Those with an archaic frame of mind might tell you that if you spare the rod you’ll spoil the child. However, in reality, studies show that spanking your children is what can “spoil” their physical and emotional well-being.
Mayim Bialik, star of The Big Bang Theory, agrees and has the scientific facts to back it up.
“The more children are spanked, the more likely they are to defy their parents and to experience increased anti-social behavior, aggression, mental health problems and cognitive difficulties,” a 50-year study by The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Michigan found.
Bialik’s six-minute YouTube video explains how spanking is not only detrimental but completely ineffective and only serves as an emotional release for the parent.
She says hitting your children teaches “avoidance not obedience.”
“Thanks to the pleasure principle, whenever any animal faces a negative aversive or negative stimulus, such as a smack, hit, or even a punch, the brain quickly learns to avoid the source of that pain the future,” she states in her video titled “Hitting Kids.” “This tends to be very efficient. Once you hurt a child, they will seek to avoid having that pain again. So essentially hitting teaches avoidance, not obedience.”
No one said parenting would be easy but resisting the temptation for a quick fix and physically abusing your children is not the answer.
“I understand how tempting it is to look for quick solutions for behavior that you don’t want to see continue,” she explains. “I’m one of the stricter parents I know. It’s not my job to be my kid’s friend, I’m their mom.”
She says patience and compassion will properly teach your kids how to behave and will have long term positive effects on their well-being.
“Being hurt by someone who says they love you makes no more sense to a child than it does to an adult,” she says. “You can’t hit your spouse, you can’t hit your student, you can’t hit a stranger, you can’t even hit your dog, yet we have laws protecting, defending, and justifying hitting a child. It makes no sense.”
Even though her kids drive her crazy sometimes, Bialik says that she makes sure to set boundaries for her children and consistently enforce them. If they’re being destructive, she immediately removes them from the situation.
“A week of consistently saying ‘the answer to that voice is no’ makes it go away,” she says.
Sometimes that means you have to carry your kid out of the park screaming, but “that’s what following through looks like sometimes.”
You can watch her video below.
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