Quote:
Originally Posted by mr. tegu
Violent crime would be 18 year olds and over right? (Don’t know really). If so that graph doesn’t say much as the decline is mid 90s and sort of levels off in early 2000s so you are looking at kids born late 70s and early 80s as the youngest options with most born earlier. Just based on my perception the less frequency of physical discipline is actually more of a last 20-25 years thing and this graph doesn’t really point to a noticeable decline in the last 15-20 years but is good to see continual steady improvement.
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Again, if we accept that the kids in the past were paddled more often, why are the rates of criminal behavior so high, and why did they drop off if the null hypothesis is that parents have become more lax over time?
Violent crime rates began dropping shortly after 1990. That's 29 years ago. Corporal punishment was unheard of in my elementary and secondary experience which started in '88 and ran through 2000, and while the rates of people who agree that spanking is acceptable has declined, it's a very gradual decline over the last 25 years. Rates of corporal punishment have also declined over the last generation, and the practice is largely unheard of now outside of the South.
As a parent that has used spanking as a redirect, I'm not against it, but there is no compelling evidence that things like paddling or using a belt lead to better outcomes. If there were, one would expect a relative change in the rate of various offenses, but the data is not there.
Every older generation thinks younger generations are soft pussies, and every older generation overrates their toughess. I'm old enough to remember when the 50-somethings on this board were all labeled as morose, navel-gazing slackers by their parents. It was a bullshit characterization, too.
Part of a parent's job is to discipline their child and instill a set of morals and values in them, but I don't think the child should never fear the parent.