US study says smacking kids helps them

Excerpt from Digital Journal.com

Smacking leads to happier kids, according to a new US study. Ironically, it took this long to find enough people who hadn’t been smacked to do the study. Now, a US study says that smacking into adolescence actually helps.

January 3, 2010

by Paul Wallis

Prof. Marjorie Gunnoe, of Calvin University, Grand Rapids, Michigan, did a study of 2600 people, including about 25% who’d never received physical chastisement. The press coverage of this is sparse, and it looks like there’s a paper in the works, which has reduced the output in the releases, but Prof. Gunnoe has stated that the data from her study simply doesn’t support the no-smack concept.

Her research states that children smacked up to the age of six were likely to do better, in fact, at school, and more likely to do volunteer work, want go to university, and other signs of higher participatory involvements.

Gunnoe isn’t saying smacking is an answer. She considers it a “dangerous tool”, which may indicate she started her research with more than a few reservations of her own. She also said that it’s not appropriate for all situations.

To read the full article, please click the following link: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/284967