Well, they do it for a number of different reasons. I think the first thing to always remember is that most parents love their children very much, and what they do intentionally, they usually do thinking it\u2019s in the best interests of their child. So some parents will spank their children or use other forms of physical punishment intentionally thinking this is a way to teach the child what they think is important for them to learn. Other parents will strike their children impulsively, when they\u2019re angry and regret it instantly. Those parents don\u2019t think that it\u2019s the right thing to do or the best way to teach the child but they\u2019re reacting in the moment to frustration and the adrenaline that rushes through them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So there are also experiences in parents\u2019 lives that can sometimes generate a feeling of wanting to get even and that can be another reason why parents hit their children and it\u2019s a sense of retaliation or \u2018I\u2019ll show you you can\u2019t do that to me\u2019. So that\u2019s another sort of emotional context, I guess, in which it happens. So in most cases parents are spanking because they\u2019re angry and frustrated and they have sometimes \u2018painted themselves into a corner\u2019 as well. They\u2019ve threatened the child, and then when the child doesn\u2019t comply for whatever reason\u2014maybe they can\u2019t\u2014they feel they have no choice but to follow through and I think that\u2019s one risk we run when we tell parents \u2018always follow through; whatever you say, make your words count\u2019. Because if they, in a moment of desperation, threaten a child, they have to follow through even though backing down would probably be a better response. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So there are a few parents who spank their children because they really think it\u2019s the best thing to do. But most are doing it because they have lost their tempers. And we know from research that most parents actually think that the most frequent outcome of physical punishment is not learning, and it\u2019s not respect, it is actually parental regret: they really don\u2019t want to do it and they would rather have other responses ready, very ready at their disposal when they\u2019re in a state of high emotional arousal. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well, they do it for a number of different reasons. I think the first thing to always remember is that most parents love their children very much, and what they do intentionally, they usually do thinking it\u2019s in the best interests of their child. So some parents will spank their children or use other forms […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-text-only.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1707","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.scienceofecd.com\/transcript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.scienceofecd.com\/transcript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.scienceofecd.com\/transcript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.scienceofecd.com\/transcript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.scienceofecd.com\/transcript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1707"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/content.scienceofecd.com\/transcript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1708,"href":"https:\/\/content.scienceofecd.com\/transcript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1707\/revisions\/1708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.scienceofecd.com\/transcript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}