The issue of whether or not parents should spank their children has been widely debated and continues to provoke strong feelings on both sides. Advocates of spanking view it as an effective form of discipline and maintain that reasonable use of the practice is not harmful to children. Opponents argue that hitting children is not an effective deterrent for bad behavior, but a practice that plants the seeds for later violent behavior. The spanking haggle has a lengthy history in scientific research, and two new studies that suggest children who are spanked have lower IQ’s than those who aren’t is likely to reignite the debate yet again.
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