Amerikanische Eltern finden das Schlagen von Kindern eher akzeptabel als das Schlagen von Haustieren – Neue Forschungsergebnisse unterstreichen die widersprüchlichen Ansichten der Eltern zum Thema Prügelstrafe.
American parents more likely to find hitting children acceptable compared to hitting pets
15 Comments
I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fvio0000535
From the linked article:
American parents more likely to find hitting children acceptable compared to hitting pets
New research highlights parents’ conflicted views on spanking
American parents hold conflicting beliefs about spanking, viewing it both as a form of hitting and as less severe than hitting. This study was published in the journal Psychology of Violence.
Elizabeth T. Gershoff and colleagues examined American parents’ beliefs about spanking, a form of physical punishment legal across all U.S. states, but opposed by major health organizations for its documented harms to children. Despite growing evidence against its effectiveness, spanking is a common disciplinary method.
A significant majority (90%) agreed with a definition of spanking that included the term “hitting,” yet many viewed spanking as less severe than hitting. When prompted to define spanking, about one-third of participants explicitly used words like “hitting” or “striking,” while others referenced milder terms like “smacking” or “swatting.”
Parents also demonstrated a clear hierarchy of perceived severity among physical punishment terms, with some forms (e.g., “beating”) seen as significantly more severe than spanking, while others (e.g., “tapping” or “swatting”) were deemed less severe.
In evaluating the acceptability of hitting within families, parents were more likely to find hitting children (30%) acceptable compared to hitting pets (17%), spouses (1%), or elderly parents (0%). Parents’ open-ended responses often justified spanking as a necessary disciplinary measure, particularly when other methods failed, or as a means to ensure children’s safety in specific situations.
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Honestly this makes sense to me. I’m not saying it’s right to hit your kids, but pets can’t understand you while kids can.
It’s weird cuz I’m super duper not into hitting kids but I’m super duper duper not into hitting pets?
You never need to hit your kid. Spanking. Smacking. Whatever you call it.
Research shows its counter productive and leads to worse outcomes.
There’s always a better way.
Ok, since we’re dealing with a 13% that drew the line at pets we can only speculate what’s going on through their minds, but I I hope somebody gets grant funding to find the answer because I’m suspicious it has something to do with r/kidsarefuckingstupid.
What I really want to know is what on earth is going through the minds of the 1% of people who think it’s fine to strike their spouse but then they 180 and say that they shouldn’t hit old people.
As a veterinarian and a father of two, this is all kinds of jacked up. Whacking on kids and animals seems unlikely to help you or them, especially in the long run. Both might learn to “respect” or obey out of fear, but there will be no love in either relationship. It’s up to the adult/human to stay in their cortex under duress and reason out a way to proper correction.
Spanking is abuse. Kids are still trying to develop emotional regulation skills and self esteem in the world, and you’re teaching them that they deserve to be physically harmed sometimes for making mistakes. As someone who was spanked and hit regularly with a belt and shoe, sometimes while fully naked, it really fucked me up to this day, I don’t remember a single thing I did wrong or why I got spanked, all I remember is fear – and my parents to this day do not regret it. I once confronted them about it as an adult and their response to 30 year old me was “well if it was so bad, why didn’t you call the police on us”, as if that was my responsibility as a young child to advocate for myself and protect myself.
The American Academy Of Pediatrics On Spanking Children: Don’t Do It, Ever.
>”The findings were consistently negative,” she said. Although spanking is traditionally supposed to teach a lesson to correct bad behavior, children who were spanked were neither more compliant nor better behaved.
>Moreover, for both boys and girls, she said,
“We found [spanking] linked to more aggression, more delinquent behavior, more mental health problems, worse relationships with parents, and putting the children at higher risk for physical abuse from their parents.”
>”People often ask: Why didn’t you look for positive aspects?” she continued. “My answer is: We did, and there were none. We see consistently that the more children are spanked, the more behavioral problems they have in the years ahead.”
I’m just concerned personally with how much I see people in my communities glorifying and humanizing pets, like they can absolutely do no wrong, and dehumanizing other people in turn. I feel like it’s taken a big toll on our sense of community as a country. Absolutist pet owners are becoming more and more prevalent in my areas.
Idk, as a kid who was spanked, it was the only discipline that was effective really. Honestly time outs didn’t do anything for me. Based purely on my own experience, I have no qualms with discipline as my parents did it.
Parents’ opinions may be conflicted, but the massive negative impacts of hitting kids is very clear, it’s not up in the air at all
Makes sense. My family loves animals and treats them as pure innocence while loves dashing out horrible criticism and emotional abuse at each other.
That says so much about our society right there
No words
Acquiring pets is completely intentional and has limited impact on parents life schedules and priorities; you buy a pet for yourself.
Children on the other hand are needy and want things. You have to share your income, time, essentially just living to support them until they can go and hunt on their own. This fosters resentment from the parents. As the situation is complex and needs a lot of energy to adapt to different scenarios. In essence kids introduce more uncertainty in parents lives and by chastising them or hitting them parents want to take control of this uncertainty. Pets are predictable, kids make the world more complex.