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 Since 1988, the proportion of middle-income mothers who think
physical punishment is appropriate has dropped from 46 percent to 21
percent, the study found.
Over that same time, the share of mothers endorsing time-outs surged
from 41 percent to 81 percent.
“Support for corporal punishment has been falling at least since the
1990s, in part due to social science research that suggests spanking
is linked to negative outcomes for children like delinquency,
antisocial behavior, psychological problems, and alcohol and drug
abuse,” said lead study author Rebecca Ryan, a psychology researcher
at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
“There is also little evidence that spanking or other forms of
physical discipline are effective in the long term at reducing
unwanted child behaviors or encouraging children to internalize – to
really believe in – parents’ rules,” Ryan added by email.
To examine trends in child discipline over time, researchers
examined data from four surveys of caregivers of kindergarten-aged
children conducted between 1988 and 2011.
Spanking and other forms of corporal punishment declined across all
income and education levels during the study period, researchers
report in Pediatrics, online November 14th.
Across all income levels, the percentage of mothers saying they
would hit or spank their child in response to misbehavior dropped by
20 to 26 percent.
The percentages of mothers reporting that they had spanked or hit
their child within the past week also decreased for all income
levels by 26 to 40 percent.
During the later years of the study, at least since 1998, the
differences between higher and lower income parents in their use of
time-outs have shrunk.
However, almost one-third of the lowest-income mothers in the study
said they endorse physical discipline and roughly one in four of
them report doing this at least once in the past week.
One limitation of the study is that it included a large proportion
of lower-income participants, which may have led researchers to
underestimate differences in discipline approaches by income level,
the authors note.
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The study also relied on mothers to accurately describe their
approach to discipline, excluding fathers, who may be more likely to
favor a physical approach to punishment, the authors note.
Even so, the findings mirror other research documenting a decline in
maltreatment and physical abuse of children since 1990, which
suggests the changes in behavior reported over time most likely
reflect an actual reduction.
When it comes to discipline, non-physical discipline is far better
than the alternative because it helps children learn what they
should and should not do all of the time instead of just forcing
them to stop what they are doing in one particular moment, said Dr.
Heidi Feldman, a researcher in developmental and behavioral
pediatrics at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California who wrote
an accompanying editorial.
It’s also safer to refrain from spanking and other types of corporal
punishment because this is linked to lower odds of physical abuse,
Feldman added by email.
“Physical discipline teaches that violence is acceptable,” Feldman
said.
“Non-physical discipline is compassionate: children are
inexperienced in the world,” she continued. “Many times their
misbehavior arises from poor control of their behavior or emotions.
They need our understanding and education. Discipline is education.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2eySDzF
Pediatrics 2016.
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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