Spanking Could Contribute To Lower IQ???
Posted by Sean on September 25, 2009
OK.
Not trying to beat a dead horse (heh heh.. yep pun intended)
How can you make such an over-generalization? I mean c’mon?!
Children who are spanked have lower IQs – Kids and parenting- msnbc.com.
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DreamingTree said
Funny — I read that article this morning & wondered if I’d see a post about it! Remember that they pointed out that these are correlational findings, so they aren’t showing cause & effect. But, they did control for many extraneous variables — income, education, time spent with kids, etc. — so, it’s not as if they came to their conclusions lightly. My first conclusion as I was reading it was that the parents who spank spend less time with their kids (logical conclusion because spanking is a quick & easy discipline solution), but the analysis didn’t back it up (since they controlled for this variable when the statistical analysis was done). It will be interesting to watch for future research to see if it backs up these results.
Sean said
@ DreamingTree I guess my issue is the way they present these studies to the public. Such over-generalizations delivers such a misdirected message. You make very valid points as always. Thanks for commenting!
DreamingTree said
Funny — I read that article this morning & wondered if I’d see a post about it! Remember that they pointed out that these are correlational findings, so they aren’t showing cause & effect. But, they did control for many extraneous variables — income, education, time spent with kids, etc. — so, it’s not as if they came to their conclusions lightly. My first conclusion as I was reading it was that the parents who spank spend less time with their kids (logical conclusion because spanking is a quick & easy discipline solution), but the analysis didn’t back it up (since they controlled for this variable when the statistical analysis was done). It will be interesting to watch for future research to see if it backs up these results.
Sean said
@ DreamingTree I guess my issue is the way they present these studies to the public. Such over-generalizations delivers such a misdirected message. You make very valid points as always. Thanks for commenting!