Study Shows Link Between Spanking And Physical Abuse
Posted on Aug 22, 2008 | Comments 2
Spanking has been, and still is, a common method of child discipline used by American parents.
But mothers who report that they or their partner spanked their child in the past year are nearly three times more likely to state that they also used harsher forms of punishment than those who say their child was not spanked, according to a new study led by the Injury Prevention Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Such punishments included behaviors considered physically abusive by the researchers, such as beating, burning, kicking, hitting with an object somewhere other than the buttocks, or shaking a child less than 2 years old.
“In addition, increases in the frequency of spanking are associated with increased odds of abuse, and mothers who report spanking on the buttocks with an object such as a belt or a switch are nine times more likely to report abuse, compared to mothers who report no spanking with an object,” said Adam J. Zolotor, M.D., the study’s lead author.
Although some surveys show evidence of a modest decline in spanking over the last 30 years, recent surveys show that up to 90 percent of children between the ages of 3 and 5 years are spanked by their parents at least occasionally.
Zolotor and his co-authors conducted an anonymous telephone survey on parenting of a probability sample of 1,435 mothers in North Carolina and South Carolina in 2002.
Forty-five percent of the mothers reported that they or their partner had spanked their child in the previous 12 months and 25 percent reported spanking with an object on the buttocks.
Read more at Medical News Today
Related Posts:
Posted in: Discipline
It makes sense that parents who spank would be more likely to use other physical forms of punishment. I don’t think that because you may spank, however, that this automatically makes you an abuser. I think that if spanking is the main disciplining tool in your arsenal, then you’d definitely be more likely to escalate into more physical forms of punishment. However, I don’t think that parents who occasionally use spanking and rely instead on other non-physical forms of discipline, like timeouts, would be just as likely to escalate into abuse. There is really great debate going on right now regarding spanking at http://www.opposingviews.com/questions/is-spanking-an-acceptable-form-of-discipline. Experts from both sides make some interesting points and provide rebuttals to the other side’s arguments. Really thought-provoking read!
Child buttock-battering for the purpose of gaining compliance is nothing more than an inherited bad habit.
Its a good idea for people to take a look at what they are doing and learn how to DISCIPLINE instead of hit.
I think the reason why television shows like “Supernanny” and “Dr. Phil” are so popular is because that is precisely what many (not all) people are trying to do.
There are several reasons why child buttock-battering isn’t a good idea. Here are some good, quick reads recommended by professionals:
Plain Talk About Spanking
by Jordan Riak
The Sexual Dangers of Spanking Children
by Tom Johnson
NO VITAL ORGANS THERE, So They Say
by Leslie Taylor M.D. and Adah Maurer Ph.D.