Because I can't keep my opinions to myself, here's mine on spanking. I grew up in a "spanking" house. If we misbehaved bad enough, we were spanked. Once we were about 8-9 the choice for grounding came into play until we were about 10-11 and then we were grounded instead of spanked. Personally, I always chose to be spanked, because the punishment was over quickly. My parents never hit us incredibly hard and I was never bruised or scared in anyway during a spanking.
There are 7 kids in my family, we all have different temperaments and personalities. We're all intelligent, two of my sisters and I have master's degrees. We all did well musically and took many higher level classes. NONE of us have been incarcerated (as far as I know). I really don't feel like we're scarred in anyway because of the way in which my parents disciplined us. Whenever we were punished, we always knew our parents loved us and we also knew we had done whatever punishment fit the crime. If in the event we were punished unfairly, it was met with an apology. Parents are humans too. I might be off and maybe this is not the perception of my siblings, but I think I'm pretty close.
Now, I am also part of a family recovering from very real physical abuse and know in detail the effects that abuse had on at least one person. Here are some differences:
- children who feared their parents and up until recently had very real hatred for them
- children who were punished when teachers found actual physical markings of abuse
- parents who never apologized for their actions when wrong (until recently)
- children punished for the actions of others
- children who have criminal histories
- extensive substance abuse
- struggle to stay in stable-healthy relationships
*In this particular family, all children are incredibly intelligent and there is no evidence that this intelligence decreased as a direct result of said abuse AND the use of that intelligence did not differ in either family.
**I also don't want to blame many of these things solely on the actions of parents, this person, as an adult made these choices of his own freewill...but I do believe his past helped kindle these decisions.
Whatever your opinion - there is a true difference between lovingly disciplining your child so they don't become spoiled, entitled adults and abusing your child to the point of real physical and mental harm. Make sure, however you discipline your child, you do it in a way that shows them you love and respect them.
Pro-Spanking:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/2010/01/04/study-spanked-children-may-grow-up-to-be-happier-more-successful/
Anti-Spanking:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/23/health/effects-spanking-brain/index.html
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