Will spanking make your child successful?

According to Calvin College psychology professor Dr. Marjorie Gunnoe, spanking children under the age of 6 can make them happier and more successful later in life. Gunnoe questioned 2,600 people, a quarter of whom had never been spanked, about everything from academic success to their optimism about the future and found that those who had been disciplined with spanking between the ages of 2 and 6 faired best in all categories. By contrast, those spanked past age 6 faired the worst. Is it time for parents to reclaim spanking as a healthy way to punish young children?

Discipline, not spanking, helps children mature: The study proves that spanking isn't "the bugaboo that many people make of it," says Doug Payton in Blogger News. But if you ask me, it's not the "actual spanking" that helps children grow up successful. It's "the willingness on the part of parents to set limits on children not ready for complete freedom."

"Spank your kids, make them happy"

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This confirms what pro-spanking parents have been saying all along: At last, parents who believe in "corporal punishment" have "relief" from studies claiming that spanking is harmful, says Selwyn Duke in the New American. While some parents believe that "discipline is often a dirty word," common sense tells us that, just as a police officer may "use violent action to take [a suspect] into custody," parents may too need to use "force" to properly mold the "raw pieces of humanity known as children."

"New study finds spanking is good for kids"

Don't take the study to mean that beating your kids is OK: After first reading Dr. Gunnoe's findings, says Jeanne Sager in Babble, it looked as though "the spanking vs no-spanking debate" had been taken back to "square one," with arguments from the "anti-spanking crowd" looking less credible. But "parents on the other side of the fence" need to remember that "reactionary spanking done in anger" has no benefit; "discipline must have consistency" — fail that, and "you might as well leave the kids to raise themselves."

"Natureshock says: Spank those kids, maybe"