Reading the Research: The Outcomes of Spanking

Posted on by Realistic Autistic
Welcome back to Reading the Research, where I trawl the Internet to find noteworthy research on autism and related subjects, then discuss it in brief with bits from my own life, research, and observations.

Today\’s article examines the long term effects of spanking children.  Before I go any further with explaining this study, it\’s important to note that this study, and this post, define \”spanking\” carefully.  Spanking, in this context, is \”using physical force with the intention of causing a child to experience pain, but not injury, to correct or control the youth\’s behavior.\”  In short, spanking as defined here is not simply an excuse to hit or abuse a child, it is specifically only for disciplinary measures, and only wielded carefully and with precision.

So all that said… even if you narrow it down to that careful definition, the end results of spanking a kid are bad.  The study correlates this definition of spanking with illegal drug use, alcoholism, suicidal thoughts, and depression.  Right alongside other forms of physical and emotional abuse, like neglect, whacking the kid with a belt, and routinely insulting or cursing at the kid.  The category for such things is called ACE, which stands for Averse Childhood Experiences.

The researchers suggest, given the results of their study, that spanking be added to this category.  That would, in my opinion, be a step in the right direction.  In the world of special education, in this very state (but not my county, at least), it is legal and acceptable to spank, beat, or otherwise physically abuse a child in the name of discipline.  Some school districts are in court proceedings, fighting against concerned and outraged parents, over this precise subject.

My bias is likely pretty clear from my writing already… but I\’d just as soon see spanking be added to the list of things that constitute child abuse.  I am not a parent, and may never be, but I do feel like if you\’ve had to resort to spanking your kid, especially if you have to do so often… you should be seeking out help and trying to figure out why your parenting style isn\’t working.

You can likely guess why I have strong feelings about the subject.  Well, apart from the philosophical disgust with the concept of child abuse.  I was spanked as a child, a few times.  I had been behaving badly for quite awhile, as I recall, and none of their punishments made them feel I\’d gotten the point.  So, despite being pretty decent parents overall, they were at their wits\’ end.  And that was what they resorted to.  The experiences cowed me (briefly) and humiliated me (much longer term), but considering the fact that I resent those experiences to this day (having forgiven many other, debatably more important failings), I doubt it was a good call on their part.  I would much rather have had them consult a professional like my current doctor, who might\’ve been able to explain why I was misbehaving so badly. (That didn\’t happen for various reasons, not all of which were my parents\’ fault.  Raising a kid is brutally hard, requiring a lot of judgement calls and \”do your best and hope for the best\” decisions. And it\’s not like they knew I was special needs.  Not to mention their specific circumstantial difficulties, which I won\’t go into here.)

Mentality-wise, I feel like mostly what the spanking taught me was that I was small, weak, and unable to fight back.  It didn\’t reinforce the rules they\’d set down.  It didn\’t make me feel better, or even more compliant for a moment longer than it took the shock to wear off.  It deeply humiliated me and made me angry.  It made my parents seem like bullies, just like the kids at school, only unimaginably more powerful.  Hypothetically, if I was normally a problem child, I suspect the shock of being spanked would wear off very fast, leaving only the resentment, fury, and humiliation.  That\’s a bad recipe, and it suggests to me that special education and even regular education (ahem, Texas and most of the Deep South) would do better without it on the table, tempting frustrated teachers, paraprofessionals, substitutes, etc. toward child abuse.  

Birthday

Posted on by Realistic Autistic
I woke up this morning to Chris\’ work alarm, and then again, about 45 minutes later, disappointed.  It wasn\’t really an auspicious beginning to my 29th birthday.  As I got up, I tried to decide why that was.  I hadn\’t gone to bed upset, and I\’d slept reasonably well.  Nothing majorly disappointing had occurred overnight or just yet in the morning.

I sifted around through my previous thoughts on the subject: that birthdays are a huge deal when you\’re little, with no effort on your part, but when you grow up you have to make them a huge deal or they\’ll slip right by without much notice.  But that didn\’t seem like enough to trigger this disappointment, since that\’s how it\’s been for a decade.  I thought about the fact that this month has been rushed and messy and full of travel, and so I hadn\’t been able to update my wishlists as much as I\’d\’ve liked.  But my wishlists still have things I want on them, so that doesn\’t seem sufficient.

Finally, I landed on what I assume is the problem: this birthday, I don\’t have a small pile of presents or envelopes to open alone, as a sort of \”good morning, it\’s your birthday\” celebration.  It was my last tribute to the days when birthdays involved a small pile of presents and everyone pointedly caring about you in person, I suppose.  I hadn\’t realized it was so important to me. So maybe next year if I get presents ahead of time, I\’ll make sure to save them. 

This lack of envelopes and the occasional present is not because everyone forgot me, though likely a few cards will be late, as they usually are.  It\’s because we stopped our mail when we went out on the last trip, and nothing has arrived since. Chris thinks they\’ll just bring it all to us now that they\’re clear to deliver again, but I recall having to go to the post office and pick it all up every time I\’ve seen that done.  So later today, when I go out for LENS (therapy), I\’ll stop by the nearest post office and inevitably be told to go visit a different post office because the post system is weird. 

It being the day it is, though, very few people will bat an eye at what I\’ll be wearing.  I intend to go out in a Tshirt and jeans… but overtop the normal clothes will be my chainmail vest, my black faux-velvet cloak, my black leather bracers, one of my chainmail wrist cuffs, and my chainmail circlet, which has a crystal hanging from it.  It\’ll be a sight to see, but with it being Halloween, very few people will care. 

In the meantime, it\’s not like people forgot me.  Actually, the uncle and aunt we visited on our last trip snagged \”first birthday present of the year\” about 5 days early.  When we gave my uncle a birthday present, they promptly handed me mine, which I opened after some prompting.  Rather thoughtfully of them, it was one of the books I\’d reviewed for this blog, and one of the few I\’d mentioned wanting to have afterwards.

In addition, my spouse set aside some money for a special experience at the end of our last trip to CT.  The last hotel room we stayed in came with a jacuzzi/hot tub right in the room.  We got there relatively early, got dinner, took showers, and then relaxed in the hot water and jets for like an hour.  I used to love having baths, but now that I have to clean the tub myself, and my skin does this weird caking-on-thing to the sides of the tub, it\’s not as much fun.  Also, most tubs are too small for me to really relax.  This tub was big, and I didn\’t have to clean it, so it was pretty nice.  I woke up early the next day to use it one more time before we went back home for the day.

Also, my parents have kindly offered to take me out to dinner at a restaurant I\’ve been wanting to try.  It\’s an old world British pub, recommended to me by a fellow food-lover friend.  It\’s across the city and a bit pricey, so Chris and I hadn\’t made it there yet.  After dinner, Chris and I will go home for a bit to relax, but that won\’t be the end of the day.  The day won\’t end until well after midnight, because a friend of mine is being a sweetheart and hosting a movie night.  It\’s a movie I\’ve been looking forward to seeing, but hadn\’t had time to do so just yet, so that\’s exciting.

Finally, it seems like Michigan itself has decided my birthday required special notice, because it is now snowing for the first time this season.  Not hard, thankfully.  Just enough to coat the tops of cars and buildings with white.  Between the fall colors on the trees and the snow-icing, it\’s kind of pretty.  I\’ll try to enjoy driving through it on my way to therapy and such today.

It\’s probably odd to have therapy on your birthday, but I don\’t really mind.  The therapy is kind of part of the reason I can enjoy parts of my life now, so getting my brain bolstered for the movie and the dinner out in a new place and such seems like a good plan.  I\’m trying not to do things I don\’t like today, just to see what things I end up avoiding and what things I end up doing.  Usually I don\’t differentiate because stuff has to get done, but this will probably be an instructive experiment. 

Legwork and Life, week of 11/1/17

Posted on by Realistic Autistic
We made it home safely!  Whew.  I like to think I\’m pretty good at handling change, travel, and unexpected difficulties, but being gone for 2-3 weeks around October has just entirely messed me up.  Both trips were well worth their time: the first to go help my parents move, and the second to attend a wedding and see family.  Both trips went pretty well.  I guess I just feel very discombobulated and out of whack.  If I\’m lucky, that will wear off before Christmas travel occurs…

Yesterday was my birthday.  Friday\’s entry will cover birthday events, but it basically went pretty well.  My immediate family remembered, as did some of my friends.  I kind of dropped the ball on updating my wish list this year, to the point of adding a couple things to the list the day before my birthday, also known as \”way too late for people to actually see.\”  I blame all the travel and running about like a crazy person.

Our trip, in brief, went: drive partway, attend wedding, visit with Chris\’ older brother and his wife, visit with Chris\’ parents (which included a trip the Mystic Aquarium), visit the Boston Museum of Science, visit with friends, visit with one of my uncles and aunts, drive partway home, visit with one more set of friends, and finally go home. 

We took both traveling parts in two steps, with plenty of time to stretch our legs.  It\’s a bit more sane that way, but annoyingly also more expensive by a large margin that way.  Less expensive on the sanity, more on the bank account.  A frustrating tradeoff.  Still, it was nice to not have to drive 14 hours in a day, and have some quiet time before and after the trip.

Chris\’ brother and sister-in-law were gracious hosts and drove us around parts of the state, one stop of which was a small dairy farm/chocolate shop.  They produce single cow origin chocolates, and apparently try to pair the particular cow\’s milk with flavors that suit it.  I\’m not sure how much I buy that there are such distinct differences between the milks of different cows, but the chocolate itself was definitely good quality. 

After that, we visited with Chris\’ parents, and went to an aquarium in Mystic, CT, which plays host to a pair of beluga whales along with sea lions, jellyfish, sharks, etc.  It was an interesting experience.  The whales seemed to get a kick out of messing with their visitors, just a bit.  They\’d zoom by, right next to the glass of the tank, prompting astonishment and attention from their admirers.  I found the sea lion show a little overdone and gimmicky, but I assume they were more gearing it towards children than slightly grumpy, TV-avoiding 20-somethings.  And of course they had a ray petting tank and various other aquatic critters.  So that was fun.

The next day Chris and I visited the Boston Science Museum alone.  I don\’t think I\’ve ever seen such an extensive science museum in my life.  Highlights included the Planetarium, where we caught a show about exoplanets (planets not in our solar system), the Lightning Show (very loud but very cool), and the temporary exhibit/art installment about mental illness.  I had a bit of a soft spot regarding the last one, considering.  (Autism is not classified as mental illness, but depression and anxiety are.)  The most interesting piece to me was the set of 99 pictures of people, 33 of which have bipolar disorder, 33 of which have schizophrenia, and 33 of which care about someone with mental illness.  The pictures were not labeled, so it was just an entire wallful of faces, many skin tones, many walks of life, many expressions.  All people.

After that we visited with two of our friends we rarely see these days,  which was pretty much just an evening of chatting, watching movies and Youtube videos, and eating pizza.  It was a nice break from all the driving, because they were right in the area.  But the next day was more driving, because we went up to Boston again to see my uncle and aunt.  It was actually my uncle\’s birthday, so we brought him a present which he seemed to like.  He showed us his glassworking shop, which had a lot of really pretty colors of glass. I was feeling a bit out of sorts, so Chris got a better explanation of the place than I did.  But we all ended up fiddling with an auto-knitting machine my aunt has.  And they took us out for dinner at a nice little Italian place.  I managed to forget my leftovers at their house, though, which I regret.  The food was very good.

Then it was back to CT, and time to head home.  Before we left, I picked up a new preoccupation/toy.  We hit the toy section of a store, to buy a last minute present for a friend, and while we were there, I grabbed a Rubik\’s Cube.

One of these suckers, for the unfamiliar.

Like blowing bubbles in gum and being able to whistle loudly through my fingers, doing the Rubik\’s Cube was one of those tricks I always kind of wanted to learn.  I learned how to blow bubbles in gum at age 16, while bored out of my mind at a baseball game.  Whistling loudly through my fingers had to wait until I was 20 or so, and bored out of my mind at a summer job.  But I\’d never quite gotten a Rubik\’s cube in my hands, or found anyone who really liked the subject.

So about a year ago, I met a teenager who really liked them, and was really really good at them.  I was going to Bible study with his mother at the time, and she \”lent\” him to me to help fold origami for my wedding.  So while I was there, he showed me some of his collection and how good he was with them.  I was summarily impressed, and somewhat envious.  He had a couple different ones like the picture above, but he also had larger ones and oddly-shaped ones, which was pretty cool.  Anyway, he wasn\’t able to teach me how to do the cube, but chatting with him did remind me that I\’d wanted to learn.  So finally I picked one up while Chris and I were out in CT and in the toy section of a store anyway.

There are roughly six steps to the beginner\’s method of solving the Rubik\’s Cube.  I have, that this point, fully mastered and memorized four of those steps and am working on step 5.  I tend to do these things one step at a time, over and over until I\’m sure I\’ve memorized it.  At this point I\’ve had the cube for less than a week, though, so I\’m sure I\’ll get there sooner or later.  The traveling and birthday-ing and getting back into normal schedule-ing has slowed me down, I guess.

In other news, last year I signed up to be a research reviewer for the Autism Research Program (ARP) of the US government.  Apparently this year they\’re actually going to assign me to some research to review, so my December is going to be a bit more busy than it would be normally.  I\’ll be spending about 40 hours across the month reading, commenting on, and scoring applications for grants.  This will culminate in a trip to nearish Washington DC, where I\’ll meet the other reviewers and discuss the applications and their effects.  It\’s the US government, so it\’s going to be a 3 day thing, no time for tourism or sightseeing.  But that\’s probably just as well, because I have no patriotic impulses left, nor any goodwill for pretty much any politician in DC.

Also related to autism research, today I get to participate in a study regarding autistic adults and exercise/sports/physical activities.  I got the FYI about it from my spouse, who read it on John Elder Robison\’s Facebook page.  They want to study how autistic adults have experienced physical activity, health, and exercise across our lives, and want to interview interested adults by phone, Facetime, or Skype.  Compensation for your time is a $10 gift card, their appreciation, and the possibility of improving the lives of autistic people everywhere.  If you are an autistic adult, or know an autistic adult who could give feedback regarding this subject, please contact Dr. Andrew Colombo-Dougovito at andrew.colombo-dougovito@unt.edu, or Dr. Josephine Blagrave at ablagrave@csuchico.edu.  You can also call or text them at 530-518-2495 (Josephine) or 940-656-2069 (Andrew).