ARTICLE: Children who are spanked have lower IQs

[Cogswel_Cogs]

It seems kind of a weird stat to measure as frustrstion could often lead to spanking by a parent messing up any relevant observations.

 

[Disneyland1084]

Homer Simpson says that you can do a study to come up with all sorts of facts and figures that can later on be disputed by another study.

I guess Homer's not such an airhead after all. However, I'm strongly against strangling a child if they misbehave.

 

[Lassie Lynne]

. I'm sure some where, some body also feels like making defenseless children eat broccoli is also damaging. I'm just not one of them.

You may laugh, but my sister would not agree with you.....she still has flashbacks from me getting spanked badly for not eating my veggies as a very young child.........and yes, like sooooo many others on DIS, I have a high IQ, just don't ask me what I ate for dinner last night, but it wasn't peas .

 

[Alyssa88]

I am not a parent, so I realize this will be taken with a grain of salt, no need to post how I do not have a right to an opinion because I do anyway.

I don't put a whole lot into IQ tests. The IQ score is not static throughout your lifetime so those of you who were tested as children/adolescents have probably mediated towards the norm by now, like most "gifted" children end up doing. The average IQ score is 100, the standard deviation is 15. I have a slightly hard time believing that there are several people on this board who are 3-4 deviations above the norm, not thats it's impossible just not probable.

My take is that even while it is possible for a child who is spanked to have a high IQ, it is also possible to raise an equally intelligent (and if this correlation is accurate a more intelligent) child without having to resort to physical punishment. I know how frustrated one can become when dealing with a misbehaved child day after day. I think that parents act out of that frustration when they spank their child.

There are more productive ways to punish a child that do not cause them pain so why choose the method that does?

 

[sunnyday123]

You may laugh, but my sister would not agree with you.....she still has flashbacks from me getting spanked badly for not eating my veggies as a very young child.........and yes, like sooooo many others on DIS, I have a high IQ, just don't ask me what I ate for dinner last night, but it wasn't peas .

You must not have had a dog. I don't think I ate a pea until I was 12. ( When she died) And then I found out I liked them!

 

[C.Ann]

What do you think of this article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20090925/hl_hsn/spankingmaylowerkidsiqs

A broad, inacurate generalization..

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Nah, the ring was the early child ID system. You know how parents on the Dis are always looking for those child tattoos to put their info on? Your Mom was just being thrifty and stamping you with your ID.

That stupid amethyst--she'd always "forget" and be surprised at how much it hurt b/c she was planning her trajectory based on a ringless hand.

Maybe it was all those divorces adn she coudln't remember the ring.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Ha, I think the child who does something bad to warrant the spanking has the lower IQ, and NOT from the slap on the booty.

That depends on what the "bad" thing is.

My DH who graduated Valedictorian (but who self identifies as someone not-smart depsite what academics tells him)--disassembled his mother's sewing machine when he was 5 years old or so.

At age 5, the only way I would have known to disassemble a sewing machine is to push it off of a shelf.

Then there was the time that I got a bad spanking for turning off the power supply to a laundry mat at age 5. I was thoroughly convinced I could do it quickly enough for noone to notice. They very much did as did my behind.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

I am not a parent, so I realize this will be taken with a grain of salt, no need to post how I do not have a right to an opinion because I do anyway.

I don't put a whole lot into IQ tests. The IQ score is not static throughout your lifetime so those of you who were tested as children/adolescents have probably mediated towards the norm by now, like most "gifted" children end up doing. The average IQ score is 100, the standard deviation is 15. I have a slightly hard time believing that there are several people on this board who are 3-4 deviations above the norm, not thats it's impossible just not probable.

My take is that even while it is possible for a child who is spanked to have a high IQ, it is also possible to raise an equally intelligent (and if this correlation is accurate a more intelligent) child without having to resort to physical punishment. I know how frustrated one can become when dealing with a misbehaved child day after day. I think that parents act out of that frustration when they spank their child.

There are more productive ways to punish a child that do not cause them pain so why choose the method that does?

I disagree with your assessment on IQ.

There are many parents who assume treating their kids like Einstein at age 3 will get them to Harvard when they are 18 and that simply isn't going to happen to all the parents who expect that to happen.

Now--I suck at statistics, so I will have to depart from your means and standard deviations discussion at the moment as I likely will not hold a candle to your acumen on that topic.

However, what I do know--you don't take the same IQ test at age 7 that you might at age 15. Clearly, your mind with all of the connections it has made in its lifetime can take a more difficult IQ test.

Also--as you age, IQ becomes unreliable. For example, I can't go take an IQ test at 34--it just doesn't carry the same weight anymore.

However, my ability to learn hasn't diminished over time, nor have I gotten all that smarter for the IQ to have little meaning. In fact, I enjoy the Mensa puzzles for fun. I can't do them all, but I'm not a genius either. There are some people who can't do a single one of them and likely never had the capability.

My step-mother has a PhD. My DH doesn't think she is smart at all.

His reasoning--after living with them for a year. She is what he calls "book smart"--she reads a lot and has absorbed tons of information in her chosen field. She makes up for her -- lesser ways -- by pea-cocking her knowledge to other people as a peacock would show their feathers. She has to "prove" she is smart by spouting off information that noone would care about except those in her field or some trivia that wouldn't even make its way on jeopardy. She is not all around smart. She is hyper focused on a specific topic that is further focused only on a specific era in history.

My DH wouldn't trust her to find her way out of a paper bag. She is lacking in...intelligence.

That is the huge difference.

Sure anyone with enough grit can get through school and become knowledgable on a given subject. Intelligience, is just much more than that and hard to put into words.



As to your latter portion--something you will not fully know what you will do until you have had children.

I lack patience and children require lots of it. In fact, I had to begin therapy b/c I was so short fused. It is through no fault of my children and I do regret at what I ended up doing--however, spanking as a form of proper discipline is not in and of itself bad. I unfortunately always responded out of anger as I had learned.

That is not a healthy way to discipline.

But much like a child is likely to fall when they are learning to walk, a childhood cannot be 100% pain free (and any attempts to make it as such doens't properly prepare a child for the world IMHO).

But spanking does not equate to beatings and physical harm.

I have had to quit per my own personal circumstances, though.

And there are few "pain free" punishments....ask my emotional 9yo who no longer gets physically disciplined (and hasn't in a couple of years since I began therapy). "It's not fair-air-air-airrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" is a common phrase as she painfully loses an opportunity to watch Scooby Doo or has to do an extra chore...when she chooses to misbehave.

 

[KAMKIM]

I disagree with your assessment on IQ.

There are many parents who assume treating their kids like Einstein at age 3 will get them to Harvard when they are 18 and that simply isn't going to happen to all the parents who expect that to happen.

Now--I suck at statistics, so I will have to depart from your means and standard deviations discussion at the moment as I likely will not hold a candle to your acumen on that topic.

However, what I do know--you don't take the same IQ test at age 7 that you might at age 15. Clearly, your mind with all of the connections it has made in its lifetime can take a more difficult IQ test.

Also--as you age, IQ becomes unreliable. For example, I can't go take an IQ test at 34--it just doesn't carry the same weight anymore.

However, my ability to learn hasn't diminished over time, nor have I gotten all that smarter for the IQ to have little meaning. In fact, I enjoy the Mensa puzzles for fun. I can't do them all, but I'm not a genius either. There are some people who can't do a single one of them and likely never had the capability.

My step-mother has a PhD. My DH doesn't think she is smart at all.

His reasoning--after living with them for a year. She is what he calls "book smart"--she reads a lot and has absorbed tons of information in her chosen field. She makes up for her -- lesser ways -- by pea-cocking her knowledge to other people as a peacock would show their feathers. She has to "prove" she is smart by spouting off information that noone would care about except those in her field or some trivia that wouldn't even make its way on jeopardy. She is not all around smart. She is hyper focused on a specific topic that is further focused only on a specific era in history.

My DH wouldn't trust her to find her way out of a paper bag. She is lacking in...intelligence.

That is the huge difference.

Sure anyone with enough grit can get through school and become knowledgable on a given subject. Intelligience, is just much more than that and hard to put into words.



As to your latter portion--something you will not fully know what you will do until you have had children.

I lack patience and children require lots of it. In fact, I had to begin therapy b/c I was so short fused. It is through no fault of my children and I do regret at what I ended up doing--however, spanking as a form of proper discipline is not in and of itself bad. I unfortunately always responded out of anger as I had learned.

That is not a healthy way to discipline.

But much like a child is likely to fall when they are learning to walk, a childhood cannot be 100% pain free (and any attempts to make it as such doens't properly prepare a child for the world IMHO).

But spanking does not equate to beatings and physical harm.

I have had to quit per my own personal circumstances, though.

And there are few "pain free" punishments....ask my emotional 9yo who no longer gets physically disciplined (and hasn't in a couple of years since I began therapy). "It's not fair-air-air-airrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" is a common phrase as she painfully loses an opportunity to watch Scooby Doo or has to do an extra chore...when she chooses to misbehave.

I know someone EXACTLY like your step - mother. This person recently graduated from a massage therapist school and frequently refers to body parts such as "arm" with a 59 letter word that NO ONE would understand except for her and probably the other people that graduated with her.

 

[PaulaSB12]

I think it's BS.

I agree we are becoming the only species on the planet too scared to disiplinne its young. Yes some children do respond to disipline with out the odd swat on the behind but not all children and we should stop getting in the way of parents.

 

[catycatcat4]

I think it's BS.

Total and Complete BS

The article from what i know looks like the logical fallacy post hoc.

Event C happened immediately prior to event E.
Therefore, C caused E

From http://www.fallacyfiles.org/posthocf.html

The good news is that it appears that children's IQs are on the rise -- and at least one expert believes that part of the reason why is that corporal punishment is falling out of favor in the United States and elsewhere.

Event C "it appears that children's IQ's are on the rise"
Event E "and at least one expert believes that part of the reason why is that corporal punishment is falling out of favor in the United States and elsewhere"


Yea being spanked sure made me an idiot. A sixteen year old replying with a more intelligent answer than some of the adults so far sure shows my low IQ level.

 

[Tinkermommy]

I think I found a link to the published study data if anyone is interested.

http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/CP51.pdf

I have just glanced at it briefly, but a couple of things caught my eye.
- "In contrast to cognitive ability, for which there was a single T1 measurement, the measurement of CP was done twice. It was measured for one sample week in 1986 and for 1 sample week in 1988 using two types of
data. There was data recorded by the interviewer on whether the mother
spanked or hit the child during the course of the interview at both times. Each time the interviewer also asked, "Did you find it necessary to spank
your child in the past week?" Mothers who said they had spanked were
asked: "About how many times, if any, have you had to spank your child in
the past week?" This data was used to create a CP scale that combined the
observed and the interview measures for 1986 and 1988.

So my question is what if the Dad spanked them? And what if the had two really well-behaved, or two-badly behaved weeks?

- "This study included an oversample of low-income and minority youth. . ."

If anyone would like to look at the data and give us their opinion, I would be interested.

 

[catycatcat4]

http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/CP51.pdf

.

Is the link not wanting to work for anyone else?

 

[Eeyores Butterfly]

I love all this, "I was spanked and I have _______ I.Q." Of course there are going to be people who are gifted and were spanked, just as there will be people with MR who are not.

The prevailing theory in IQ development is that each person is born with a range in which their IQ will fall. That's the genetic component. Where you fall within that range is determined by your environment. It would take a very significant event to push you ouside of your "genetic range" or so the theory goes.

We do know that early childhood experiences play a critical role in the formation of IQ and educational abilities- particularly early language. I would not be surprised if spanking were to have some kind of impact- particularly if it is an everyday occurrence vs. just an occasional thing. How much, I don't know.

I do find it interesting and at least somewhat plausible, but I suspect that the impact is not a dramatic one. Any dramatic impact could most likely be explained by other factors including low language in the home and other home life situations that might accompany frequent spanking as opposed to the occasional spanking that I suspect most on the Dis do.

 

[BoogasMom]

I have 2 cents to add.....

This article is complete and total BS....

and

"I know how frustrated one can become when dealing with a misbehaved child day after day."

To the poster who posted this....you stated you did not have children of your own? How then do you KNOW how frustrated one can become??? Just wondering....Really, not trying to be ugly about it or anything. But, how can you KNOW how it feels if you have not been in the situation yourself?

 

[BeachGirlFLA]

I love all this, "I was spanked and I have _______ I.Q." Of course there are going to be people who are gifted and were spanked, just as there will be people with MR who are not.

The prevailing theory in IQ development is that each person is born with a range in which their IQ will fall. That's the genetic component. Where you fall within that range is determined by your environment. It would take a very significant event to push you ouside of your "genetic range" or so the theory goes.

We do know that early childhood experiences play a critical role in the formation of IQ and educational abilities- particularly early language. I would not be surprised if spanking were to have some kind of impact- particularly if it is an everyday occurrence vs. just an occasional thing. How much, I don't know.

I do find it interesting and at least somewhat plausible, but I suspect that the impact is not a dramatic one. Any dramatic impact could most likely be explained by other factors including low language in the home and other home life situations that might accompany frequent spanking as opposed to the occasional spanking that I suspect most on the Dis do.

I think I agree with you on this. However, I was more than spanked (by dad....I was extremely spoiled by my mom, but she didn't have the strength to stand up to my dad who was emotionally abusive towards her) and my IQ is still an average of my parents' IQ's. My dad's is a couple of points higher than mine and my mom's is a couple of points lower. I'd be curious about whether there's a study that says that most couples (especially ones whose marriages actually last for a long time) have IQ's within the same range as each other.