This Just In: Dr. Nancy Snyderman Says I'm A Moron
So this morning I'm having my coffee and watching a little Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera. (Anne Curry freaks me out with her breathy voice and need to touch every guest she interviews so I try to ignore her.) And on comes Dr. Nancy Snyderman. Now I don't dislike Dr. Nancy, don't get me wrong. I'm sure she's an excellent doctor and she's got great hair and a commanding presence, but sometimes the stories she reports on kinda get my ire up. Today was one of those days.
The good doctor was reporting on a study done, by a professor Murray Straus of the University of Newhampshire, that finds that children subjected to corporal punishment tend to have IQs that are lower by 2.8 to 5 points. There's always a study for everything, isn't there? This one, unlike the one that tells me I should drink wine with my dinner for the sake of my heart, I take a wee bit of offense to.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating people smacking their kids around. Don't picket my house. I had an especially violent step-father and had my fair share of unwarranted punches, slaps and shoves in my lifetimes. So I don't advocate hitting a child in anger - are we clear?
However, I was, in my formative years and before the introduction of my step-father, spanked when I got out of line, acted up, or scared the shit out of my mother by playing in traffic. Most of the people I was raised with were as well. My husband and his brother - two of the smartest men I've ever met - were both spanked. Is Dr. Straus saying we'd be on the intellectual level of The Brain if we had not been spanked? Had my mother held back could I be ruling the world? Winning a Nobel? Finding the cure for AIDS?
In part of the interview Matt asks Dr. Nancy if she thinks that it is possible that parents that hit have lower IQs and therefore their children have lower IQs. Dr. Nancy says she can't confirm that, but that "there's probably a little of both." Really? Only stupid people use spanking as part of their parenting? Really? Now, not only am I a moron, but so too is my mother.
Thanks Dr. Nancy... I needed a good slap to my self-esteem this morning.
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Kathy Riordan
Joody
shaggylocks
Juliet Waters
Lunchlady 2
Tinkerertink69
Salon.com
Comments
Kathy - precisely.
R.
I have mixed feelings. I think you've got to make your point. you have limited opportunities sometimes....like your kid decides running into traffic is just the MOST fun and there's nothing you can do to persuade him or her otherwise. so a solid whack combined with your hysteria makes a point. because that's what I think a smack is or rather should be, not corporeal punishment because I don't believe in using pain as a teaching method but an exclamation point. a "HELLO!! WAKE UP"
but you have to have authority, which is what parents lack today. it's not the hitting. hitting is only further enforcement of what should be authority. when you say stop, stop should at least register in their thick skulls. plus there are age issues. like you don't want to start swatting around infants, which some parents believe they have the authority to do.
Anyway I think you have to connect with your kids. connection is everything. you can hit or not or yell or not. the point is to connect, love, have their trust, have authority and PAY attention to them. today a lot of parents don't bother. so they hit because that's the only way they connect and they feel entitled to.
I think this one is complex. like if you're gonna use a swat to make a point, you have to be a parent, not a live in adult.
How stupid to imply causation on something as complex as this? I hate the reporting of such studies in the press.
my son was spanked...and yes he did have to pick his glasses up from across the room once when he made like he was going to hit me. ONCE...he was 16. needless to say he didn't pull that little stunt again. he is a bright kid with an above average IQ. common sense as well as book smarts.
I would give up the 2.5 - 5 points in this generations children for a little discipline.
Rated
This gives whole new meaning to "slap you silly".
good post Surly ... I don't like Dr. Nancy either~
A reduced IQ (even teeny ones like this) could be related to all kinds of things. It could be that corporal punishment causes lowered IQs, but we can't prove that. It could be that people who hit their kids have a lower IQ and pass it down. It could also be within the margin of error. But there are other possibilities. Perhaps there is lead in the paint in some of their homes, and that affects people. Lead could be a cause of both the tendency to hit and the reduced IQ.
Perhaps there is a nutrition or other self care issue, such as regular exercise. Insufficient vitamins and minerals and lack of exercise can affect the brain.
Snyderman should be saying "We just don't know. It could be a little bit of many factors." I could not play the video, so I can only guess what's in it from the content of your comments and the original post.
On another note, I am opposed to hitting children for any reason, and I'm surprised at how many of you favor corporal punishment. I have wanted to hit my child to the extent that I actually had bad dreams about her behavior during which I punched my own spouse in the face while we slept. I understand the motivation (boy, do I!). I just never did it, and I'm proud of that.
I never got spanked, so I have no excuse for my less than 160 IQ, but my brother did, and his is 160. Go figure.
As for the way to assert authority, I believe spanking is necessary with some kids in the interest of safety. My son is one of those tough kids who occasionally needs what we call around here, a "spank" (A pop to the tush over his diaper and pants) for things that are dangerous or behavior that is unacceptable, yet he continues to do. The trick is to use it to make a point, not to express my own anger (like when he decided it would be fun to stomp on the cat's tail as hard as possible).
He won't usually cry out, because he wants to be tough! Yet, I know some kids (boys and girls) who burst into tears when they hear a firm, "No!"
We prefer to use time outs and use them as often as they are effective, but used as necessary and sparingly, spanking makes sense for the toughest kiddos.
My mother used to chase my sister around the dining room table with a shoe in hand. And my sister is really, really smart. She was also bulimic for 25 years. Somewhere in the middle would have been good, I'm thinking.
But, I guess I'm a moron too even though I tried to subscribe to Rosemond's approach. I won't even go into the times when I had to go get a willow switch off the tree for my own butt whuppin' or the times when I did the "back yard dance" with my dad--him holding my arm with one hand and swinging his belt with the other going round and round as I tried to high step it away from the worst of the swats. Hmmmmm guess that would mean that my IQ would be higher and I've have a PHD rather than an MA.
I'm so glad to see that I'm not the only one whose ire got up - or who is dumber than the other kid's on account of my parents ;)
My son sees this as his opportunity to go full retard and have a monster meltdown you know the routine.. yelling , standing in the chair, sliding under the table, blurting my dirty secrets as loud as he can so everyone and I mean everyone got to enjoy his company..so not taking the bait I excused my self from the table..snatched him up by his mighty morphin power ranger shirt and hauled his yelping ass to the elegantly decorated ladies room and let's just say that with one real goooood thump I got his attention.. I waited for him to stop the hicc-up crying and I escorted him back to his seat where we enjoyed the rest of the evening.. Haven't had to smack him since... for years all I had to do is ask him if we needed to go for a walk to the ladies room and he straightened his ass right up..If ya get the timing just right ya only gotta do it once! did he lose any IQ points..I dunno..but I didn't have any more meltdowns to deal with so it was a win win the way I see it
My son sees this as his opportunity to go full retard and have a monster meltdown you know the routine.. yelling , standing in the chair, sliding under the table, blurting my dirty secrets as loud as he can so everyone and I mean everyone got to enjoy his company..so not taking the bait I excused my self from the table..snatched him up by his mighty morphin power ranger shirt and hauled his yelping ass to the elegantly decorated ladies room and let's just say that with one real goooood thump I got his attention.. I waited for him to stop the hicc-up crying and I escorted him back to his seat where we enjoyed the rest of the evening.. Haven't had to smack him since... for years all I had to do is ask him if we needed to go for a walk to the ladies room and he straightened his ass right up..If ya get the timing just right ya only gotta do it once! did he lose any IQ points..I dunno..but I didn't have any more meltdowns to deal with so it was a win win the way I see it
This is stupid.
Fortunately, there's interpolation possible from your account.