flexible discipline within reasonable limits, get better results than authoritarian parents, who expect kids to do what they are told because “the parents say so”. The authoritarian mindset discourages or even penalises independence and exploration, because these are both messy and may lead children to challenge authority. Authoritative parents may spank, too, but are overall more likely to use reasoning and respect the child’s own reasoning processes.

in other words, parents who spank are *more likely* to be authoritarian and so more likely to deprive kids of opportunities to think independently. They are less likely to explore the reasons for choices and decisions with kids.

This actually fits well with the “pro-spanking” research that was cited recently on this blog. Larzelere’s publishing history is replete with evidence that firm reasoning works best, with spanking only to be used as a back-up of last resort. I bet that the parents whose kids didn’t progress as much spanked first.