Another fabulous "correlation does not equate causation" fail.

Agreed. I would bet that children with low IQ's have parents with low IQ's, and the latter can't think of any other method of parenting.

Then you didn't read the article.

it was taking too long on my painfully slow dial-up connection

Well,
your assessment would have been more correct had you not equated the parents IQ to good or bad parenting.

A "quick fix" spanking, and not utilising a better parenting method, like talking, is most likely the reason the children are not better at problem solving.

IQ does not equal good parenting.
You were on the right track though.

I don't believe it. How does a swat on the butt hurt the head or IQ?

Bull.

If all these articles about things that reduce IQ were true in every case, then I should have been a mega genius.

IQ is merely the POTENTIAL, not the quantitative final amount.

I was beaten fairly regularly, and for piss poor reasons throughout my childhood, yet my IQ is over 160.

I also ended up in a foster home, yet have never been arrested or gotten into heavy drugs, and have no kids of my own.

Many other things in my life "say" that I should be or act in ways that I do not. Even without therapy and medication!

A good slap goes a long way.

It's all in your memory chip. When you're a kid you don't know you're having a bad day until you get hit.

Come here.

Studies also show that children who are spanked are much less likely to act like Kayne West

There is such as thing as an exception to a rule.

The article pretty much answers your question.

There's more, but you would have to click on the link...

Yeah, I saw it, just saying I don't buy it

I don't buy it either Bingo. I got to the part where they 'Tested the IQ of 2 year olds' and then retested their IQ four years later.

... You tested the IQ of a Two year old? Excuse me?

They they "Took into account socioeconomic and other factors" into the study. Really? They already know the socioeconomic factors on every persons IQ to such a quantitative state that they can eliminate that variable entirely from the study. I am astounded.

They didn't bother go to into the education, parenting, nutritional, social, econimic, genetic and other factors which might influence IQ in a million different ways... It must have been that one time when Johnny's daddy spanked him after he got too close to the firearms cabinet that made him lose 2 IQ points.

Did they cover how MUCH spanking? Does one spanking incident cover 1 IQ point? Does spanking more cause more IQ loss? If they claim that trauma (spanking) is what causes IQ loss, have they attempted to test the IQ of trauma sufferers and see if they've had a loss of function in their intelligence?

Doesn't Stephen Hawking kinda throw the whole 'trauma' thing out the window?

There are just so many questions about their methods that go unanswered in this article and I'd love to see the whole study to see how they dealt with all the different factors which could have been at play. Rather than just "Did you spank your child. Ok, you checked yes.. let's test your childs IQ now that it's four years later."

Something that I hate about these news articles is that they invariably get things muddled or choose to leave details out. Are we talking about the old Stanford-Binet here? How, as you said, were extraneous variables such as socio-economic factors diminished? How were the participants recruited?

Of course, the only way to weigh these factors is to consult the actual journal article. But even without knowing the answers to these questions, these results are significant. Does that mean that we should abandon spanking or that this article proves anything? No. The findings of this study point in one direction, toward further research. As much as this Straus fellow would like to believe, these results are far from causal, and should instead serve as a jumping off point for further studies.

That paragraph you cite is a nonsense.

It's not a revelation that spanking is traumatic. The complete opposite is true. Spanking is meant to be traumatic. If you don't cause trauma with a spanking then you're doing it wrong.

Life is traumatic. Each of us have traumas to cope with every single day. We cope because we have experience. We have learnt from what happened to us previously and use that to deal with our current situation.

Spanking is a part of that.

Some of the most valuable lessons I've learnt (don't touch hot things, sharp things will cut you, wasps don't want to be your friend) have come from direct and traumatic experience.

If it weren't enough that the central premise of his research is that wrong, the lack of a plausible control makes the whole thing more about attempted social engineering than science.

What? That's your argument? "Life is traumatic, and trauma is a good teacher?" So getting a beating every now and then is a good teacher? Look, the correlations with spanking and negative outcomes is diverse and voluminous. Teaching from fear and, too often, anger tends to get you bad results. That's true in other parts of life than childhood too. So, yes, these trauma's are teaching things, it's just that the things they're teaching aren't necessarily all that good. Of course, if you don't agree with me, I can cause some trauma to you with a tire iron and you'll learn real good and be the better for it.

So your option is to wrap a child in cotton wool and protect it from any and all harm?

Good luck with your panty-waist blubber child that cries when it's birthday balloons go bang.

People need to get over this notion that children are flimsy and will break in a stiff breeze.

The vast majority of "research" done in this field is by the likes of the institute that carried out this half baked nonsense. Non-scientific, puritans who will fit their results to their message.

It's in general about as twisted as your stance in trying to equate a childhood with some tangible form of discipline with constant thrashings.

Tell me this though - if explaining and rationalising is so effective then how come the more commonplace it becomes the more negative behaviour we see from younger generations?

(And you'll not get close enough with that tire iron - a childhood of spanking taught me all I need to know about avoiding heavy blows - see - constantly useful)