That’s especially worrying when you consider almost half of American parents admitted to spanking their kids in 2015.
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Researchers looked at 50 years of data from 75 different studies involving more than 160,000 children and determined that spanking children actually makes them more likely to act up again.
According to a story published on the topic by Science Daily, “The more children are spanked, the more likely they are to defy their parents and to experience increased anti-social behavior, aggression, mental health problems and cognitive difficulties, according to a new meta-analysis of 50 years of research on spanking by experts at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of MI”.
Another child development expert said the study findings, based on an analysis of five decades of research, should give parents pause when it comes to corporal punishment.
A University of Texas at Austin and University of MI study has confirmed what child psychologists have been saying for years: Spanking is bad for kids. People usually indulge in spanking when they want to punish their children for misconduct.
A recent study found that spanking increases the levels of mental issues, aggression and reduced cognitive capacity in the child.
Spanking, as further explained by Gershoff, is related to the similar negative child outcomes like the physical abuse, with a mildly lesser degree, despite how the society view it and the abuse as separate behaviors.
A 2014 UNICEF study found that about 80 percent of parents spank their children worldwide. In turn, “that reduction in spanking predicts less child behavior problems”, Gershoff said.
There’s “no evidence that spanking is associated with improved child behavior”, a report by Vox on the new analysis, first published in Journal of Family Psychology, reads. The results indicated that 13 out of the 17 negative outcomes were somehow related to spanking.
When parents spank their children, they’ll often tell them, “This hurts me more than it hurts you”.
Spanking was found to be related to unintentional detrimental results and was not connected to long-term or more immediate compliance, which are the parents’ intentional results when disciplining their children.
Do you approve of spanking children?
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Advocates contend that spanking is an effective form of discipline, using the reasoning that they were spanked as children and turned out fine. He also suggested parents consult with their pediatrician, who knows their child, for other ideas.
