(September 23, 2018 at 12:13 pm)robvalue Wrote:To be honest, I didn't know how completely the field of psychology seems to be set against spanking as a discipline method until I just googled it. It seems pretty overwhelming, tbh.(September 23, 2018 at 9:12 am)bennyboy Wrote: First of all, as a psychologist, I would assume he would know that the field is very heavily against spanking. He does qualify it, though-- extreme case, etc. etc.
I sense he's more of a philosophical psychologist (he talks about Jung all the time, or Nietzsche) than a child psychologist. I'm pro-spanking to a degree, but only if I'm the one doing it, because I'm so wise and all that. But those OTHER guys-- well, the literature is pretty clear.
I don't think he's necessarily advocating going further than spanking, at least based on the quoted material you gave. I'd interpret that as-- sometime's, nothing you can do is going to bring a kid in line. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if he talked about the benefits of really roughing a kid up. . . like, if they were really asking for it.
The only way I can see to interpret this in a way other than advocating escalated physical punishment is if he's saying sometimes spanking just doesn't work. In such a case, he seems to be out of options entirely, since he's already said this thing they've done is so bad that it requires physical punishment yet it's not going to work. So if there's a more effective non-physical punishment, why weren't we doing that in the first place?
I think, from the structure of the paragraph, he is escalating from physical punishment 1, to 2, to 3, to 4. I'd love to hear his clarification here, because I think he's written himself into a corner.
I find the passage a little ambiguous-- certainly I think you could see it as him advocating more (what could that possibly be though?) OR as him saying even the best intentions of the parents sometimes aren't enough (for example if the kid has grown up with too little structure). Does the passage not give any more hints about it?
