Has anyone else seen this?  I received via email a copy of a Reuters wire
story about a study recently presented at World Congress Of Sociology in
Montreal by Murray Straus of Univ. of New Hampshire.

The study reports a link between spanking (and other forms of corporal
punishment) with lower cognitive skills.   According to the article, the
more the children were spanked the lower their scores.  The study
included 900 children seen at age 1 and then again at 4.  A couple of
quotes:

"The cognitive ability of the children who were not spanked increased,
and the cognitive ability of the children who were frequently spanked
decreased."

"The children who were spanked did not get dumber.  What the study showed
is that spanking is associated with falling behind the average rate of
cognitive development, not an absolute decrease in cognitive ability."

Straus speculated that parents who do not hit spend more time reasoning
with their children thereby enhancing the child's cognitive ability.

The article ends with
"If parents knew the risk they were exposing their children to when they
spank, I am convinced millions would stop," Staus said.

Amen!!  BTW, this was emailed to me by my intelligent, unspanked,
breasfed daughter.

Mary Cummins, M.Ed., IBCLC
Scottsdale, AZ (I promise it won't be 113 degrees (like it was today)
next year when ILCA is at the Princess)


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