More on framing effects

Yeah, I’ve often thought it’s significant that parents stop hitting their children at about the time that they get big enough to start hitting back.

I’ve had some bitter arguments with people over this issue which seemed to me to resolve to a dispute about the relationship between law and morality.

Some people seem to think (a) that if a person has a moral right not to be hit, they ought also to have a legal right not to be hit. And they also seem to think that asserting the legal right has some kind of moralizing force within society so that people’s beliefs about whether the ought to hit their kids will be modified by passing a law.

Other people think (b) that in passing a law we ought to have a lot of regard to what the implementation of the law will look like, whom it takes power from and whom it gives it to etc etc.

(Obviously there are a lot of Ts uncrossed and Is undotted in my broad-brush contrast).

I think people ought not to hit their kids, and that their kids have a moral right not to be hit. But given that passing a stronger law than currently exists involves giving power to social workers and child protection workers beyond the powers they currently enjoy, and given my lack of faith in the ability and track record of many of those people under the existing law – I’d opt for the status quo.

But given that passing a stronger law than currently exists involves giving power to social workers and child protection workers beyond the powers they currently enjoy

I wish there was more detailed work on this. My own intuition is that removing the reasonable chastisement loophole wouldn’t have that much effect on the ability of social workers to trick up a slap on the wrist into a case of assault given that anyone sufficiently zealous could probably do that anyway.

jchave: I fear that representing me as saying they are “not to be trusted” suggests that I am somehow imputing dishonesty. No. I’m just asserting a plausible distribution of the overzealouseness, incompentence, rigidity, tiredness, lack of empathy, fear of one’s own superiors, underfunding, &c &c that mark our public services and wondering what we can actually expect to happen if we pass such a law.

My guess is that we’ll have local papers full of “Stressed mum faces jail for tapping tearaway on wrist” stories and that Victoria Climbie would still die.

As for “empirical basis” : just experience….Like D2 I wish there was more work on this. I could be wrong but my guess is that changing the law would do not much good and some significant harm (no doubt in “one or two well publicised cases which presumably represent a small fraction of inappropriately excercised (or actually failure to excercise) powers”).

A friend of mine and I were discussing the Canadian case (which he and I both agreed was silly and caused us the same concerns that Chris has voiced), and spanking in general. He commented that “we don’t/won’t do it because we don’t think it’s effective and we don’t have the stomach for it, but it seems like all the real harm-based arguments against it are subjective and would apply to just about any kind of negative sanction or punishment.” That sums up the feelings of my wife and I about as well as I ever could. Kids need to learn consequences, as Andrew so plainly put it; what matters (outside obviously harmful extremes, of course) is the context in which those consequences are taught, not the method. My wife was raised in a “time-out” family, I was raised in a spanking family (my dad did it, with his hand or a belt). Ultimately, I prefer her family’s approach. But I really can’t discern any differences between the two of us, much less any handicaps I have, that can be attributed to the different disciplinary styles of our upbringing.

Ah.

It’s interesting that, in Canada, the case is seen as a big loss for anti-spanking campaigners and a win for the traiditional values types. The right-wing editorialists have praised it as a blow to judicial activism, a common sense deference to family autonomy, etc. Do the libertarians think the court should have authorized using base ball bats or putting kids in hospitals?

it seems like using violence (however mild) to punish our children is counter-productive, teaching them that violence is, in some cases, acceptable. I would much prefer a strict set of consequences (grounding, extra chores, etc) that do a better job of preparing children for real life consequences of their actions.

And as for this ruling, what upsets me is not the parental component, but the extent to which it applies to to teachers and other individuals. If my child was ever spanked by an authority figure without my consent, I would want to consider that assault, similar to them hitting me with the same force.

The only time physical force should be necessary is in self-defence, or in the physical defence of others.

“Certainly one looses one’s temper—which is when most “corporal punishment” occurs I have not the least doubt—but one leaves the room and takes some deep breaths.”

Er, and what if you’re on a busy station platform / on a ferry, etc, etc?

It was hinted at, but I don’t think explicitly said: more and more studies have pretty conclusively shown that spanking is not, in fact, very effective, and is far more likely than other forms of punishment to have long-term adverse effects. [if I were a better commenter, I’d provide a link]

Of course, no number of these studies will quiet the “my pop beat hell out of me and I turned out fine” crowd (full disclosure – I was, in fact, spanked on a few noteworthy occasions, and do think I turned out fine), but I think it’s important to recognize. In some ways, this is like the arguments about racial profiling. The argument revolves around whether or not something should be done (morally or ethically), without addressing its practicality. If frisking every dusky-skinned male at the airport doesn’t make me safer, then who cares whether or not it’s constitutional?

But on both these cases, the conservative/traditional side of the argument simply takes the high ground on assumption: of course spanking/profiling is effective. Once that is conceded, the other side of the argument must needs remain on its heels. So don’t concede. Not until someone provides evidence to back up the reactionary assumption.

The natural environment provides many instances where we learn based on pain (eg., I shouldn’t step on nails, or jab myself with a pencil). Why shouldn’t the social environment do the same?

I agree. Bring back the rack, the wheel, scarlet A’s, et al!

It took me embarassingly long to figure out that we’re not talking about THAT kind of spanking…

I haven’t ever spanked either of my children. My father was abusive, and I don’t trust that I can manage my rage any better than he manages his. The only time I feel like physically disciplining my children is when I’m so furious I could really hurt them. And that my level of anger is also usually way out of proportion with their transgression.

I don’t think a spanking every now and then causes irreparable harm to most children, but I find that positive reinforcement for good behavior combined with negative (but not physically negative) consequences for bad behavior has worked pretty well for us.

As for empirical evidence re: child services, in the US at least such proceedings are deeply cloaked in secrecy, so the evidence is not available.

I interned as a child advocate in dependency court for a semester, and my general impression is that social workers had a functional mode that they applied to nearly all of their cases. There was the reuniter, who would try to keep families together even though it was very clear that some parents weren’t going to learn to stop abusing their kids. (I’m think especially of the dad who broke the arms of his kid on three different occassions over 2 years, but was ‘in counseling’). There is the worker with infinite faith in the ability of parents to shape up their acts. (I’m thinking especially of the woman who had her 6th child taken away, for neglect regarding food and water due to drug use, and showed up to the hearing pregnant. The social worker said, ‘she’s in rehab, she’ll be able to keep this one’. Baby tested positive for cocaine AND heroin at birth). There is the equally bad worker who has been burned so many times that he extends no trust or hope whatsoever for the parents in question, and will work to pull the kids no matter what the evidence. (I’m thinking specifically of the single dad who lost his job, went on a drinking binge the next day, got arrested for disorderly conduct, had his 14 year-old pulled, and despite getting a better job within two weeks and a voluntary agreement to be tested each week while going to AA 4 times a week for a year, couldn’t convince the social worker to let him have his daughter back.)

In short, the social services system is important but dangerous. It allows a lot of leeway to social workers, and even though they try to do what they think is best they can still do a lot of things that we wouldn’t think are very appropriate.

One way to move toward a solution to this problem might be to offer decent pay and managable workloads to social workers. We might then get more skilled people who burn out less and have time (and skill) to pay more attention to the nuances of each situation. Of course, such a plan costs money….

Colour me sceptical. Some people just enjoy exerting power over poor people and there’s not all the government money in the world that can change that.

“It would also help if we (in general, as a society, speaking from the U.S. here) had a less robust notion of parental “rights,” which in the minds of many veer toward ownership.”—djw

I think it’s very close to ownership and I strongly disgaree with this sensibility. Screw that. Parents are granted responsibility for their children based upon a presumption of competence that they can, and often do, disprove.

There were, and are, Native American tribes that never physically disciplined their children. That thought it was not only a dubious practice, but a barbaric one.
But outside that tribal framework there was the immediate and grave presence of the natural world. When you live close to the ground, close to fatal consequence, the seriousness of it permeates all context. Children absorb that seriousness osmotically, and the withdrawal of approval, the stern regard of an elder, is felt by the child for what it is, at a visceral level, deeper even than the physical recognition of a painful swat to the backside.
How many times have you seen the naked disrespect of a child, who’s learned to express it within the loose boundaries of current social propriety? Children who have a kind of consumerist equality within the family. That’s a dysfunction we’re seeing more and more of now. Use your words, as though words had some ultimate moral power.
The viciousness of purely verbal and tonal scorn can be seriously and permanently damaging and yet it will never be legislated against.
This is still a primitive morality, with its emphases on the body before all else. The damage of spanking is abhorred, the damage of the cutting remark is accepted.
People in the same state of mindlessness shriek in horror at Steve Irwin’s dangling baby, and put their own children in meteoric jeopardy in the automobile.
Spanking isn’t really the issue, it’s the social context in which the spanking is or isn’t being done.