[QUOTE="theone86"]
[QUOTE="mccoyca112"]
I certainly wont deny that. Fact remains, that's a belting. We don't even know the underlying context of that video. Was the kid talking back after her "twerk"? Giving attitude like she's the queen bee? Whelp, who knows. I digress. A belt is nothing. Ever been whipped by a sturdy thin tree branch? Trust me, you don't want it. I loved my gram to death, but damn she knew how to use it if we were out of line. As my previous posts have stated, I've seen worse, and that kid is doing better in life than I am.(for reasons unrelated to "abuse") I also cant side against it since it didn't mess me psychologically. & How could I? That'd be like giving up video games because "studies" proved gaming caused it. Self restraint plays both sides of that. The bad can outweigh the good perhaps, but only if the parent/guardian allows it. I see it as a slightly hefty whipping made extreme with extreme screaming Others, quite the opposite.
mccoyca112
Comparing who was beat worse is a glorified pissing contest, worse since it's masochistic. Next you wanna pull out our d*cks and see whose is bigger?
Psychological damage isn't always easy to spot. Who's to say your friend, or you for that matter, isn't hiding it? And what's the baseline we're comparing it against? We don't exactly have an effective control when it comes to personal experience. These "studies" do have controls, and they show a significant difference from the experimental group.
Again, most rational people take "studies" that rely on proven methods of experimentation over anecdotal evidence. The fact that you keep positing your own opinion as carrying more weight than science isn't helping your case at all.
I suppose you could call it a pissing contest. That's fair, truly. What I'm calling it however, is a disagreement as to what is actually harsh. I don't see it. It doesn't help that I don't know the full story.
He's not my friend. He's my cousin. We're like brothers, and hung out almost every couple of day, until recently since his life schedule is crammed. We talked personal matters alot. Hell, he told me he thought he was bi one time. (He wasn't, just confused). I know the deal. You know what he complains about now? His girlfriend harping him. Not his kid, or his job, or anxiety. His hotheaded girl. (1st edit) Me? I have nothing to hide. It's a forum. Anonymous. And a gaming forum(2nd edit) at that. I know some people have a status to uphold here(look no further than systen wars when it comes to ass kissing), but I dropped that act before I even hit High school.
Studies can be helpful, sure, but context matters. We're their parents around much, did they often ignore them and/or not apply themselves when the child was in need for something, what was the extent of the beating and is that the only thing causing them to feel like they do. I refer you to my post about the video game scapegoat for a slight comparison.
I'm not attempting to have my opinion seem more hefty than quote on quote *science; Im saying I came out more than okay, my cousin too, and what is considered abuse is subjective(3'rd edit, look at previous posts) Nothing more.
Your attempt to distill everything down to subjective opinion is a weak attempt at argumentation. When you're comparing one beating to another it's a pissing contest, plain and simple. Whether or not a beating is harsh is irrelevant, a beating is a beating is a beating and no one on this side of the argument is defending beatings no matter how harsh they are. That your beatings may or may not have been harsher than the one in the video is completely irrelevant to the issue at hand.
Psychological damage is not always easy to spot. It's often repressed and can often manifest in very subtle ways. Perhaps he doesn't even know he's damaged, in which case how would you know? And perhaps there are other ways in which such beatings have affected him, as I said there is no baseline to compare it to, no control. This is why scientific studies are FAR more relibale than your anecdotal evidence and why your continued attempts to raise such evidence above scientific evidence are futile and ineffective.
Besides, we're not trying to say that every person that's beat as a child turns into a raving sociopath who can't function in society, the effects of child abuse are often far more nuanced than that. Yes, every child turns out differently and yes there are other factors to consider, that just supports our argument. Perhaps you or your cousin or both of you managed to make it through relatively unscathed because of other factors that worked in your favor, but if beatings are acceptable then it negatively impacts those children who don't have those same factors working in their favor.
As for context, though, you're barking up the wrong tree. As I keep telling you, studies are specifically designed to account for various factors through the use of controls. Studies have found that beating a child, on the aggregate, produces negative effects regardless of environment (though frankly, less attentive parents are far more likely to beat their children). The use of violence in discipline has not only been found to be consistently damaging but completely ineffective. If children who receive such punishments turn out to be undamaged and disciplined it is because of some other mitigating factor, not because such punishment can be good in the right circumstances.
You're opening up a huge can of worms with the video game comparison. Suffice it to say if you're going to argue from analogy you should at least show the relevance of the analogy and not just say "well, video game studies, so yeah."
You say you're not trying to elevate your opinion above scientific studies, and then try to elevate your opinion above scientific studies. All you are offering is anecdotal evidence, that doesn't carry the same weight as a legitimate study. And what is considered abuse is not subjective, that's what we're all trying to say. It is established by legitimate scientific studies, not a bunch of people comparing whom was hit harder as a child and drawing some line based on personal experience alone.
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