There is an opposite end of this spectrum, and that is the folks who don't know how to correct their children's behavior. My favorite is the idea that screaming fits and tantrums are just the child seeking attention, and reacting to that only enforces the behavior.
Yea discipline is important, and it can be achieved in a variety of ways. Spanking, beating, or otherwise tormenting your child is not a good substitute for discipline. You appear to be arguing from ignorance. Namely "I don't know how else to do it, so this must be right". There is another way to do it.
During the spanking years, children are transitioning from being completely out of control of their actions and emotions, to being within control of their actions and emotions. The years where parents resort to spanking are the years where children are learning how to control themselves, but are still not very good at it. A child throwing a trantrum on the floor can be either completely out of control, or completely within control of their actions. And as a parent its your job to know which one it is (naturally it can be in between as well). And it's not a matter of just knowing whether your child has demonstrated the ability to throw a manipulative tantrum in the past. Because childrens' ability to control themsevles and their emotions fluctuates just like adults. When they're tried, or stressed, or hungry, they're not as good at it. So a kid who was manipulating you earlier with a trantrum that was entirely within his control, might be completely out of control for the next one.
@VFOURMAX1 will say something like that this kind of understanding of children is tantamount to crystal healing, and will be wrong in 73 years. But he's completely wrong. It is inescapably true.
The first thing a child throwing an out-of-control tantrum needs to learn is how to regulate their emotions. Not to be scared or hurt into freezing, but by loving parents demonstrating emotional regulation and calming them. That's step one. Young children learn by mimicking their parents (starting from infancy), and emotional regulation is something that can be learned from observing parents.
You wouldn't advocate spanking a crying infant. Consider why.
You can't simply ignore the behavior and believe it will go away because they supposedly will learn its ineffectiveness. They WILL keep doing it if they face nothing unpleasant for it.
Not forever. It takes a lot of energy to throw a manipulative tantrum. If it's not getting results, they'll try something else. Ignoring it might not be the perfect strategy, but it's better than demonstrating violence, emotional dysfunction, and generating an emotion (fear) response where there wasn't one before.
Spanking is not beating. There is a difference!
It is, literally, it's just a very mild form of it.
However, when experienced as a clear consequence of specific action or behavior, spanking is an effective method of showing that the action or behavior is incorrect.
It is. It just also demonstrates other lessons that you don't want to demonstrate at the same time.
but as immediately as possible following the improper behavior, i.e. none of this "You just wait till your daddy gets home!"
Actually, children are often more receptive to corrections after they have calmed their emotional out of control responses and have had a moment to re-engage the portions of their brain responsible for rational analytical thinking. Spanking while they're still using the parts of their brain responsible for keeping them alive (fight, flight, freeze), the emotional intuitive parts of their brains, you can't really teach much at all.
This is somewhat key. You cannot effectively teach rational thinking to a child that is out of control. Hitting them won't change that. It'll just change the nature of the out of control. You have to first show them how to control themselves, then teach.
If you want to see a real and absolutely measurable difference in a society with spanking and a society without, visit any middle school in the country.
Do explain what middle school you find where spanking is not used but proper discipline is used by all parents. My kids don't go to that school.
The difference? The principals and vice principals don't have paddles any more.
Parents shouldn't be hitting their children. They especially shouldn't be asking
other people to hit their children... with objects.
Parents don't discipline their kids, and they don't allow the schools to discipline their kids.
Paddle does not equal discipline.
Also Spock was still a pretty big deal in the child rearing scene into the late 60's and early 70's so just because his first book may have been in 1946 does not mean it was the end of or the only influence in the subject.
This is not the 1940s.
Yet nutrition is an easier science to study and understand how it affects a body but they cannot even agree on that for long periods of time.
Doesn't seem like it actually. Citation needed.
Read above answer if they cannot get that science right I am sure the guesswork of the psychologist experts ranks about the same as using the magic 8 ball to predict the future.
Dr. Spock (not a scientist) was wrong 73 years ago... let's forget science.
But that was the leading cutting edge science of the times and the public was fed the same garbage that we are being fed today
Nope. Not at all the same.
