Corporal Punishment of Children

My comments on this interesting article.......To Spank or Not to Spank:

Spanking is definitely based on Classical Conditioning, or Pavlovian Conditioning. In it's simplest form, the idea is that the child will associate the spanking with the bad behavior...they don't like the spanking...they don't wish to experience it in the future...so they remove the bad behavior.

However, it is not as simple as that. There are so many factors that go into punishment. If a parent does not catch the child in the act of the bad behavior but finds out, let's say, hours later and, at that point, punishes the child by spanking...well, the child will no longer be able to associate that punishment with his/her behavior. Therefore, conditioning is not taking place.

In my opinion (that's for you, Jon), I don't think spanking a child teaches them anything worth learning. Sure, it may teach them that they don't like getting spanked...that it hurts...but, is it truly teaching them why they're getting spanked in the first place?

Spanking will not change a particular behavior any more than another form of punishment. All the child learns is that they need to be more savvy about doing that behavior in the future...like, striving to do it outside the watchful eye of Mom or Dad (from whom the spanking would come). But, I think this creates a deviant behavior....thus contributing to avoidance and an overall devious personality. Is that really what we want to teach our children? How will that help them in life?

Thanks to the work of behaviorists like Pavlov and B.F. Skinner, enter Operant Conditioning...that is, the use of positive & negative reinforcement, as well as positive & negative punishments. And, yes, there are differences. In a nutshell, these are ways to teach the child consequences for a bad behavior or to reinforce a good behavior. With Operant Conditioning, children are much more likely to continue to apply what they've learned to future situations.

Due to my Developmental Psychology class in college, I find this extremely interesting and could go on and on about this topic...but, where do you weigh in? Feel free to comment.