Research rambling, possibly boring (I can't tell).

[rivka]

My dissertation is about child physical abuse. (I'm not going to get into the details about which aspects at the moment. Maybe later.) Now, you can't come right out and ask parents, "so, do you abuse your kids?" - not if you want accurate answers. You can't very easily ask minor children what their parents do to them - not as research, anyway. You can limit your subject population to people who have been investigated or convicted of child abuse - lots of people do that - but you always wind up wondering whether there's a difference between the ones Child Protective Services have identified and the ones who haven't been caught. (The answer is almost certainly "yes.")

Fortunately, there are other options. To assess abuse potential, we use an analog task - a laboratory situation designed to elicit responses that are similar to what people would do in the real world. We use a slide show of children doing various things, and ask parents what they would do. We ask them to characterize the behavior (fine, rude, dangerous, annoying, etc.), to describe how they'd feel if their child did it, and to select a response - options range from "not mind" to "hit the child with a belt, hairbrush, or other object," and pretty much everything we could think of in between. We also ask what they'd do if their child repeated the pictured behavior - whether they'd have the same thing or something else, and how often they'd have to see it before they changed their response.

The slides range from innocuous activities (a toddler has toys spread out all around him, a little girl is picking her nose), to things that bother some parents more than others (a six year old is putting on her mother's makeup, an eleven year old boy is looking at Playboy), to things that are irritating but age-expected (the toddler has gotten hold of someone's glasses, a kid of eight or nine has spilled a jar of salsa on the floor), to things that are wantonly destructive (a child is tearing pages out of a book), to things that are dangerous (the kid of eight or nine is lighting matches), to things that are incredibly dangerous (the eleven year old is loading a handgun). Parents get really involved in the slides - much more so than I think they would if we were asking them to discuss things hypothetically, or read written descriptions.

We're interested in how willing they are to choose forms of discipline that are physical (like spanking) or emotionally harmful (like ridiculing the child), how intensely they ramp up their reactions to future misbehavior, and how much they differentiate between various kinds of misbehavior - for example, things that are just annoying vs. things that are dangerous, or things done by very young children vs. things done by children who are "old enough to know better."

This works pretty well as an analog measure: parents involved with CPS have higher scores than parents not involved with CPS, people who were themselves physically abused as children have higher scores than people who weren't, scores go up under stress, and so forth. We don't say that high scores mean that a parent is abusive - the only proof of abuse is, well, abuse - but we do think that high scorers are more similar to abusive parents than low scorers. They're not abusive parents, but they're a good lab analog for abusive parents.

I bring this up now because I've been working on the incredibly tedious task of entering the data from this measure, and some thoughts have presented themselves.

Given all of the rhetoric about CPS witch hunts and government interference in child-rearing and the pathologizing of spanking by evil liberals, wouldn't you think people would balk at telling a psychologist at a state-run university that they hit their kids? I genuinely worried that no one would be willing to endorse heavy discipline - that they'd be too focused on trying to make themselves look like sensitive, enlightened parents. My fears turn out to have been groundless. Lots of spanking, yelling, and ridicule going on, and although no one yet has suggested beating a kid with an belt, someone's suggested slapping a kid across the face. Yeesh.

I am struck by some oddities in the responses to the escalation questions - where we're asking "okay, and if your kid kept doing this, how would you change your response?" Most people's answers make sense - for example, the first time their kid dumped out their sewing basket, they say they "wouldn't mind," but if he did it a second time they'd "send him to his room." But several of them pick "threaten to spank" as a first response, and then escalate to something entirely different - such as "take away a privilege." And two people have had a consistent pattern of picking "yell at her" or "ridicule her" as an initial response, and then picking "explain why she shouldn't do this" as their escalation response. If you're going to give your child an explanation of why she shouldn't do something, wouldn't you think it would be your first response? Why would you hold off until after you've used a couple of less supportive methods and they haven't worked?

And finally: I am deeply suspicious of the person who provided the exact same responses to every slide. First episode, they said they'd explain why the child shouldn't do it. Second episode, they'd take away a privilege. The answers were identical whether the child was a five year old mischievously sticking out her tongue, or an eleven year old loading a handgun. They said that every behavior would "worry" them - never, ever would they be "angry." I don't believe them. The consistency strikes me as abnormal. It makes me feel like they have something to hide.

Comments

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Look at you all talking about your dissertation without calling it nasty names! high-fiving Rivka And psst ... it's interesting. Really.

The consistency strikes me as abnormal. It makes me feel like they have something to hide.

Actually, what it makes *me* think of is someone who doesn't actually have kids, but has very clear ideas of the "correct" way of raising them. Is this an actual parent?

-J

Re:

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Look at you all talking about your dissertation without calling it nasty names!

Heh. That was part of the plan - I thought maybe if I wrote pleasantly about it, I would start to remember why I wanted to do it in the first place.

Actually, what it makes *me* think of is someone who doesn't actually have kids, but has very clear ideas of the "correct" way of raising them. Is this an actual parent?

Yes. That's why it struck me as unrealistic.

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

About the parents with the strangely consistent answers:

I'm having a "Princess Bride" moment. All I can imagine is Count Rugen murmuring to Westley, "This is for posterity... so please, be honest."

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... Much to think about here.

If you're going to give your child an explanation of why she shouldn't do something, wouldn't you think it would be your first response? Why would you hold off until after you've used a couple of less supportive methods and they haven't worked?

My first thought is that the parent who said this is being surprisingly candid. The first response is the automatic one, involving little thought on the parent's part, and presumably intended to make the child stop the undesirable behavior because it brings about the spanking or whatever. The second response, explaining things, is a recognition that spanking isn't working by itself. It comes second because it requires more time and thought on the parent's part, and because the parent may think that defiance represents a capacity for thought on the child's part.

[eck.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your take on that! It's a more coherent version of what was going through my head. Always nice to have someone else come along and finish up thinking I wasn't gonna get around to! :->

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

That's more or less what I was going to say. I'm guilty of a similar pattern sometimes - first I lose my temper and shout, then I calm down and try what I know would have been a better response first time round, had I been less fragile and more able to manage it.

[lcohen]

not boring at all--fascinating, in fact.

and yes, the parent who had the same response to everything is pretty suspicious. seems like they're either lying or you should check their closet for a pod.

[saoba.livejournal.com]

Rivka (and some of the rest of you) met the kid I used to babysit.

I know all the Good Parenting rules. We had remove toddler from situation, we had consistency and routines and rewards and consequences.

And one day, when she was nearly 3 she trashed my laundry room by dint of (a) twisting out of my grasp and (b) locking the deadbolt of the laundry room door. The landlord had never given us a key (nor an explaination for why the deadbolt was on an interior door).

It took me twenty minutes to take the door off its hinges and extract the gleefully giggling girl-child.

She took ONE look at my face and said tentatively, "Funny?"

I replied as quietly as I could while surveying the damage, "No. Not Funny. Go to the living room and sit on the floor, thankyou."

Watching me warily she did just that. I went to the phone and called her father at work.

And I said, "Please come and get her, I am too angry to interact safely with her."

He arrived and took one look at his detergent encrusted toddler and winced. I asked him to please put the door back up for me and got no argument.
He did so and fled, his kid tucked under his arm like a football. It was 10 am, he missed the entire day of work.

Cleaning up and sorting out the damage of having 60$ worth of laundry supplies dumped all over the camping gear and winter clothes stored in the room took me most of the day. I took a lot of swearing breaks.

I got a call about 8 pm from him asking if I was okay to take her back the next morning. And when he dropped her off he handed me cash to cover the damages.

I told the kid I had, indeed, been REALLY mad and that I was not happy that my stuff was broken. She looked pretty unhappy when I told her there would be no TV for the rest of the week. (the only TV she got was one kid's video every couple of days.)I explained that if she broke my stuff she didn't get treats like videos. Then she said she was sorry and hugged me and went to play.

But I was 43 years old, with long years of experience with kids and the option of having someone come get her before I lost my temper. A
lot of parents don't have that and they don't have any idea how to get parenting help. And little kids take the brunt of what happens next.

Barbara

[eck.livejournal.com]

Wow, cool. Good story! I'm saying so despite my embarrasment at a second content-free reply immediately after my last one. [ducks]

Okay, minute content: It seems like I've always been fairly impressed with how well my mom did as a single mom with too little income, bringing me up. I remember the one time (only time, I'm fairly sure) she hit me in any way -- never having used spankings. It was awfully brave -- or foolish -- of her to smack a teenage boy by then bigger than herself!

[eck.livejournal.com]

My reaction to the too-consistent answers thing is to think something's wrong -- but mainly because I would expect someone with something to hide to make more effort to give natural-seeming answers! Before I reached that paragraph, I was vaguely wondering how I'd answer such a survey. Seems like my (non-parent) guesses might be too consistent, as well. It's pretty hard not to idealize how I might react to any sort of situation while trying to anticipate it. So with respect to a child (so to speak), I imagine myself first trying to explain, then making a bigger deal of explaining. A couple escalations of that (and maybe privilege deprivations, depending on a kid's age) failing and I'd be ready to seek professional help (for myself if not the kid ;-).

Wow has this reminded me to be glad I'm not a parent! Thanks for the chance to 'mouth off' as if I knew anything about it, though! :->

Discipline, etc.

[zencuppa.livejournal.com]

My mother told me a story about my sister and I, where we gleefully spread Comet Cleanser all over the house, while the other one (who knows which one) went upstairs with the sissors and cut up the new bedspreads and curtains.

All while Mom was in the bathroom for about five minutes.

Once she saw the damage, Mom called my Dad and said "Come home NOW before I kill them."

And he did *wry grin.*
Needless to say, I now have a toddler, and I've learned to leave the room when I might lose my temper . . And I've paid attention when my mother encourages me to lean on my spouse for support when Nick is particularly difficult.

I am very, very glad I waited to have a child. I don't think I'd have nearly the patience and sense of humor (so dearly needed by parents) that I have now with Nick, if I had had him in my 20's.
I wonder if parents who are a little older are less likely to resort to physical discipline than younger parents?

Anyway, that's my two cents . .

those exact same responses

[redbird]

It sounds like someone who is taking a quiz, on a topic they're not really comfortable with, and got a look at someone else's test paper. Not necessarily hiding something, at least not in the sense of hiding bad parenting--maybe the person just knows zie isn't any good at this, lets zir partner do most of the discipline, and isn't sure how to answer when "Honey, can you come in here?" isn't available as a solution.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

I am struck by some oddities in the responses to the escalation questions - where we're asking "okay, and if your kid kept doing this, how would you change your response?" Most people's answers make sense - for example, the first time their kid dumped out their sewing basket, they say they "wouldn't mind," but if he did it a second time they'd "send him to his room." But several of them pick "threaten to spank" as a first response, and then escalate to something entirely different - such as "take away a privilege." And two people have had a consistent pattern of picking "yell at her" or "ridicule her" as an initial response, and then picking "explain why she shouldn't do this" as their escalation response. If you're going to give your child an explanation of why she shouldn't do something, wouldn't you think it would be your first response? Why would you hold off until after you've used a couple of less supportive methods and they haven't worked

My one guess on the "ridicule" or "yell" to "explain" would be wondering if they understood that the escalation was not "and, then, in addition, I'd"

(i.e.: "First, I'd yell. Then, if that didn't work, I'd yell *AND* explain")

But it could also be realistic. There's a scene from the "Little House" books that comes to mind; Laura and Mary are sliding down a haystack, scattering the hay, and are firmly told *NOT* to slide down it again. The next day, they scatter the hay... by rolling down it, not sliding down it. Mr. Ingalls explains (trying hard to keep a straight face upon hearing their honest confusion over the difference) that the hay must stay stacked, and it's not a matter of sliding versus rolling, etc..

If a child does something and you're sure the child knows it's wrong, it's easy to respond. Then, if it happens again, a person might realize that the child hasn't internalized the general rule.

And, for the others, escalating from (threatening to) spank, to something else, well, some folks do consider a spanking the 'easy way out' because it's quick, and consider other, longer term punishments as the next step up. Yes, it's different from a lot of other folks, who think of spanking as the last resort.

[aiglet.livejournal.com]

My mother slapped me once. But then I was asking for it... (I'd told her that if she didn't give me what I wanted I was going to run away and live with my father.)

I think that a lot of parents don't necessarily *think* about what they're doing -- it's easier to yell first ("Don't *DO* that!") than it is to go through the thought process of "They're only 6, they don't know not to do that/don't have the strength to do that/don't realize what the consequences are of doing that, maybe I should tell them instead of getting angry that they're doing something that's going to make my life harder/scarier."

[diony.livejournal.com]

On the one hand I find this deeply disturbing for all sorts of personal reasons.

On the other hand, I find it terribly reassuring that people are sensibly researching this sort of thing. I'm glad you (a complete stranger whose livejournal I randomly began reading) posted about it in such detail. It's fascinating to me.