There’s an article in SelfhelpMagazine that deserves some discussion. It’s about spanking children - which is an issue that was near and dear to me as a child (because I was beaten frequently) and also because it’s an incredible meta-analysis of over 88 other studies. A meta-analysis looks at a group of studies in a topic area, and tries to combine results when techniques used and outcomes achieved are similar across all the studies.

It’s by Elizabeth Thompson Gershoff, Ph.D. and get this - she included 62 years of collected data!! Who does that these does with the limited funding we have for research??

Anyways, she looked for associations between parental use of corporal punishment a bunch of behaviors and experiences, during both childhood and adulthood.

I won’t repeat the whole thing here, except to say the article is worth a read, and it’s here in the magazine: [www.selfhelpmagazine.com]

She basically says that there are various types of corporeal punchishment, from taps to harsh and even violent beatings, so all these studies couldn’t have measured the same degree of physical contact, but given all that, across the board, concluded that the two biigest things that come out of corporal punishment are:

* immediate compliance by the child and
* physical abuse of the child by the parent

The author then says that the degree of difference between these two findings (one really good and the other really bad) accounts for “the complexity of the debate around corporal punishment.”

She also says that different things can reduce the harm of corporeal punishment, like the parent/child relationship, and that the “frequency and severity of the corporal punishment makes a difference”, in that “the more often or more harshly a child was hit, the more likely they are to be aggressive or to have mental health problems.”

The author summarized what she found in the literature and why it may be bad for children:

* For one, corporal punishment on its own does not teach children right from wrong.
* Secondly, although it makes children afraid to disobey when parents are present, when parents are not present to administer the punishment those same children will misbehave.

The article then quotes an exchange that the author has with other authors, Baumrind and her team, who believe in, “mild to moderate disciplinary spanking.” Baurmrind also said: “The fact that some parents punish excessively and unwisely is not an argument, however, for counseling all parents not to punish at all.”

In her reply to Baumrind et al., Gershoff argued that “excessive corporal punishment is more likely to be underreported than overreported….”

“Until researchers, clinicians, and parents can definitively demonstrate the presence of positive effects of corporal punishment, including effectiveness in halting future misbehavior, not just the absence of negative effects, we as psychologists can not responsibly recommend its use,” Gershoff wrote.

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What do I think? I have avoided it successfully with my children and they turned out really well. Then again, they were easy tempered and listened well. It took more than a little patience on my part, especially when they were small. It is so easy to just slap them when they are defiant or have their hands into everything. But I was hurt so badly by both my parents that I swore I wouldn’t ever strike my own children, and I’m proud to say I haven’t!

What do you think?

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