Physical Punishment (Including Spankings) No Good in Child Care
“Physical punishment of children, such as spanking, is increasingly linked with long-term adverse consequences, researchers wrote.
An analysis of research conducted since the 1990 adoption of the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child suggests that no studies have found positive consequences of physical punishment, according to Joan Durrant, PhD, of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, and Ron Ensom, MSW, of the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa.
While some studies have found little effect either way, most research has uncovered a range of negative outcomes, including increased aggression and later delinquency, Durrant and Ensom wrote online in CMAJ.
The clinical implication, they suggested, is that doctors who are familiar with the research can help parents find more constructive ways of providing discipline.
‘In doing so, physicians strengthen child well-being and parent–child relationships at the population level,’ they wrote.
They noted that as recently as 1992, physical punishment of children was widely accepted, thought of as distinct from abuse, and considered “appropriate” as a way of eliciting desired behavior.
But research under way at that time was beginning to draw links between physical punishment and aggression in childhood, later delinquency, and spousal assault.
One important question was the direction of causality: Did aggressive, difficult children get punished or did punishment lead to aggression?
Large prospective studies in the mid- to-late 1990s, controlling for children’s antisocial behavior and a host of other possible confounders, showed that physical punishment predicted later antisocial behavior.”
