Spanking is bad in the long term

With three wild boys in my house, we have enough hitting and pushing. We don't need to add spanking to the list. I don't think spanking is always sooo bad, but it's not something we do. How about you? Do you spank your kids to get them to behave?

FROM MSNBC: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.

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

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Do You Spank Your Kids?

I know this is a touchy subject. I was surprised to read this story that says the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends NOT spanking kids, but MOST U.S. parents approve of spanking. Is that really true? Do you spank your kids? Do your friends spank their kids?

FROM NBC: A study out of Tulane University finds spanking children at age three increases the chance they'll behave aggressively once they reach kindergarten. A survey of nearly 25 hundred mothers found those who reported spanking their children more than twice in the past month had more aggressive five year-olds.

The aggression remained even after the researchers accounted for other influential factors -- like alcohol use at home and stressed parents. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends against spanking, although most U.S. parents approve of spanking as a form of punishment.

FROM TIMES NEWS LINE: Many parents continue to give corporal punishment to their kids in spite of contrary advice from American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centre for Effective discipline. In fact a 2005 survey reveals that 72% of parents believed that it is acceptable to spank their kids.

Although the new study doesn't prove that corporal punishment causes aggression by itself, it shows that the link remains even after excluding a broad range of possible explanations.

"That is really a key point that sets the study apart," said Catherine A. Taylor, of Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans, who led the research, published in the journal Pediatrics. Examination of earlier data from population based study of families showed that nearly half of the children were categorized as “higher aggression” while the other half was categorized as “lower aggression”.

More than half of the nearly 2,500 kids had been spanked in the month before the interview. And those who had been swatted more than twice at age three had twice as high odds of being highly aggressive at age five.

A recent American Psychological Association division task force that was chaired by Graham Bermann of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor where she defined spanking as open-handed hitting that does not injure the child –but makes them do what they are told in the short run. Psychologists on the other hand recommend time outs and other types of non physical punishments.

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

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Is Yelling the new Spanking?

How many times a week do you yell at your kids? Some experts say yelling is the new spanking. Many parents these days have chosen not to spank after several studies showing it causes psychological damage. Does yelling do the same thing? If so, I'm in trouble. I do try not to scream at the kids, but it happens sometimes. I don't believe any parent who says time outs always do the trick. However, after reading this article, I will pay closer attention to how loud I am disciplining the kids. I won't aim for "never" yelling, but I will certainly think about it and step out of the room more often.

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES:Numerous studies exist on the effect of corporal punishment on children. A new one came out just last month. Led by a researcher at Duke University’s Center for Child and Family Policy, the study concluded that spanking children when they are very young (1-year-old) can slow their intellectual development and lead to aggressive behavior as they grow older. But there is far less data on the more common habit of shouting and screaming in families.

One study that did take a look at the topic — a paper on the “psychological aggression by American parents” published in the Journal of Marriage and Family in 2003 — found that parental yelling was a near-universal occurrence. Of 991 families interviewed, in 88 percent of them a parent acknowledged shouting, screaming or yelling at the kids at least once (though it didn’t specify how many did it more often) in the previous year.

“We are so accustomed to this that we just think parents get carried away and that it’s not harmful,” said one of the study’s lead authors, Murray A. Straus, a sociologist who is a director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire. “But it affects a child. If someone yelled at you at work, you’d find that pretty jarring. We don’t apply that standard to children.”

Psychologists and psychiatrists generally say yelling should be avoided. It’s at best ineffective (the more you do it the more the child tunes it out) and at worse damaging to a child’s sense of well-being and self-esteem.

“It isn’t the yelling per se that’s going to make a difference, it’s how the yelling is interpreted,” said Ronald P. Rohner, director of the Ronald and Nancy Rohner Center for the Study of Interpersonal Acceptance and Rejection at the University of Connecticut. If a parent is simply loud, he says, the effect is minimal. But if the tone connotes anger, insult or sarcasm, it can be perceived as a sign of rejection.

Professor Rohner noted that while spanking is considered taboo by the major medical and psychological associations, there are still some religious and conservative groups who support it as an effective disciplinary tool, believing that the Bible explicitly allows it.
-NewsAnchorMom Jen

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Spanking Children

Will new research on the negative impact of spanking change your discipline routine?

From ABC: Spanking children could teach them to be more violent, according to new research. Mothers who spanked their children even occasionally were more likely to report aggressive behavior in their kids.

In surveys, nearly all adults remember being spanked as children. And the cycle continues, as most admit they spank their kids at least occasionally. Parents spank kids because they lose their tempers, experts say, but also because spanking works in the short-term to get a child's attention. But new research finds spanking has long-term negative effects on children's behavior.

Researchers studied more than 3,300 American mothers & toddlers and found that kids who were spanked tended to be more aggressive. Mothers reported how often their children engaged in behaviors such as hitting, getting into fights, or not getting along with other kids. Results showed that kids who were spanked several times in the last month were 40 percent more likely to display aggressive behaviors. Those spanked less frequently were still rated as 17 per cent more aggressive than their peers.

Experts say that - instead of spanking -- parents should distract infants and young toddlers away from unwanted behaviors, and use time outs or denying of privileges to discipline older children.

Source: presented at the 2008 American Public Health Association meeting in San Diego

Do you spank your children? Why or Why not?

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

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