Hope for America!!

[TheRealJoeFish]

Whaddya know: perfect timing:

Disciplinary Spanking Increases Childhood Defiance and Mental Health Issues

As reported on RedOrbit.com:

If you think that the answer to an unruly child is a good spanking, think again, say researchers from the Universities of Texas and Michigan, who after extensive analysis found that this form of punishment only makes youngsters more likely to be defiant and aggressive.

Their study, which was published in the April edition of the Journal of Family Psychology, was based on five decades worth of research involving more than 160,000 children. They are calling it the most extensive scientific investigations into the spanking issue, and one of the few to look specifically at spanking rather than grouping it with other forms of physical discipline.

And...

Furthermore, they noted that spanking was associated with the same adverse outcomes in children as physical abuse, and both were nearly similar in terms of outcome strength.

“We as a society think of spanking and physical abuse as distinct behaviors. Yet our research shows that spanking is linked with the same negative child outcomes as abuse, just to a slightly lesser degree,” explained Gershoff. “We hope that our study can help educate parents about the potential harms of spanking and prompt them to try positive and non-punitive forms of discipline.”

The Abstract of the Journal of Family Psychology Article

But yeah they're probably wrong.