Smacking may have lifelong consequences - FAIL

Smacking may have lifelong consequences says the headline at the "Yes Vote" site.

“Suppose there are two medicines that work, but one has harmful side effects that don’t show up for 10 or 20 years. Even if one dose has only a tiny chance of an adverse effect, I think parents would want to avoid that risk. That’s the way they should think about spanking” -

Fear, uncertainty, doubt. A potent mix.

If only there were a study available that looked at those consequences and could give us some certainty about smacking?

Children who are smacked lightly with an open hand on the bottom, hand or leg do much the same in later life as those who are not smacked, found the Dunedin multidisciplinary health and development study, which has tracked 1000 children since they were born in the city in 1972-73.

So why the difference in supposed outcomes between the Dunedin and New Hampsire[sic]?

But the lead author of the physical punishment part of the Dunedin study, psychologist Jane Millichamp, said the project appeared to be the first long-term study in the world to separate out those who had merely been smacked with an open hand. [and those that had been abused]

So does the new study conflate abuse with smacking? Um, that would be a "yes and we're proud of it".

When asked, “Can you think of a situation when it’s OK for a husband to slap a wife in the face,” almost half of those who had grown up being spanked regularly (three or more times a week) said yes.

“If you want your child to grow up to be the kind of person who reasons instead of hits,” he says, “I can’t imagine why any parent would ever spank.”

Yet another rubbish "study" to throw on the pile.

FAIL!