Spanking Children Does More Harm Than Good, Says Study

Parents who firmly believe in the maxim “spare the rod and spoil the child” will be in for a big surprise by the findings of a new study by the researchers from Universities of Texas and Michigan.

An irate parent, in a bid to instill discipline and as a befitting measure of reprimanding, often resorts to spanking an unruly child. But, according to the latest study, such methods could badly impact the child in the long run, making them more aggressive and defiant. It says that rather than growing up to be a disciplined person, such a child may develop mental health conditions.

Smacking children would only alienate them further and they would certainly grow up to become an enfant terrible, the study published in the April 2016 issue of the journal Family Psychology says.

The investigators based their study on researches done over five decades involving more than 160,000 children. They specifically looked at spanking and did not club it with other forms of punishments.

“Our analysis focuses on what most Americans would recognize as spanking and not on potentially abusive behaviors,” said Elizabeth Gershoff, lead author of the study, and an associate professor of human development and family sciences at the University of Texas, in a press release. “We found that spanking was associated with unintended detrimental outcomes and was not associated with more immediate or long-term compliance, which are parents’ intended outcomes when they discipline their children.”

The authors felt that frequent spanking of children leads to aggression, mental health issues and more chances of those kids defying their parents and developing cognitive difficulties. They are also more likely to exhibit anti-social behaviors.

Co-author Andrew Grogan-Kaylor, an associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work, said, “The upshot of the study is that spanking increases the likelihood of a wide variety of undesired outcomes for children. Spanking thus does the opposite of what parents usually want it to do.”

The researchers studied many adults who were spanked as children and looked at a wide range of studies to arrive at the conclusion. What they noted is that as many as 80 percent of parents spank their children worldwide as per a 2014 UNICEF report.

Findings

Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor unveiled several negative outcomes of spanking a child. Adults who were subjected to frequent spankings as children are also likely to do the same with their own children and support physical punishment. They found that spanking never elicited any clear evidence of positive effects, and contrarily it poses a risk of harm to children’s behavior and development.

Spanking might develop into serious mental health issues in the children when they grow up. Though mental health disorders are curable in top centers like the mental health facilities in California, spanking a child leading to mental problems is the last thing a parent would want. Even the Los Angeles County mental health services are against spanking or any other form of corporal punishment to the children.

“We as a society think of spanking and physical abuse as distinct behaviors,” said Gershoff. “Yet our research shows that spanking is linked with the same negative child outcomes as abuse, just to a slightly lesser degree,” she added.

No child should be meted out with corporal punishment. In the interest of the child’s all-round development, parents must do away with spanking. “We hope that our study can help educate parents about the potential harms of spanking and prompt them to try positive and non-punitive forms of discipline,” Gershoff said.

If a loved one is suffering from any mental health issue, Sovereign Mental Health Services can help tackle it. Call at our 24/7 helpline number 866–954–0529 for immediate assistance.