[lit-ideas] Re: English Typo Schools
- From: eternitytime1@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2006 16:46:51 -0500
Hi,
That was interesting--so many thanks for the tip!
Just read an intriguing article on this matter--there have been some other
studies done with moms, but this one dealt with dads--from two parent families
(the details are in the article as to factoring in/out the different cultural
stuff so that they could match numbers of people with same
age/education/income/other demographic info.
"A Comparison of Swedish and US Fathers' Self-Reported Use of Parental
Discipline" by Goran Jutengren and Kerstin Palmerus. It was published in
Children & Society, Sept 2002, vol. 16, Issue 4, p 246-259.
I found it via the Academic Search Elite Database. Many references to other
studies in the bibliography and text.
They compared the use of parental discipline when in conflict with their 38-66
month olds. It was true that Swedish fathers did not engage in physical
punishment as much as US fathers (though they threatened it, interestingly
enough). The Swedish fathers engaged far more in 'restrictive control
approaches eg. verbal control and physical restraint. (I remember reading about
that approach when my son was little in Parents Magazine, I believe, though
they called it 'holding'--) And, yes, that is a direct outcome of the 'aga'
law.
They did mention that they did NOT study how effective the differences were in
the different approaches that they asked about (which also included behavior
modification)
But, what was most interesting in terms of how our thread is developing was
this:
Physsical punishment and physical abuse
Although parental use of physical punishment has been recognised as a
potentiating factor in cases of physical abuse of children (Kadushin and
Martin, 1981); Reid, 1986), contempoarary theories identify a variety of
collaborating psychological and social factors as being crucial for a parent to
develop an habitual pattern of physical child abuse (e.g. Wolfe, 1999). thus,
there may not be a direct link between whether parents use physical punishment
as a regular means of disciplining their children and the risk of them
physically abusing their children. Accordingly, although the use of physical
punishment in Sweden has decreased since the introduction of the 'aga' law
(Gelles and Edfeldt, 1986; Statistics Sweden, 1996; Stattin and others, 1995;
Straus and Gelles, 1986; Straus and othes, 1980), the occurence of severe forms
of physical abuse of children up to six years of age remained stable in the
1990s (Brottsforebyggande radet, 2000)
Perhaps here in the USA, our focus has been primarily on figuring out how to
stop the major child abuse while in Sweden they decided to focus on the
'spanking' end of things--and decided not to address the major child abuse
issues.
It would appear, from this study (and some of the others at least that they
talked about-) that the two issues are different.
If one has limited resources, one then sometimes has to make difficult
choices--and in Sweden they focused on one type of issue that they felt would
have some effect (in their culture--which allows for more trust in the
government according to this authors). In the US, we have focused more on the
child abuse and neglect and separated that out from the other (though there is
still work being done on that, let me assure you, Irene/Andy--strategies are
being taught, etc etc.)
It was an interesting study to read...and might be useful at some point to know
this...
Best,
Marlena in Missouri
"
-----Original Message-----
From: Andy Amago <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Fri, 17 Feb 2006 15:17:07 -0500
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: English Typo Schools
Stan, just wondering, what do you think of the fact that Sweden made it illegal
for parents to spank children?
----- Original Message -----
From: Stan Spiegel
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 2/17/2006 2:04:57 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: English Pubic Schools
Marlena - It should be illegal for Irene/Andy and her husband to drink wine
while watching movies. Or to serve it during one of their parties.
When she does it, she is advocating alcholism, drunk driving, underage
drinking, etc etc. There are no limits on it because she is advocating it when
she/he is even drinking in moderation.
If it was illegal to drink alcohol, there would be no drunk driving, no
underage drinking, no alcoholism, etc etc.
Hoping Andy/Irene is tossing out the wine she just bought for the weekend and
expecting the start of a new prohibition movement,
Marlena in Missouri
Hi Marlena -
We've already gone through Prohibition. Haven't we learned anything from it?
Prohibit something and you make it all the more powerful and pervasive. Make it
illegal and we as a society will suffer all the more for it. That alone is
reason enough to avoid such measures. There are other persuasive reasons too,
but they pale in comparison.
"Forbidden fuit" as a proverb is meaningful because we know what forbidding
something means. Maybe you're such a "good" girl you're willing to comply. Most
of us aren't so compliant.
Stan Spiegel
Portland, ME
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