[andyt]

Spanking or slapping your child has long-term, harmful effects on their development, according to a new review of 20 years of research.
Over the past two decades, research has increasingly found links between such "everyday" types of physical punishment and higher levels of child aggression, according to the review. In fact, no studies have found this type of child discipline to predict a positive long-term effect.
"I think it's important for parents to understand that although physical punishment might get a child to do something in the immediate situation, there are many side effects that can develop over the long term," said co-author Joan Durrant, a child clinical psychologist at Family Social Sciences at the University of Manitoba in Canada.
"For example, the more often a child sees a parent respond to conflict or frustration with slapping or spanking, the more likely that child will do the same when confronting their own conflicts," Durrant said.
The review is published today (Feb. 6) in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Some parents still use spanking for discipline
One recent poll found that 22 percent of parents reported being "very likely" to spank their children, but most said they disciplined their kids in other ways, by taking away privileges or putting them in "time out."
In one U.S. study, researchers looked at 2,400 mothers who spanked their 3-year-olds twice the previous month, and found that children had an increased risk for higher levels of aggression when they were 5 years old.
"In the U.S., physical punishment is such an entrenched part of the culture that virtually no one has experienced growing up without it," Durrant said. "This situation makes it difficult for parents to visualize raising a child without it."
Durrant also pointed out that a major factor could be that some parents have little knowledge or understanding of why children behave like they do.
"They are more likely to believe that their child is being defiant or intentionally bad, but in most cases, children are simply doing what is normal for their development," she said.
Start early with positive discipline
Based on years of research, however, more and more doctors are encouraging parents to discipline their children with positive, nonviolent approaches.
"Parents should start out really young — as early as 12 months old," said Kimberly Sirl, a clinical psychologist at St. Louis Children's Hospital, who was not involved with the research.
"Kids have to learn how to cope with frustration, how to share and how to be patient," Sirl said. "Parents teach them how to do that."
For example, Sirl said that toddlers say no to everything, so the best thing to do when they're acting out is either ignore them briefly (for roughly 10 seconds) or redirect their negative behavior.
"If you want to encourage good behavior, provide them with reward or praise," she said.
Instead of saying, "do this [be]cause I told you so," Sirl said, it's best to explain to kids why there are rules.
"We should let them know that grownups have to follow rules too," she said. "Essentially, time out for grownups is called jail."

[andyt]

Quote:

"Kids have to learn how to cope with frustration, how to share and how to be patient," Sirl said. "Parents teach them how to do that."

First we have to teach a lot of parents how to do that for themselves.

[Brenda]

Quote:

In one U.S. study, researchers looked at 2,400 mothers who spanked their 3-year-olds twice the previous month, and found that children had an increased risk for higher levels of aggression when they were 5 years old.

I'm thinking that the fact these kids need to be spanked twice a month is more the reason for the "higher level of aggression" than anything else.

Also, "2400 spanked their kids the previous month" and thus the kids have an "increased risk when they are 5"?? Really? They are 3 now. How can you "find" what they are going to be like when they are 5, if you don't also look at character?

[andyt]

Brenda wrote:

Also, "2400 spanked their kids the previous month" and thus the kids have an "increased risk when they are 5"?? Really? They are 3 now. How can you "find" what they are going to be like when they are 5, if you don't also look at character?

eh?

[OnTheIce]

I wonder if it took into real issues such as lack of mother or father, compared to just spanking.

[andyt]

Brenda wrote:

Quote:

In one U.S. study, researchers looked at 2,400 mothers who spanked their 3-year-olds twice the previous month, and found that children had an increased risk for higher levels of aggression when they were 5 years old.

I'm thinking that the fact these kids need to be spanked twice a month is more the reason for the "higher level of aggression" than anything else.

Also, "2400 spanked their kids the previous month" and thus the kids have an "increased risk when they are 5"?? Really? They are 3 now. How can you "find" what they are going to be like when they are 5, if you don't also look at character?

Brenda, they're not 3 now. They were assessed at 5, and compared to kids that didn't get spanked, presumably. You have to remember this is a reporters regurgitation of a particular study, as an example. What the meta analysis (ie the study in question) found is "In fact, no studies have found this type of child discipline to predict a positive long-term effect."

[andyt]

Here's a different report of the same study, You can't access the study itself unless you have a subscription to CMAJ:

Quote:

Spanking makes children more aggressive and should be made illegal, a newly released report suggests.

The Canadian Medical Association Journal released a report Monday detailing two decades of research pointing to that conclusion.

Joan Durrant of the University of Manitoba and Ron Ensom of the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa, authors of the report, say the federal government should remove section 43 from the criminal code which allows physical punishment in certain circumstances. This section was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2004.

"No study has ever found physical punishment to have a longterm positive effect," Durrant and Ensom said.

The two point to research, including a study designed to reduce difficult behaviour in children, in which researchers found that families that reduced their use of physical punishment saw a decline in aggression and anti-social behaviour in their children.

Images of children's brains gathered in another study suggested that physical punishment may change areas in the brain connected to performance on IQ tests and could increase a child's vulnerability to drug and alcohol dependence.

A 2000 Canadian study found that children who were spanked were seven times more likely to be assaulted by their parents.

"The evidence is clear and compelling - physical punishment of children and youth plays no useful role in their upbringing," Durrant and Ensom said in The Joint Statement on Physical Punishment of Children and Youth, which was endorsed by more than 400 organizations.

Andrea Mrozek, manager of research at the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, is concerned by Durrant and Ensom's conclusions.

"I'm concerned that the studies they examined correlate abuse and spanking and say that those are the same things," she said.

"Those are not the same things. They are distinct. Because you have loving parents across this country who discipline their children with one on the bottom in the appropriate age range . . .

They are not abusing their kids." Mrozek says banning spanking could criminalize regular parents.

"I'm not an advocate for spanking, I'm an advocate for parents who know their children well and can decide," she said.

"Within one family you may have one child for whom spank-ing is an appropriate use of discipline and one child for whom it is not."

Durrant and Ensom's report points to 31 countries that have already banned physical punishment for children, including Germany, Sweden and New Zealand.

New Zealand established a ban on physical punishment in 2007. The country held a referendum in 2009 which resulted in a majority of voters calling for the ban to be overturned.

The New Zealand government upheld the ban.

Durrant and Ensom say legislation is not all that is needed. They say that education and support for parents could reduce the use of physical punishment.

[BartSimpson]

Some kids just need a spanking. Others, like this one, need to be put down...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... tional_pop

[raydan]

The thing is, for this study to be valid, each child would have to have himself as the control... which is impossible. Nothing proves that the spanking caused the aggression... that the child would have been less aggressive without the spankings.

[Brenda]

raydan wrote:

The thing is, for this study to be valid, each child would have to have himself as the control... which is impossible. Nothing proves that the spanking caused the aggression... that the child would have been less aggressive without the spankings.

That was exactly my point. You just worded it WAY better

[DrCaleb]

raydan wrote:

The thing is, for this study to be valid, each child would have to have himself as the control... which is impossible. Nothing proves that the spanking caused the aggression... that the child would have been less aggressive without the spankings.

It was Tomatoes. At some point in the study, the child ate tomatoes, which made them agressive. Not all, just the ones who ate more tomatoes than the others.

[BartSimpson]

DrCaleb wrote:

raydan wrote:

The thing is, for this study to be valid, each child would have to have himself as the control... which is impossible. Nothing proves that the spanking caused the aggression... that the child would have been less aggressive without the spankings.

It was Tomatoes. At some point in the study, the child ate tomatoes, which made them agressive. Not all, just the ones who ate more tomatoes than the others.

Global warming causes childhood aggression. It's warmer. right? Kids are more aggressive, right? So there.

People like to assign causality to anything they think they can actually control because it makes them feel a little more powerful in a world that daily demonstrates its contempt for the hubris of man.

[Brenda]

BartSimpson wrote:

DrCaleb wrote:

raydan wrote:

The thing is, for this study to be valid, each child would have to have himself as the control... which is impossible. Nothing proves that the spanking caused the aggression... that the child would have been less aggressive without the spankings.

It was Tomatoes. At some point in the study, the child ate tomatoes, which made them agressive. Not all, just the ones who ate more tomatoes than the others.

Global warming causes childhood aggression. It's warmer. right? Kids are more aggressive, right? So there.

People like to assign causality to anything they think they can actually control because it makes them feel a little more powerful in a world that daily demonstrates its contempt for the hubris of man.

I figured it was the colour of the socks they were wearing. Yellow socks makes everyone who has to wear them aggressive, no?

[Psudo]

Children raised with spanking are more prone to act in more physically aggressive ways. Clearly this is harmful and must be stopped.

Children raised by gay parents are more prone to act in more sexually experimental ways. Clearly this is entirely acceptable and harmless.

Maybe we don't agree what "harm" is.

[BartSimpson]

Brenda wrote:

I figured it was the colour of the socks they were wearing. Yellow socks makes everyone who has to wear them aggressive, no?

True. When I've been made to wear yellow socks I've had the irresistible compulsion to aggressively seek out and destroy vast quantities of Scotch.