Because it works at changing their behavior.
Now we can argue the merits of positive reinforcement vs negative reinforcement all day. But when a technique is effective at changing unwanted behavior, then it will be used.
Punishments are absolutely necessary because some kids don't know when their parents disapprove of their behavior otherwise. I'm not talking about beating kids btw, I'm talking about scolding, "go to your room", and timeouts.
I don't think corporal punishment is worthwhile. There's some studies that shows that while effective at changing behavior, it also teaches the kid that violence is sometimes necessary, a lesson that I'm not sure if we should be teaching them.
But punishments in general? You don't want to reach for them as your first tool in your parenting toolbox. But you really can't just positive-reinforcement "you're doing a good job" all day to your kids. Its disingenuous and the kids pick up on that.
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> It answers the question in the title mostly by asking what, from today’s perspective, are the rational uses of punishment?
To change a person's behavior. If someone keeps lying, cheating, and stealing in society, we want to make them to stop so that they can reintegrate and become a beneficial member of society.
Perhaps we've gone too far with jail times in the USA, but the foundational theory is quite simple and effective here. Anyone who has ever trained a dog or other animal knows how to use animal psychology / punishments / rewards to change the animal's behavior.
Human psychology is more complex than animal behavior, but it shares a lot of similarities. Positive reinforcement (aka: rewards) and negative reinforcement (aka: punishments) are both useful within the framework.
Isn't that true, though? Violence is sometimes necessary.
Teaching a child that violence is never necessary is just as bad as teaching the child that violence is always necessary.
The exceptions are rape/sexual violence and self defense, and other crimes of that magnitude.
Even if two boys are fighting it out, I'm not sure if the right answer is to kick their ass and spank them / humiliate them over it.
People used to beat their kids up over bad grades or missing homework assignments. That's too much violence for sure.
Sure, but we're teaching kids lessons for when they're adults, right? Is it really a good idea to raise a generation who will not act out of self-defense?
> Even if two boys are fighting it out, I'm not sure if the right answer is to kick their ass and spank them / humiliate them over it.
I don't think violence is an answer for that.
> People used to beat their kids up over bad grades or missing homework assignments. That's too much violence for sure.
That's way overboard, and not what I had in mind. Rewards and punishments with kids is complex, and I don't want to come off like I am trivialising it all.
Humans (and chimps, and dogs) have all been studied in-depth, and at this point we know for certain that the idea of fairness is not a uniquely human one.
Take for example this very common scenario: an older/stronger child slapping a younger/weaker sibling.
The victim in this case is likely not going to believe that any non-physical punishment is fair(In fact, it isn't fair), and all it would do is breed some resentment.
If it happens just once or twice, sure, the victim can move on. If it happens all the time and the only result is that the parents take away TV for the aggressor for a few days, then that's going to result in plenty of long-term resentment.
Even worse, sometimes if the victim responds, they're going to get punished as well because some parents don't usually care to adjudicate.
Schools are even worse - the victim is more of a legal liability to the school than the aggressor, hence schools are more likely to pretend it never happened, or to punish both parties equally.
Taking all this into account, I tell my boys that they should never hit first, and that if anyone ever hits them the only appropriate response to to hit back.
They've[1] never hit anyone thus far, but they are also not afraid to hit anyone who hits them, because that's only fair.
[1] The younger one is only 3, so not yet a proper data point.
Perhaps this is my response to office gossip. But I'm talking about my coworker who regularly brags about corporal punishment and how he's a good father for hitting his kid on the regular.
There's a lot of people out there. I don't think you and I are in much disagreement, although perhaps I didn't write my words in a way that suited your perspective.
There's still a generation of parents who think that hitting their kids is the right response, be it from occasional spanking, or even wholesale beating them up to teach them a lesson.
Beating up kids / corporal punishment isn't about "self defense", but instead about "learned helplessness". Its a different strategy to parenting, and some people still believe in it.
Yeah, if its regular he's probably doing it wrong. In 16 years of parenting, I've smacked my kids a total of maybe 5 times.
> There's still a generation of parents who think that hitting their kids is the right response, be it from occasional spanking, or even wholesale beating them up to teach them a lesson.
I don't think physical punishment is the correct response to anything but physical violence, and even then it's a rare response and should be proportional.
I just don't think that it should be completely off the table as a response to physical violence. I also think the kid should know that it's on the table.
"Consequences for your actions" should mean something; the consequences should be proportional and similar to the actions.
"Consequences for your actions" should not mean "I lose TV if I hit my brother repeatedly when I am angry".
>Beating up kids / corporal punishment isn't about "self defense", but instead about "learned helplessness". Its a different strategy to parenting, and some people still believe in it.
It isn't about learning self-defense, it's about learning that even if they will never hit someone, they're living in a world where violence is never off the table. They need to be prepared for that.
Depending on country and legislation, you may want to report this. In some places you may even be legally obligated to report child abuse, which this sounds like.
It is not your (or mine) place to judge whether your coworker actually abuses his children (or if it is "just" talk, for example), only to report to the relevant authority so that they can investigate. Please, if you are worried for them, act
People have gotten their kids taken away for silly things. It’s a very real fear, even for genuinely good people. Unless it’s truly horrible abuse, I’d postulate that it’s better for a kid to stay with their parents. If you call Child Services on that parent, there is a real chance that you make the kids life significantly worse than the abuse they’re receiving at home.
The CPS do make mistakes sometimes, and I am not from the US, but I find it hard to believe the either-we-take-your-child-or-do-nothing dichotomy. A general problem with these cases is that only one part can go to the media, whereas the other part is bound by their confidentiality requirements. And those who successfully receives other forms of support may not want to talk publicly about it.
Also, we are generally not in a position to assess or grade the abuse, which is why there should be a low threshold for reporting suspected abuse. If there are physical abuse, there may be other forms as well. It may escalate. Depending on their resilience, the children might be traumatized or have their development impaired. Whereas the CPS have the means to do such investigations and judgements. Perhaps they are already doing investigations on the family?
And if the CPS do make a mistake, it would not be the fault or responsibility of the lay-man who reports, although it may feel differently
So if you overhear someone saying they spanked their child you are saying you should call CPS and say that you suspect child abuse that should be investigated?
> And if the CPS do make a mistake, it would not be the fault or responsibility of the lay-man who reports, although it may feel differently
No, this is not how it works when you know you are reporting people to a flawed system. See “swatting” or just generally how well received calling cops to intervene in a poor minority neighborhood goes.
If that gives you reasonable suspicion that a child is being maltreated or abused, then yes. If you have reason to suspect that the child is in immediate danger from being hurt, then you should probably call the emergency services directly
> No, this is not how it works when you know you are reporting people to a flawed system. See “swatting” or just generally how well received calling cops to intervene in a poor minority neighborhood goes.
To my knowledge, swatting is fundamentally different as it involves both conscious deceit and a motive to harm. Something being a consequence of your actions is different from you having ethical responsibility for the outcome. I guess the question is how flawed? Is the CPS in the US really as dysfunctional as you seem to assert?
Someone saying they spanked their child is not reasonable suspicion of abuse.
> Is the CPS in the US really as dysfunctional as you seem to assert?
It's just as flawed in most countries, it's just that few people interact with it so they never get a sense of how out of proportion the CPS response is.
Lets look at the scenario you painted: Mummy/Daddy smacks toddler firmly on the well-padded (diaper) bottom.
You think that's abuse. So does the CPS. They remove the child "while they investigate", which could take anything from a week to a year in most countries (the investigation is done in most jurisdictions in tandem with the court proceedings arising from this, which take long[1]).
You have to ask yourself whether the child is more harmed by the smack or by the removal from the parents, from the family unit, etc.
There's no contention that the period in question is an important bonding period for the child (tons of research), prevention of which can cause lifelong issues.
The argument of CPS in most western countries is that the smack is more damaging than breaking the childs bonds with the family.
Many people don't believe that. I want to know whether you believe that the smack is more damaging to the child than the removal from the family.
[1]The reason it takes so long is because someone claimed abuse, and that claim has to be investigated. Unlike the scientific process, where human testimony is the lowest form of evidence and usually ignored, in the legal system human testimony is the highest form of evidence.
Now, if someone attacked me, would I defend myself? Absolutely, as a last resort. And it's true that children should be told it's okay to defend themselves by whatever means necessary. I don't think this distinction is particularly difficult to understand.
Corporal punishment in particular socializes children to let themselves be attacked and not defend themselves.
I was spanked as a kid. As an adult I've violently defended myself without hesitation from an unprovoked attack by a criminal stranger in the parking lot of a big box store. So that part doesn't seem to me to be true.
It's hard to say exactly what causes that. However, the idea that it teaches children to defend themselves doesn't make sense to me because children who are spanked are not defending themselves.
I think the problem is that "corporal punishment" as a term is just too broad. You just used it upthread as "getting a spank" which is relatively minor.
The studies I am aware of showing negative effects use the term to mean "regular and systemic caning".
Those are two very different things; the studies are not studying the thing you referred to.
"Comply and let me inflict pain on you" seems very weird when it's equally true that "comply and be bored for a while" is right there as an option.
People sometimes ask, when will humans finally stop killing each others in wars and crime. I believe that not until violence goes off the table completely as an option. Not sometimes, not only for hideous criminals, not for stopping violence, not as a play, not as teaching implement. Literally never, not-even-coming-to-mind never, physically-incapable never, gone-in-any-form-from-the-culture never, no-hunting-animals-too never. Otherwise it will always be the ultimate option which can always escalate.
Slightly less extreme and horrifying than omnicide but persistent are somehow inflicting widespread learned helplessness that somehow persists across generations. Even if we could all be "honey-beed" and all die from inflicting serious harm, any defect would make the "violence capable mutants" monarchs.
It's doesn't need to be strictly true. This isn't a mathematical proof, but a behavior used to influence other behavior.
> Teaching a child that violence is never necessary is just as bad as teaching the child that violence is always necessary.
I'm not sure what kind of thinking leads you to this conclusion, nor is it clear what this statement means if I'm being open about it. "Violence is always necessary"? If someone doesn't get out of your way you are supposed to shove them? If someone honks their horn at you, you should smash their windshield? If someone tells you something you don't like you punch them? You'd never learn anything of substance with this viewpoint.
violence is never necessary != violence is always necessary
The tradeoffs for survival (much less society) are unequal.
You're bigger, so you can physically overpower them. The rules bind the child but not the adult - after all if child uses violence to try and get what they want, you'll just respond with more.
The violence used by society at large doesn't work that way: no one person can successfully fight off 5 people detaining them. One person with a weapon destroys any physical advantage. No one person can physically overpower civilization, and so hey, this is all about rules, negotiation, and enlightened self interest after all.
We can probably assume that people who want to model this behavior also tackle things like self-defense, protection of the innocent, righteous wrath, etc when it's appropriate to discuss them.
No, this isn’t true at all. My teenager has never been punished once in his life, and he’s turning into an excellent human: hard-working, compassionate with self and others, honest.
I would define punishment as “intentional infliction of suffering for purposes of behavior modification.” As stated, that’s flatly unethical, especially with your own family.
Now, he experiences consequences of his actions all the time. Scratch the counter-top? Win an afternoon of helping me refinish it. That works because it’s directly connected to his actions, and because I treat it as a learning opportunity rather than yelling at him or banishing him.
There are more possibilities than “punishment or permissiveness.” Kids need structure and to understand and experience age-appropriate consequences for their actions. But that doesn’t mean they need arbitrary suffering imposed by people they’re supposed to love.
If those are outside the realm of possibility for you guys, that’s awesome, you probably have an awesome kid. But for most parents I know, their teenagers have seriously test their limits at least a few times and it seemed like a punitive approach worked well. Depending on the “crime”, grounding them at home or taking away their phone/car/screens for x amount of time is a perfectly reasonable punishment IMO. It certainly worked well enough on my four siblings and I when we did dumb crap as teenagers.
In psychology it's often defined as any behavioral method used to decrease an undesired behavior - split into positive and negative punishment. Positive punishment is adding stimuli that they don't like (physical punishment is included here, but lecturing can be too), and negative punishment is removing things that they like. If a child asks rudely for ice cream and you don't give it to them because of the way they asked, that's a form of (negative) punishment.
Your countertop example is too - from a behavioral perspective, that's just a form of (positive) punishment - you're making them do something they don't like in response to unwanted behavior. You might have an added rationale to connect things, but that's still what the behavioral effect is.
I think a common criticism of this stance is, that it does not ask why a person does something that others want to punish. Obviously there sometimes are no answers, but often it's poverty and lack of options. So this begs the question, why people come to steal and murder etc.
I personally don't believe that "punishment" is usually well invested in a person. Rehabilitation and support structures are probably the better option.
I am also realising that it gets very interesting for white collar crime "without a victim" such as tax evasion or manipulation of stocks. My intuition is to punish exactly these crimes, but I think that's my bias showing.
Use of punishment in dog training is actually pretty hotly debated. Not that it doesn't work, but that it has consequences beyond what are intended and that substitution, redirection, and rewards result in a happier and more obedient pet.
Which is more less how society should treat humans as well.
If we're going to have an article called "Why Punish?" there should really be a companion article on "Why Steal?" And given the right conditions literally every one of us will steal to survive. Every single one of us are still just animals at our core anyway, that means you dear reader.
I attack my opponent when he's waking up (Oki position), he uses a Dragon Punch / Reversal and punishes me.
I attack my opponent when he's waking up (Oki position), he uses a Dragon Punch / reversal and punishes me.
I attack my opponent when he's waking up. He uses a dragon punch/reversal and punishes me.
I block while my opponent is waking up. He uses a dragon punch, loses to my block and I punish him.
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An entire genre of video games, fighting games, revolves around conditioning your opponent and getting into their head. The rock-paper-scissors battle of attack vs block vs grab takes place so quickly, you often don't have the time to react (though some players do have insane reaction speeds).
When you can't leverage reaction, you leverage conditioning. And over the long term, the only way to really learn the game at a high level is by getting your bad habits repeatedly-punished by a stronger player.
Perhaps its not "efficient" to learn, but in this case, it is the only way to learn. Expert players are bad at vocalizing what is or isn't working. There are very few coaches, and almost none of them know how to take you to the highest level (even if they themselves have reached peak form).
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There's other forms of punishment as learning. Ex: fall into a pit in Mario. You die, so you try again.
Or "Boar Lure" in AoE2. If you fail, your villager dies, and/or you don't get the precious early-game food you need to sustain your production.
Or in Basketball. If you get crossed up, you fail to block the opponent and they get a free shot at the basket.
Revenge is an emotional response by those who have been wronged in the past.
Punishment can mean many things (so perhaps we need more specific words), but I believe in this context it is meant to be a rational, conscious act to influence behaviour - though there are other kinds of punishment, and it can be difficult to distinguish. A parent may raise their voice very intentionally, without actually being angry, to gain attention, distinguish and underline a point, or elicit quick obedience (i.e. a "STOP!!!" when a child is about to dart on the road), but they may also raise their voice out of impulse, emotion, frustration, with no specific goal in mind and thus no clear direction or "win conditions".
(I've only recently learned of the phrase "omnidirectional ass-chewing" [1], which is a very intentional demenour and environment for receiving marines to put them into a constantly stressful environment to train focus. It LOOKS like random angry yelling, but is in fact extremely studied, careful, and intentional. )
1: Section 6, "Yelling" https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/03/why-is-boot-camp-so...
Perhaps? I dont think that is even debatable at this point. I would encourage you to research actual treatment of prisoners in the US, we in the US are critical of nations like Russia, and China while willfully ignoring the abuse that occurs every day in US prisons.
>Anyone who has ever trained a dog or other animal
This right here is the exact reason for this abuse, it is common for the US prison system, and the correctional officers to dehumanize the prisoners and treat them like animals, not cuddly pets or dogs, but like the worst animal abuse stories you here from the traveling carnivals that used to keep Elephants and Loins for show.....
We need MASSIVE reform of both the criminal system, and prison system. I am not talking about being "weak" on crime like seems to be the norm today, refusing to prosecute crimes, and letting people out immediately but "tough on crime" does not have to involve the dehumanizing treatment, and outright abuse that occurs that leads to nothing productive, no rehabilitation, and more often than not non-violent criminals go in non-violent but come out extremely violent.
There is NOTHING redeeming about the US Prison system
People often punish out of anger and their kids are badly behaved as a result.
The linked article suggests that this sentiment actually comes and goes historically.
How do you know that in the long term, we're not evolving in the opposite direction, to not impose harsh punishments?
Which is why permanent incapacitation - mostly by the sword or the gallows, but sometimes by being sent on the galleys, into the mines etc., which was scarcely more survivable than an actual execution, only that it took much longer to die - was the usual judicial punishment. At the very least, the criminal was branded so that he would be instantly recognizable forever.
Nowadays, the police has a lot more tech at its disposal. If it is willing to do so and financed to do so, it can catch basically any criminal it wants to. That is why our laws no longer resemble the Bloody Code of early modern Britain.
If you haven't, consider yourself lucky. Some of us aren't so.
Prisons can and should do better. But you are incredibly naive if you think there aren't people in the world whose only deterrence is prison or violent retribution.
If you are thinking about citing the Italian study[0] that people always cite in respond arguments against deterrence. My response is that it's way more likely that 1 month less in prison is what caused the lower re-offending rare, not the threat of 1 month more in prison if they re-offend.
[0]: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/599286
I also wonder how people rationalize seeking punishment. More often than not, no forced act can undo wrought damage, particularly emotional damage, and people don't really feel better seeing others suffer, even if that's what they believe they want.
People also are extremely prone to forgetting the core intent of society's justice system and prisons, which is (or should be) reform, which is sad. Many balk at the idea that prison is humane in any dimension. We have a lot of growing to do :(
Provide for jobs, pay a reasonable market wage, a fair amount of paid time off and/or sick leave.
Then teach them how to pay bills and prioritize. Charge reasonable rates for accommodations, food, and amenities. Let people upgrade their room for an increased monthly fee. Maybe they can pay for cable. If someone wants a steak on their birthday, they can splurge and get one -- but it will cost them more than their usual meal.
Now you're probably asking: "but what if they refuse to work?" I say: the same thing that happens outside a prison. You don't work, you don't get paid. You don't get paid, you can't buy food. You can't buy food, you don't eat. The problem will solve itself after a while.
I think we 1) assume the other is not hurting, which is very often false, as the other person may hurt us because they feel hurt and assume we aren't hurting and 2) instead of trying to make them feel hurt, we can tell them that we're hurting. However, I think we mostly don't do that strategy because it often requires us to cry and most cultures shun crying.
So we seem to end up feeling hut, hiding that hurt, and assuming the other doesn't feel hurt, probably because they're so good at hiding it.
I don't think it's about undoing the damage, it's about evening the damage. If you punch me and I feel hurt two days later, then I may still want to punch back. If I have healed physically and emotionally, forgiven you completely, do you think I'm as likely to punch you then?
It's easy to imagine that it's personally for spite, but evolutionarily for deterrence (i.e., spite is an evolutionarily effective way to encode deterrence).
[0]: https://aeon.co/ideas/punishment-isnt-about-the-common-good-...
If it’s a random stranger, someone you won’t encounter again, or you live in a society where violence is very rare, then it’s probably a moot point.
We evolved in small tribes where everyone knew everyone, and just about everything that happened would quickly be known by the whole group. Combine that with scarcity and a higher propensity for violence, and being seen as an easy target would be something to avoid at all costs.
Maybe you could argue that by crying, the older child was getting revenge on the younger because he knew his parents would come to scold him. Or maybe the kid just wanted comfort because he lost something he cared about. It was hard for me to know whether his intention was to receive comfort and attention or to have his parents shame his brother, maybe both?
> Combine that with scarcity and a higher propensity for violence
I guess I don't see this as a given as much as it seems you do. I suppose I think people act violently out of pain, most of us just lashing out at each other because we think they hurt us first, more cooperative by nature than competitive, but maybe I'm describing your views inaccurately.
Granted the initial 3 sequel books were large tomes about the corresponding guilt, repentance, and consequences stemming from that initial idea.
Should we punish children for bad behavior? How do we discipline without punishing? How can we discipline our kids but avoid making them feel bad?
I worry that the collapse of discipline, among other things, leads to a great number of young people about to enter the world with totally misaligned expectations about surviving and thriving as an adult.
I certainly didn’t endorse all forms of discipline or abuse of discipline, sorry if that wasn’t clear.
Is this not already the case? I’m not entirely sure how one might measure this, but boy does my gut tell me that its already happened.
In disputes where I'm playing referee between two of my children, I gravitate away from deciding who is right and who is wrong. Instead direct conversation around, what happened, what people need, and how we can satisfy those needs within the creative realm of reasonable possibility.
As a baseline for issues that don't have a clear needs-based line to follow, I consider the systemic issues involved and re-engineer systems to incentivize good behavior and disincentivize bad behavior. Most often this takes the form of natural consequences.
Finally, I don't have angelic children. The reason it works is because we've been doing it for years, not because my children are more compliant, or I'm some saint. We all get upset, angry, and do things we regret. What we are all invested in is having a shared desire to make things better than we found them.
What I am skeptical of, however, are responses which attempt to frame children as willfully non-compliant. That says more about the person describing the behavior than the behavior itself.
I think this may actually work better for kids. I think so often we praise/shame them, and they can get caught in a cycle of unpredictable self-worth. I dunno, for me, I like to let people know how I will most likely react to certain actions and tell them that even if I react that way, I will still love them. Punishing (with the intent to hurt them) often hurts me, so I'd rather not try to hurt them. That being said, I do want people to know if they punch me in the face, I may punch them back, leave the bar, or strongly distance myself from them physically. I just want people to be more aware of consequences rather than feel like they're a bad person for choosing their actions.
It's not clear what those questions mean.
discipline verb
disciplined; disciplining
transitive verb
1 : to punish or penalize for the sake of enforcing obedience and perfecting moral characterWhich of these are desirable?
Is it possible and efficient to instill the former using punishment?
Also, self-discipline tends to follow age. If punishing little kids helped, then why do kids often become terrors in their teens and twenties, then eventually grow up, mature, and become more responsible?
Of course some people never grow up, but many of them were smacked around as kids anyway.
Not rational, legible (and tenable). Our inability to recognize (and accept as valid) consequences doesn't not make them unsound.
But it doesn’t get much at why we do this in the first place. Why do adults punish children? Why do so many people belong to religions with strict and explicit punishment dogmas (e.g., going to hell for offending a higher power). It doesn’t provide a rhetorical or moral framework for differentiating punishment from abuse or torture. I think these are more interesting questions, although perhaps not fair to expect from a historian.
Clearly punishment is satisfying to us. Revenge stories are as old as literature, and widely celebrated. I think that in a large society it’s an obsolete and harmful impulse. The article references Plato’s views: “Plato discussed punishment in terms of learning virtue and deterring future acts rather than just in terms of taking vengeance for the past, which he dismissed as a primitive, animalistic motive.”
It’s interesting to me how long it takes for views like this to take hold and create a more just society, and how easy it is for cultures to backslide. Revenge is a powerful impulse.