The Logic of Spanking

Stefan Molyneux

Stefan Molyneux explores the debate on corporal punishment, specifically spanking, within child-rearing practices. He examines the moral implications of using force against children compared to adults, arguing that while violence is morally unacceptable in adult interactions, society still permits spanking. Molyneux challenges the justification of corporal punishment by questioning the assumption that children are incapable of reason and drawing comparisons with mentally impaired individuals. He critiques the idea that spanking is a necessary preventive measure for worse behaviors, advocating instead for positive reinforcement models over negative consequences. This discussion highlights the detrimental effects of physical punishment on children's understanding of empathy and respect, ultimately calling for a reevaluation of disciplinary methods towards more compassionate approaches in parenting.  SUBSCRIBE TO ME ON X! https://x.com/StefanMolyneux  Follow me on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@freedomain1  GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK! https://peacefulparenting.com/  Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!  Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!  You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!  See you soon! https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2025

Transcript

00:00All right. Good morning, everybody. Hope you're doing well. Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain.

00:05Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show and shop.freedomain.com for merchy merch.

00:11Just in time for Christmas. So, the spanking debate has re-erupted on X. And for those of

00:20you who are newer to my work, I will tell you my thoughts about it as a whole. And you can

00:28tell me what you think and we can engage in a robust debate about these obviously very

00:34important matters. The use of force is one of the most powerful topics in all of human morality. So,

00:44let's get into it. So, if we look at the adult world, adults cannot use force against each other

00:55except in self-defense, right? So, the initiation. So, when I say violence and force and so on in

01:01this conversation, just for the sake of clarity and efficiency, I will be referring to the initiation

01:06of the use of force. I'm obviously perfectly fine with self-defense up to and including death itself,

01:13killing someone in order to prevent rape and murder and grievous bodily harm and all. I'm fine with the

01:19common law definitions of all of that sort of stuff. So, just to be clear, that is fine. Now,

01:28so, human beings cannot use force against each other. A boss cannot hit a subordinate even if that

01:39subordinate makes a grievous error. There was a trader who fat-fingered some big bank and traded a

01:47bunch of stuff he shouldn't have. It actually brought the whole bank down, destroying a decades-long

01:53institution. You cannot assault that person, right? You can get mad at them. You might sue them or

01:59whatever it is, but you can't go and assault that person for making even a grievous error.

02:07You cannot assault someone who talks back at you in a meeting, who disagrees with you,

02:12who yells at you. You cannot assault someone who calls you a jerk, an asshole, whatever it is,

02:18right? You cannot assault people if they make mistakes, if they're rude, if they're disobedient,

02:24if they... whatever. You can fire them, of course. You can yell back at them. You can say,

02:29no, you're the asshole, but you can't beat people up. You can't hit people. If they make mistakes,

02:35if they are malicious, if they... you can't even assault people who spread rumors. Now,

02:41again, if it's really egregious, you might sue them for defamation, but you cannot assault people

02:45for language or mistakes or anything like that. So, that's what we take as the standard of morality.

02:54Now, that reverses itself with children. That completely reverses itself with children.

03:01With children, again, not everywhere, but in particular, I have a fair segment of American

03:09friends as my audience. So, in America, you can hit a child. In Canada, I think it has to be not

03:16the face and not below the waist and between the ages of 2 and 12. There's some restrictions. I'm not

03:22totally sure what they are, but... And of course, it's true in America as well that spanking or hitting

03:28is allowed, even with implements, I believe, but a beating is a different matter. So, why? What's the

03:37difference? Why is behavior that would be not allowed to a boss hitting a malicious or negligent or

03:50foolish or disobedient subordinate, why is that specifically disallowed for a boss

03:57violence, but is not just allowed, but encouraged for parents? I mean, you understand, that's an

04:07interesting question. Why do we ban violence among adults, but encourage it between parents

04:12and children? So, people say, well, the reason is because children don't respond to reason and

04:22therefore you have to hit them. Well, that's an interesting question, right? Because as a

04:29philosopher, we don't look at specific instances, we look at general principles. Like, a physicist

04:33doesn't just say gravity applies to you and the earth, particularly a little bit more around

04:39Thanksgiving and Christmas, right? So, gravity doesn't apply to just this ball or this tree or

04:45this planet or, like, gravity is a universal thing, right? So, if we say that violence is acceptable,

04:56in fact, encouraged and necessary for those who are unable to reason or unwilling to reason,

05:04then clearly, if you make a rational argument and someone denies it, you can hit them,

05:08except you can't. Again, with adults, we say, well, they are capable of reasoning, they're choosing

05:16not to reason, but you still can't hit them. So, with children, if they're capable of reasoning,

05:22but they act in an irrational fashion, then they would be in the category of people who can reason

05:28but don't reason or don't respond to reason, but we can't hit those as adults, so why would we be able

05:33to hit them as children? Say, ah, well, but children are not capable of reason, therefore,

05:39we can hit them. And it's like, okay, so if people are incapable of reason, then we can hit them.

05:47Okay, how do you feel about hitting somebody who's elderly who has some sort of brain degenerative

05:56disorder, right? Some sort of Parkinson's or Alzheimer's or something like that. How would you feel

06:02about hitting people who are adults, who are incapable of reason? Well, grandma just won't

06:11listen, so I have to hit her. Generally, we would say, well, no, that's wrong. But then we have a logical

06:19problem, and it's a significant logical problem, which is, why do we forbid hitting people incapable

06:28of reason, due to brain challenges? And, you know, childhood is a bit of a brain challenge, right? I mean,

06:34you say, ah, well, but the difference is that one is degenerative, and the other is, is growth-based.

06:41Okay, I understand that. Of course, there could be a cure, right, for these, for these things, and people

06:48who have these degenerative brain disorders, like everyone knows, like the sundown thing,

06:53the elderly, or those who have these issues, ah, they're better, they're better some days, worse

06:59other days. It's usually bad around sundown, better during the day. So, given that it's highly variable,

07:04just as childhood reasoning, children don't just wake up one day able to reason, right? So, given that

07:11it's highly variable, you say, oh, well, we can only hit them when it's at a low point, but not when it's

07:16at a high point, and again, people would have, have trouble with that. We would view, of course, people who are

07:21elderly with Alzheimer's and so on. We would view, we view these people, of course, and rightly so,

07:27with great sympathy, and we would try to treat them gently and not, not hit them, right? And the

07:35other thing, too, of course, is that they're called senior moments, like older people who just kind of

07:40forget where their keys are, and oh, where's my purse, and so on. And that's just a natural process

07:48of aging, a sort of slight forgetfulness that happens here and there. And we don't hit the

07:54elderly for forgetting where their keys are, or for taking too long to get ready, or for forgetting

08:00what day it is. You know, and honestly, if you're retired, and you're living alone in particular,

08:09and, you know, days are kind of a bit of a blur, it's not impossible to forget which day it is and

08:13to say, oh, are we supposed to get together Friday? I'm so sorry, I thought it was Thursday or Saturday,

08:19like that can happen, right? But we don't hit people for their forgetfulness. So then we have

08:24the challenge of creating a category of why we hit children. We don't hit people incapable of reasoning,

08:32people who are, have, say, they're crazy, let's say they have a sort of psychosis or schizophrenia or

08:39something like that. We don't hit them because they're not capable of reasoning, certainly in the

08:44grip of a florid psychosis. If you've ever tried reasoning with someone who's in the grip of a

08:49particularly strong or virulent mental illness, they won't listen, they don't respond to reason,

08:54and so on, right? And so we don't hit them. We've tried to take care of them in some manner.

09:00And we might restrain them to prevent them from doing harm to themselves or others, but we would not

09:06hit them to, quote, teach them, right? So we have a problem, which is why are we creating a special

09:12category? Because everything that we apply to children, well, they can reason, but they choose

09:18not to. Well, that's most people in the world. We don't hit them. Well, they can't reason because

09:24their brains are not developed. It's like, okay, well, there are lots of people whose brains are going

09:29through challenges, and we don't hit them. And even people who will recover, right? Somebody who's going

09:35through a psychotic episode, we don't beat them up, or we don't hit them, and they will recover,

09:43right? So childhood is a temporary state of pre-reason or unreasoning, which then grows into

09:48adulthood. So even people who are going to recover their reason, we don't hit them when they're being

09:52irrational. So again, the challenge is that basic Socratic reasoning, and I'm sorry to say basic,

09:59because that sounds like, well, it's just basic. But you know, if you're not trained in this kind of

10:01stuff, and aren't experiencing this kind of stuff, you wouldn't necessarily know how to do this,

10:06right? I don't really know how to fly fish. So people can say it's basic fly fishing. I'm like,

10:11yeah, but it's advanced to me. So the problem is that every time you create a category or a

10:18justification as to why we hit children, you have to explain why it doesn't apply to others who fit the

10:25same category. And you can't. You can't. If somebody's incapable of reasoning, then we don't

10:36say we can hit them. If somebody can reason but doesn't, we don't say we can hit them. If somebody

10:43is reasoning, of course, there's probably no reason to hit them, because you can negotiate with

10:48them. So that's the basic problem. And so then we say, well, the reason that we hit children is to

11:00teach them negative consequences for bad behavior. And it's kind of like an inoculation, right? I'll

11:07sort of hear this argument, and you know, let's take it at face value and work with it with respect.

11:11So the argument is that you teach your children, you hit your children, you use force with your

11:19children, so that they don't become criminals. They don't get beaten up by mouthing off. The world

11:25won't treat them gently. The world is a harsh, difficult and ugly place. And you teach your

11:30children restraint, discipline and respect for others by hitting them so that they don't get beaten

11:37up or arrested in the future. It is a small amount of violence, which is like an inoculation,

11:44like a small amount of inactive virus. It's a small amount of violence that we use against children

11:52so that larger, more deadly or dangerous violence won't be used against them later, like in inoculation.

12:00In the same way, we say the two examples that are used, of course, is a pot of boiling water,

12:06you hit your kid who's reaching for it so that they don't reach for the pot of boiling water,

12:10because if they spill the boiling water on themselves, it's really disastrous.

12:13Or if they are running towards the road with cars going back and forth, then you hit them to keep

12:20them away from the road because the hitting, the swatting, the spanking is far less dangerous and

12:28negative to them than being hit by a car, right? So it's a small amount of violence,

12:36in order to prevent a large amount of violence, in the same way that you will get a tumor removed,

12:44which will leave you with a, you'll be cut open and you'll be left with a scar,

12:48but it's better than dying of cancer, like a small scar and a week or two of recovery is far better

12:55than dying of cancer. Or if you have a hernia, you will get it operated on,

13:02they'll do the shoulders or put a mesh in, because otherwise your intestine could come out and

13:08get strangled and get infected and bad things can happen, right? So it's a small amount of negative

13:17to prevent a massive or life-threatening or life-destroying amount of negative, like an

13:23inoculation, all right? So this is really coming down to, is discipline best brought about by the

13:35infliction of a negative or the withdrawal of a positive? So do we deal with people who are late

13:46by hitting them or, if you're an employer, right, somebody keeps clocking in half an hour late,

13:55right? Do we deal with them by hitting them, which is the infliction of a negative,

13:59or by docking their pay, which is the withdrawal of a positive? I think in general, we would say

14:08that if we have the choice, the withdrawal of a positive is better than the infliction of a

14:16negative, if you have the choice, right? So if a woman doesn't like a man, she goes on a date with

14:24him, she doesn't like him, then she will simply not go on another date with him. So that is the

14:30withdrawal of a positive. And if he's, you know, smelly or rude or loud or obnoxious or talks only

14:37about himself, she might say that or whatever. She might say, you know, this is why it wasn't

14:40particularly great for me. So there's a certain amount of, quote, coaching, I suppose, that happens

14:46based upon the withdrawal of a positive, I'm not going to see you again, and then hopefully the

14:50man will change his ways or become better at whatever, right? In the same way, if you're coaching

14:56a team, right, you're coaching, I was involved, very briefly, of course, but I was involved in

15:01coaching kids in soccer. And if somebody doesn't show up to practice is surly, you don't beat them

15:11up, you just cut them from the team, right? So it is not the infliction of a negative, it is the

15:15withdrawal of a positive. In the same way, of course, if you do badly at work on a consistent

15:23basis, then what happens is, you will get disciplined, and then you will get threatened

15:31with firing, and then you will get fired. So that's not the infliction of a negative, you're

15:36not beating the person up or stealing their stuff, you're simply withdrawing a positive,

15:42which is the paycheck, the job.

15:45So with children, the question is, do you inflict a negative, or do you withdraw a positive?

15:53If it is possible to withdraw a positive rather than inflict a negative, then you should do

16:00that, because it does not involve violence. The withdrawal of a positive does not involve

16:05violence. So if I go to someone's pool party, and I act like a jerk, and they say, you got

16:12to leave my pool party, because it's my pool, it's my property, then that is the withdrawal

16:17of a positive. If I stay, I guess they could have me arrested or something like that, but

16:21the cops would probably just walk me off the property and give me a warning or something

16:24like that, right? So when I debate with people, and I had this, I think it was a week ago, Friday,

16:32I had to debate with someone, and that person was not responding to reason. So did I hunt

16:41them down and beat them up? Did I hit them? No. I've been in live debates where people are

16:46not listening to reason. I don't strive from podium to podium, and smack the person across

16:51the face or the butt or something like that. No, no. What I do, what I did was I simply said,

16:57I am not going to continue this conversation. And I removed the person from the speaking space.

17:05It was a spaces on X, right? So that is the withdrawal of a positive. Now, again, self-defense

17:12is fine. If somebody is inflicting a violent negative on you, assault, rape, trying to

17:17kill you, you can absolutely use force in self-defense. But you cannot claim that dealing

17:28with children, let's just say toddlers, like teenagers is another matter, right? But let's

17:32just say toddlers. You can't really say that, well, dealing with toddlers is a matter of desperate

17:38self-defense. The toddler is about to inflict grievous bodily harm on me, and therefore I'm

17:45right in using force. Now, you can use self-defense. It's a universal principle. So you can use self-defense

17:54on behalf of others as well. So someone can choose to intervene. They don't have to, but they can choose

18:01force to intervene. If somebody else is being threatened with force, then you can use third-party

18:08self-defense. I mean, this is the whole principle of cops, right? The cops will come to your rescue.

18:14Hopefully, they have no duty to protect, but they hopefully will come to your rescue if you're being

18:18aggressed against, even though it's not the cop himself who's being aggressed against. So if your

18:24child is hitting another child, then you can use force to restrain. Now, you don't get to beat up

18:32the person, right? But you can use force to restrain your child from hitting another child. That's

18:38fine. In the same way that a policeman will use force to prevent someone from assaulting someone

18:46else if they have to. That doesn't mean they just get to willy-nilly beat the living hell out of them.

18:51So, the infliction of negative consequences through pain, through hitting, is, of course,

19:04what is justified, or that's how it is justified, the use of force against children, that it is an

19:11inoculation to prevent them from doing greater harm later on, or in some other context, and so on.

19:16But, of course, the infliction of pain doesn't teach any lessons, other than the avoidance of pain.

19:26It's how you would train a dog to not poop in the house. You inflict negative stimuli on the dog

19:35so that the dog learns not to poop in the house. But the dog is not learning empathy,

19:41respect for property. It is not learning how to be nice and kind and thoughtful and considerate and

19:47so on. The dog is simply saying, well, negative things happen. Negative things happen if I poop

19:55in the house, so I'm not going to poop in the house. The dog has not learned anything other than

20:00the avoidance of pain. You have conditioned the dog to associate pooping in the house with negative

20:05stimuli, and therefore the dog no longer poops in the house. But the dog hasn't learned anything

20:09other than the infliction of pain. So, when you hit a child, the child is only experiencing negative

20:20stimuli, and people say, well, it's a little swat, it's a little tap. Well, and that's cope,

20:26right? That's clearly cope. That's clearly cope, right? And it's cope because if it's just a little

20:33tap, then it's not negative stimuli, right? It's, I mean, it's not negative stimuli. It has to be

20:41negative stimuli that is strong enough to imprint upon the child's behavior and cause enough suffering

20:48that the child changes that behavior, not just temporarily, but in a more permanent fashion.

20:54So, the little tap, the swat, the light, whatever it is, that's just cope. That's not a,

20:58that's not a real thing. So, if you're going to say, well, the child has to experience negative

21:04consequences to permanently change behavior, then those consequences have to be strong enough to

21:10permanently alter. Like, nobody says, well, I spank my kid to change the behavior for 20 minutes or a

21:17day. You say, well, I spank my kid to teach them a lesson to change their behavior and to have that

21:26behavioral change last a lifetime. And you do that, you don't do that with a little swat or a tap.

21:32It has to be significant infliction of negative stimuli in order to permanently, or with the goal

21:38of permanently changing behavior. It's a tattoo, not henna, right? It washes off after a week or two.

21:45So, the infliction of negative behavior, say, well, it's a little, little bit, it's a little bit,

21:52but the problem is, of course, that for a child, see, the parent knows what's going on and the child

21:57does not. And if you imagine you, I mean, let's take a sort of silly example, right? So,

22:06somebody has legal control and custody over you. They're five times your size. You have to live

22:11with them and they can hit you at will. Five times your size, right? So, we're talking about a 40-pound

22:17kid and a 200-pound man. It's five times your size. I can hit you at will. I get angry at you

22:23at will and yell at you at will. That's terrifying. It's completely terrifying. I mean, I remember when

22:29I was a little kid, I was visiting, or my mother was visiting a friend of hers, and I was out walking

22:35in the woods behind her house, and I'm pretty sure it was a Great Dane, because for me as a kid,

22:40it was about the size of a horse. And it kept me pinned up against a tree, like every time I moved,

22:48it growled. And eventually, I think someone whistled or whatever, it left. But, I mean,

22:52it was terrifying. Now, I would still be nervous around the Great Dane, but not as much as when I

22:58was just a little, little kid. Because, you know, when you're looking down at a dog, it's a little less

23:02scary than when you're looking up at a dog. And so, yeah, if, I mean, you're five times your

23:07children's size. You have unimaginable size, strength, independence, and power. Your strength

23:13is incomprehensible to a child, right? So, the fact that you are five times your, you know,

23:22you're infinitely more strong than your child. From the child's perspective, you're infinitely larger,

23:26or significantly larger, five times the size. You have incomprehensible strength and power and,

23:33you know, you name it, right? So, for you to hit a child, it can seem small to you, of course,

23:43because your child is much smaller, but you are crazy huge and crazy strong to your child, right?

23:51And the child doesn't know when it, I mean, maybe after a number of spankings, the child will have a

23:56sense of when it's going to end and so on. But for the child, it is terrifying because of your size

24:06and strength, and the fact that you have total control over your child. You have total control

24:11over your child. Now, the other thing, of course, is that a lot of times people will hit their children

24:17because their children are being thoughtless or inconsiderate towards others. You said something

24:21rude, you took some other kid's toy, you took something from a store when you were too young to

24:26really understand what property rights were, and so on. And so, you're being rude, inconsiderate,

24:31and not thinking of others. So, the best way to get children to do stuff is to model the behavior.

24:38And for children, of course, you know, one of the big challenges is that if you're saying, well,

24:45I'm hitting you because you are not thinking about the feelings of others, and you're not taking the

24:50feelings of others into consideration, well, then the problem, of course, is that you are doing the

24:58opposite of taking your child's preferences into consideration when you hit your child.

25:02Can you teach empathy through violence? Teaching empathy would be you have to really think about

25:08and work towards the reasonable satisfaction of other people's preferences, and you should expect

25:12them to do the same to you. Otherwise, you're just teaching your kids to be exploited, right?

25:16So, you cannot teach children to have a positive response to the legitimate needs of others

25:24when you are hitting them. You can't say, well, you really need to think about what's best for others

25:29when the punishment is what is the most horrifying and painful to your child.

25:35In other words, you're showing the opposite of empathy because you're saying, well, my child doesn't

25:39want to be yelled at and hit, and so I'm going to yell and hit at the child. In other words,

25:43you're taking the opposite of empathy. You're taking cruelty as the norm, and you can't teach

25:48empathy through cruelty. You can't say, well, you should really take into account the feelings of

25:53other people and work to make them happier or at least keep them secure while you're taking

25:58the feelings of your child into account and doing the exact opposite because children mirror their

26:04parents, right? If I keep pointing at something and calling it a tree, my daughter ends up calling it

26:11a tree, right? Does that make sense? So, imagine how difficult it is for a child to learn how to

26:27greet people pleasantly when you tell them that the pleasant greeting in English is, hi there,

26:32F off. So, you're saying, you need to learn how to be polite, and you're teaching your child the

26:39opposite of politeness, which is intense rudeness, right? Immense rudeness. And so, you can't teach

26:46your child empathy through cruelty because empathy and cruelty are opposites, and you cannot teach

26:52something by applying its opposite. It is incredibly confusing, and this is why it doesn't work.

26:58This is why, you know, a significant portion of parents are still hitting their children

27:03into junior high school and sometimes even high school years. It doesn't work because you are

27:09acting on the basis of cruelty and trying to teach your children kindness and empathy.

27:14So, how do you teach children? Well, first of all, you have to model the behavior, right?

27:20If you've been through this, if you've been a parent, you go through this phase, it's a pretty wild phase

27:23with language development, where they're just learning like 10, 20, 30 words a day. You don't

27:29even know exactly how. It's a wild process that goes on, and there's kind of a window between the

27:35ages of sort of 4 and 8 or 4 and 9, where kids have to learn language if, for whatever reason,

27:40they don't. They have a very tough time later on. There's this process of learning language that is

27:47really baked into our development. And so, you just use consistent language. You will certainly teach

27:52some of that language, but you'll use consistent language with kids in order to get them to learn

27:59that language. And it's a largely automatic process. If you think of how difficult it is to learn another

28:04language as an adult, it's really not that way when you're a kid. You just imprint. And so, if you want

28:10your children to treat others with empathy, respect, and kindness, then you need to treat them with

28:17empathy, respect, and kindness. And they need to see you treating your wife, your husband,

28:25others around you with empathy, respect, and kindness. And that's just how they'll be.

28:29I mean, we wouldn't expect a kid who grows up in an English-speaking household to end up not

28:34speaking English, but only speaking Japanese. That would be impossible. And it is equally impossible

28:43to imagine that a child who grows up among parents who are modeling empathy, respect,

28:51and kindness, and courage, and honesty, and integrity, like, and keeping your word. And,

28:56you know, it's impossible to imagine that a child who grows up in that environment will not end up

29:02replicating those values any more than they will speak a different language than the one they're raised

29:08with automatically, right? Without any outside intervention. So, they need to be surrounded

29:13by people who consistently show empathy, respect, and kindness, and their children will internalize

29:19and repeat empathy, respect, and kindness. We don't just create our entire cultural and moral values.

29:27And we know this because, you know, children, let's say, a Japanese, an ethnic Japanese child who grows up

29:35in the West ends up mostly with the values of the West, uh, and certainly speaks English without an

29:41accent. Whereas the, uh, same Japanese, uh, person who is raised in Japan will end up speaking fluent

29:49Japanese and will have a lot more in common with those Japanese values than if they're raised in a

29:54Western school and so on, right? So we, you know, I mean, there's some probably baked in, I mean,

29:59certainly some baked in stuff, but, uh, there's a huge amount of variance based upon environment,

30:04and certainly language is one, and language also has an effect on morality. Free markets seem largely

30:12confined or were largely confined to the English-speaking world for a variety of reasons to do

30:16with economic texts and, uh, even simply sort of having the words for these things. So,

30:23if the parents are yelling at each other and not treating each other with respect and kindness,

30:30if there are grandparents who are, uh, yelling at each other or yelling at the parents, if there are

30:38dysfunctional people around treating others with disrespect or cruelty or things like that, well,

30:44then the kids will grow up with that. You can't have a lot of tense fights with your spouse around

30:52your kids and then say to the kids, well, you know, you've got to treat people with empathy,

30:56kindness, kindness, and respect. Because that's confusing, right? That, again, it's like teaching

31:00children to say, hi there, F off to people, and then say, well, you've got to treat people with

31:05kindness. Uh, then it's like, well, or if you, if you are really rude to people and then you say to

31:11your children, well, you, uh, you have to be polite to people, uh, that doesn't make much sense,

31:17right? And of course, a lot of times when people get angry at their children, get it, they're angry at

31:22their children because the children are reproducing what the parents are actually doing rather than

31:30what the parents want to be doing. So, if you have parents who yell at each other, then they get

31:37angry at the kids when the kids yell at each other because the kids are accurately modeling what the

31:43parents are doing. And there's the shame, of course, that is associated with parents. Parents feel

31:51ashamed when the parents see the children doing what the parents are actually doing rather than what

31:58the parents imagine or want or think or praise. So, the withdrawal of the positive is actually not that

32:05complicated. If your children love you, then your disapproval will mean a lot to them. And so, if you act in

32:13a manner that is, you know, moral and has integrity and, and you treat people well and, and so on, you treat

32:18your spouse well, then, uh, your kids will love and respect you and then your disapproval will be

32:25enough to have them, uh, change. But of course, a lot easier to hit kids than to act in a manner that

32:30will engender respect. So, I hope that makes sense. I'd love to hear your thoughts and, uh, talk to you soon.

32:36I'll see you soon.

32:36Bye-bye.

32:37Bye-bye.

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