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corporal punishment

Family

New study shows spanking hurts kids' mental health and is less effective at teaching lessons

Why is it wrong to hit an adult or an animal but OK to spank a child?

Photo by Kat J on Unsplash

Yet another study shows that spanking isn't good for kids.

Whether to spank your child or not is one of the oldest debates among parents. Many live by the age-old wisdom that to “spare the rod” is to “spoil the child,” while others believe it’s wrong to resort to violence to punish a child when so many alternatives exist.

It also begs the question: If it's wrong to hit your spouse or pet, why is it acceptable to hit a defenseless child?

The 2021 American Family Study found that support for spanking has declined in the U.S. over the past few years. In 2015, 54% either somewhat or strongly agreed with the practice, but that number dropped to 47% in 2021. Thirty-five percent of respondents disagree with the practice and 18% neither agree nor disagree.

A new research study from the Parent and Family Research Alliance in Australia led by Professor Sophie Havighurst and Professor Daryl Higgins from Australian Catholic University makes a strong case that people should stop using corporal punishment to discipline their kids. The study “Corporal punishment of children in Australia: The evidence-based case for legislative reform” analyzed countless studies on the topic and found spanking ineffective and harmful.

The study was published to urge lawmakers to make corporal punishment in Australia illegal. Sixty-five states across the world have made corporal punishment illegal, protecting 14% of the world’s children.

The study defined corporal punishment of children as using physical force to cause pain, but not injury, to correct or control a child’s behavior.

The most startling meta-analysis published in the study found that "only 1 out of 111 statistically significant effect sizes was associated with a link between 'spanking' and a positive child outcome," while 110 were found to be associated with adverse outcomes.

The one positive outcome was in a 1972 study of children of the U.S. military living in West Germany that found those spanked showed less amphetamine and opiate use as adults.

However, the remaining 110 significant results found that spanking had adverse effects, including: “reducing trust and connection with those they are closest to, lower self-esteem, more internalizing and externalizing behavior problems including aggression, mental health difficulties, and increased risk for later substance abuse, antisocial behavior, and violence.”

A meta-analysis found that when children are spanked, they are less likely to internalize the moral implications of the behaviors that led them to be disciplined. It also found that non-physical discipline was more effective at teaching “alternative behaviors,” “developing a child’s conscience,” and advancing their “emotional development.”

\u201cTo support ending corporal punishment in Australia, where it is still legal for parents to hit children, sign this petition to help change legislation so that we can join 65 other countries that have already taken this step to protect chn from harm \u2b07\ufe0f\u2b07\ufe0f\u2b07\ufe0f\nhttps://t.co/2whNouk3eq\u201d
— Parenting and Family Research Alliance (@Parenting and Family Research Alliance) 1682897165

Another meta-analysis cited in the story found that corporal punishment in childhood was associated with mental health problems, low self-esteem and antisocial behavior.

In the end, the studies show that corporal punishment is counter-productive when it comes to raising healthy, happy children. But it will take much more than a study to get people to reconsider their views of corporal punishment because they are deeply rooted in many cultural traditions.

Looking for some non-physical alternatives to discipline your child? Here’s a great place to start from WebMD.

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spanking children

Family

Wales just made spanking illegal, joining more than 60 countries that have outlawed corporal punishment

Photo by Tadeusz Lakota on Unsplash

Parents can no longer spank, slap or shake their children according to a new law in Wales.

Parents in Wales can no longer spank, slap, hit or shake kids, according to a new law outlawing all physical punishments for children. According to The Guardian, corporal punishment had been included as "reasonable punishment" in England and Wales since Victorian times, but that defense no longer applies.

"Until now, children were the only group in our society who it was acceptable to strike in certain circumstances," Viv Laing, the policy and public affairs manager at the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) Cymru Wales, told The Guardian. "We don’t allow the physical punishment of adults or animals, so it is absurd that we have for so long with children.”

But not everyone is happy with the law.

Some conservatives expressed concern that the law would lead to a "Stasi culture" in which citizens become informants and turn in their neighbors to law enforcement for parenting choices. But Deputy Minister for Social Services Julie Morgan rejected the notion. “We don’t want people spying,” she said, before adding, “Looking after children is the responsibility of the whole community.”

The law, which applies to both residents of and visitors to Wales, is being hailed as "historic" by the Welsh government. But Wales is hardly the first country to outlaw corporal punishment. In 1979, Sweden became the first nation to make striking a child illegal, and since then, more than 60 other countries have followed suit.

The countries that banned spanking first are regularly rated among the happiest on Earth.

Any time the topic of spanking comes up in the U.S., some people defend the practice as being not only acceptable, but preferable. The adage "spare the rod, spoil the child" (which many people think comes from the Bible—it doesn't) is still alive and well in certain circles, and advocates of corporal punishment claim it's necessary for children to learn what's right and wrong and to exercise self-control. Some are quick to blame everything from disrespect to disobedience to criminal behavior on society's move away from spanking.

But if we look at the countries that outlawed corporal punishment decades ago, those fears of bad behavior and criminality run amok appear comically unfounded. The Nordic countries of Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark are pretty much always in the Top 10 lists of happiest nations, and they were four of the first countries to outlaw corporal punishment. They are also in the Top 10 list of safest nations ranked by perception in U.S. News and World Report, so clearly a lack of striking children for misbehaving has not led to some kind of mass societal downfall in those nations.

(For comparison, the U.S. ranked No. 38 on the safest nations by perception list and No. 19 on the happiest nations list. According to the nationwide American Family Survey, nearly half of Americans believe that “it is sometimes necessary to discipline a child with a good, hard spanking.” Correlation isn't causation, of course, but these numbers indicate that spanking kids is not the key to a happy, safe society.)

Research shows that spanking affects the brain in the same way as more severe forms of abuse.

It was one thing to spank kids when people didn't know better and just followed whatever they'd been taught, but we now have the ability to study and research the effects of parenting choices. The research has repeatedly led to the same conclusion: Spanking isn't good for kids.

For instance, a 2021 Harvard study found that spanking can alter a child's brain development in the same way that more severe forms of abuse do.

"We know that children whose families use corporal punishment are more likely to develop anxiety, depression, behavior problems, and other mental health problems, but many people don't think about spanking as a form of violence," said senior researcher on the study, Katie A. McLaughlin. "While we might not conceptualize corporal punishment to be a form of violence, in terms of how a child's brain responds, it's not all that different than abuse. It's more a difference of degree than of type."

On top of that, spanking doesn't even appear to work as intended. In the majority of studies analyzed in a review, children's behavior actually worsened after physical punishment with external negative behaviors including aggression, antisocial behavior and disruptive behavior at school increasing over time.

We need to make sure parents are educated about parenting methods other than spanking.

However, if parents who feel that spanking is necessary are to be convinced otherwise, they need to be given tools for parenting. Too many people see spanking as discipline and everything else as permissiveness, which simply isn't the case. There are plenty of ways to raise respectful, contributing humans without hitting them. (For those who don't consider spanking as "hitting," try articulating the difference. Is it not hitting if you're hitting a child on the bottom? Why does that part of the body count any less than their arms or legs or backs or heads?)

There are plenty of alternatives to spanking, but parents may not have the knowledge, experience or support they need to figure out other methods of discipline. Outlawing corporal punishment might be a good way to get parents to stop striking their children, but we need to make sure parents are educated about what to do instead. Perhaps providing parents with free parenting classes throughout their children's childhoods would go just as far, if not further, than merely outlawing spanking and slapping children as a form of punishment.

Writing it into law, however, is a good way for a society to express the importance of children's rights and to impress upon parents the need to find nonviolent ways to interact with and teach their kids.

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"Good Morning Britain" recently hosted two parenting experts for a fiery debate on the topic of spanking as a form of punishment.

One of the experts, Katie Ivens from the Campaign for Real Education, had some pretty strong words about why she believed physical punishment was not only OK but part of a healthy "tactile relationship":

"I'm saying we have a tactile relationship with our children; we hug them, we kiss them, we breastfeed them, and so on," she explained.

[rebelmouse-image 19530879 dam="1" original_size="512x286" caption="GIF via Good Morning Britain/YouTube." expand=1]GIF via Good Morning Britain/YouTube.

Using an example from her own life, in which she described firmly "shaking" her kids to deter them from running into the street, Ivens argued that physical punishment not only works but is good for kids, the same way breastfeeding or hugging them might be.

Yikes. Unsurprisingly, Ivens' advice is not grounded in any sort of scientific facts. (The CRE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

Studies on spanking show it has a negative effect on children.

Joan Durrant, a child clinical psychologist and researcher from the University of Manitoba, puts it simply: "The research is really unequivocal at this point."

Though some of the benefits of breastfeeding may be exaggerated, it's still a healthy, normal, and fruitful way for a mom to bond with her baby, all while providing vital nutrition. Spanking, on the other hand, has never, ever (did we mention ever?) been shown to have a positive outcome for children, according to Durrant.

Kids who are spanked are more likely to: show higher levels of aggression, display poorer mental health, have a worse relationship with their parents, perform worse in school, and have slower cognitive development.

"Any outcome that has ever been associated is a negative one," says Durrant. "The only thing [spanking] can do, and unreliably so, is make a child comply in the immediate situation. But the child doesn't learn anything from that."

If the science is so clear, why does physical punishment remain so prevalent?

"Good Morning Britain's" own informal poll, for example, showed over half of its viewers thought spanking was perfectly fine.

"We hand down this belief across generations," Durrant explains. "We tend to think that whatever happened to us, that's the norm, that's the way it should be. So we carry it on." She adds that corporal punishment can also be prescribed by certain religious beliefs, which are hard to change.

It's understandable why some parents would resort to hitting or spanking, especially when it comes to our kids' safety. Being a parent means being constantly on guard to keep your kids safe — so it's not hard to understand why Ivens would give her children a good shake with the intention of deterring them from running into oncoming traffic. But that doesn't mean it's the right or best way to handle that situation.

The fact remains that spanking or shaking your kids is just not a good long-term strategy and will actively work against building a healthy relationship between parent and child. There are better, healthier ways to teach your kids to avoid danger and let them know when they've done something wrong.

Durrant suggests parents embrace the role of teacher and mentor rather than disciplinarian.

"Two things that are most critical to children's learning and the parent-child relationship are what I call warmth and structure," she says.

Warmth means making your kids feel safe and supported. Imagine trying to study calculus while walking through a minefield — some environments just aren't conducive to learning. While stopping harmful behaviors in kids is important, helping them learn why and how to regulate their own behavior is the better long-term approach.

Structure means understanding that learning takes time, kids' brains can't change overnight, and simply yelling, berating, or hitting cannot speed it up. It's far better to exercise consistency in your teaching, and better yet, to consistently model the behavior you want your children to learn.

"So if one thing we want them to learn is how to regulate their emotions, the last thing we should do is show them how to hit people," Durrant says.

Hitting is not part of a healthy tactile relationship. It's not like snuggling, holding hands, or breastfeeding.

It has never, ever been shown to do anything to improve the parent-child bond, and it is counterproductive for long-term learning. It's time to listen to the science and consider effective alternatives.

It may be harder during those moments of intense frustration, but a calm and loving approach is better for everyone in the long run.

You can watch the full "Good Morning Britain" interview below:

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The science of spanking: What happens to some spanked kids when they grow up?

The science of corporal punishment. With fact-checked facts and everything.

You know what the most annoying thing in the world is when you are a parent? Other people telling you what to do as if they know better.

Backseat parenting drives me crazy. Until I'm the one doing it. I have dear friends who spank their kids, and I always try to talk to them about the science of it. They always respond with, "I know what's best for my kids, just like you know what's best for yours." Which is exactly what I'd say if someone told me that I was doing it wrong. Every kid is different. Every kid has their needs.

However, during those discussions, I'd say there is science that backs up doing something other than spanking. They'd always ask for specifics. I never had them. Until now. So here's an infographic explaining what 36,000 people and 88 studies found.

The biggest takeaway for me? Even if you spank with control, discipline, and good intent, your kids are more likely to have depression and engage in aggressive behavior in adulthood.

For those of you who spank your kids, let me just declare: I am in no way attacking your parenting skills or blaming you for anything. Parenting is hard. I've wanted to spank my kids on numerous occasions. But learning about the science can help you in the future.

Maybe it's what you grew up with. Maybe it's what you have always known. But the science is hard to ignore. Take from it what you will, but just know I'm not here to judge you — I'm only here to ask you to consider an alternative.

I think we can all agree that we want what is best for our children.

From Your Site Articles

corporal punishment

New study shows spanking hurts kids' mental health and is less effective at teaching lessons

Why is it wrong to hit an adult or an animal but OK to spank a child?

Wales just made spanking illegal, joining more than 60 countries that have outlawed corporal punishment

The countries that banned spanking first are regularly rated among the happiest on Earth.

Research shows that spanking affects the brain in the same way as more severe forms of abuse.

We need to make sure parents are educated about parenting methods other than spanking.

A parenting expert said spanking is like breastfeeding. Science says that's nonsense.

"Good Morning Britain" recently hosted two parenting experts for a fiery debate on the topic of spanking as a form of punishment.

Studies on spanking show it has a negative effect on children.

If the science is so clear, why does physical punishment remain so prevalent?

Durrant suggests parents embrace the role of teacher and mentor rather than disciplinarian.

Hitting is not part of a healthy tactile relationship. It's not like snuggling, holding hands, or breastfeeding.

The science of spanking: What happens to some spanked kids when they grow up?

The science of corporal punishment. With fact-checked facts and everything.

You know what the most annoying thing in the world is when you are a parent? Other people telling you what to do as if they know better.

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