Is It OK To Spank Your Child? When Spanking As A Form Of Discipline Can Work

Can spanking as a form of discipline actually work? It's hard to advocate for spanking in instilling discipline in children when several studies say this is ineffective and damaging to their well-being. One mother, however, found out that it has worked with her kids even as she's not a fan of spanking either.

Joni Edelman shared on The Good Men Project that she was spanked hard and quite often as a child. When she had her own kids, she vowed not to use this form of discipline as she understood it will only cause the kids to fear without learning anything.

Things changed, however, when her kids got older and exhibited misbehaviors as any typical child. Edelman spanked her kids sporadically and got the results she wanted: good behavior.

Some of her children are almost adults now and she digressed they turned out OK despite being spanked as children. "None of them are violent. No one became a sociopath. They all mostly love me," she wrote. Her adult kids also do not remember most of the times they were spanked.

Edelman still has younger kids and she admitted she would also spank to discipline them. She related that each time this happened at home, the kids would scream or cry and she would feel guilty. Having learned from her older kids, however, she knew as a mother that this will straighten them up eventually.

One of the few studies that suggested spanking as a form of discipline can bring good results came from Professor Marjorie Gunnoe. In her study among 2,600 individuals, both spanked and not spanked, Gunnoe learned that those who did receive some spanking from their parents below age 6 grew up to be well-adjusted teenagers. "[The] teenagers perform better at school and were more likely to carry out volunteer work and to want to go to college than their peers who had never been physically disciplined," Gunnoe said in her study, according to Fox.

The expert, however, cautioned that spanking is still a dangerous tool. "But there are times when there is a job big enough for a dangerous tool," she said. "You just don't use it for all your jobs." Watch these moms discuss spanking and other forms of discipline in the video below.