Must-Read Research for Anyone Who Spanks Their Children

“Societies that ban these punishments appear to be safer places for children,” said the study’s lead author, Frank Elgar, an associate professor at McGill University’s Institute for Health and Social Policy.

“The results are really plausible,” said pediatrician Dr. Robert Sege, who was not involved in the study. Dr. Sege is a professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine.

Many people believe that physical punishment is necessary to “teach children right from wrong, and if we don't use it, children will become disorganized,” Sege said.

Differential impact between boys and girls

According to Elgar, the study is one of the “largest cross-national analyses of youth violence” to date.

The analysis used data from two global surveys, the Health Behaviours of School-Aged Children Survey and the Global School Health Survey. Researchers interviewed children aged 13 to 17 about a range of social and health topics, including sexual behaviour, alcohol, drugs, tobacco and violence. Similar studies from other countries were also reviewed.

When asked, “In the past 12 months, how many times have you been in a fight?” Frequency was considered four or more times in a 12-month period.

Elgar and his team collected more than 400,000 responses from minors in 88 countries, including those that completely, partially, or do not ban spanking or other punishments.

Corporal punishment is defined as the use of physical force by an adult to “correct or control” a child’s behavior. Punishment in this study was also defined as “inflicting pain but not causing injury.”

Of the 88 countries surveyed, 30 have completely banned corporal punishment, both in schools and at home. These include New Zealand, Iceland, Portugal, Spain, and several Scandinavian, Central American, and South American countries.

38 countries including the US, UK, Canada have partial bans, specifically such punishments are only banned in schools.

Another 20 countries, including Israel, Egypt and several African countries, did not ban corporal punishment at the time of the study. “Boys in countries with a complete ban had a 69% lower rate of violence than those in countries without a ban,” Elgar said. “For girls, the gap was even greater – 42%.”

The lowest rates of violence were in Costa Rica, Portugal, Finland, Honduras, Spain, New Zealand and Sweden, respectively.

Countries with partial bans did not see a reduction in violence among boys, Dr Elgar said. However, girls appeared to use more emotional and social bullying tactics than physical ones.

Researchers also looked at the overall impact of violence in society by examining homicide rates, school gun bans, parent education programs, and child abuse home visitation programs, but found no impact.

They hypothesized that richer countries would have less child violence, but the results were surprising.

“Bans and levels of violence among children have nothing to do with a country’s wealth. Some very low-income countries have relatively benign environments, while some richer countries like the US, UK and Canada do not.”

One of the limitations of the study is the “chicken and egg” problem: Does banning corporal punishment lead to lower rates of violence among children? Or do countries with lower rates of violence among children tend to have bans? This question needs to be addressed in future research.

The effects of corporal punishment

Spanking and other forms of corporal punishment are legal and socially acceptable in many countries.

Worldwide, nearly 300 million children between the ages of 2 and 4 regularly receive physical punishment from their parents or caregivers, according to a 2017 UNICEF report.

In the US, a 2011 study found that 70% of mothers said they still spank their toddlers. Previous studies have found that 80% of American children say they are spanked by fifth grade.

Part of the reason for the continued use of corporal punishment in the United States is that many Americans believe it is harmless and necessary in raising children, experts say.

A 2015 study called Child Trends found that 76% of American men and two-thirds of American women agree that “sometimes it is necessary to discipline children with severe punishment.”

Globally, about 1.1 billion caregivers see physical punishment as necessary to raise and educate a child, according to UNICEF data.

However, a growing body of research suggests that the end results of corporal punishment may not be positive.

“Disciplining a child is about teaching the child how to self-regulate when the parent is not around,” says Dr. Sege. “Spanking doesn’t do that.”

A meta-analysis of 75 studies on spanking found that the practice was partly responsible for children's aggression, mental health problems, low self-esteem, and antisocial behavior, which then carried into adulthood.

Other studies have found that children who are physically punished also have learning and cognitive problems and are more likely to be violent toward women later in life.

According to this new study, “when parents and schools show signs of violence, children will increase their tendency to be violent,” Dr. Sege said.

“I hope that studies like this will convince people who still spank or use other physical punishment to realize that it is not necessary to raise well-behaved children.”

Nguyen Thao