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 Researchers examined data on report card release dates at elementary
schools and 1,943 cases of physical abuse called into a child abuse
hotline over one academic year and verified by Florida's child
welfare agency.
Abuse cases were more than three times more likely to happen on
Saturdays after a report-card Friday than on Saturdays when children
hadn't gotten their grades the day before, the study found. The
spike in abuse only appeared when report cards came home on Fridays,
not when kids received them on other days of the week.
"Our hypothesis is that Fridays are substantively different than
weekdays for most families and that these conditions may increase
the chances of physical abuse if report cards are added to the mix,"
said lead study author Melissa Bright of the University of Florida
in Gainesville.
The study wasn't designed to prove whether or how the timing of
report cards might influence child abuse. Furthermore, the
researchers had very little verified abuse data to work with. Out of
167,906 calls to the child abuse hotline involving kids from five to
11 years old, only about one percent were verified instances of
physical abuse.
But Fridays might be the worst timing because parents have higher
levels of stress after a full work week, or because parents may
choose to drink alcohol or use drugs on Friday evenings but not
during the work week, Bright said by email. Some parents may also
consider the potential for being caught before being physically
violent with kids, Bright added.
"To the extent that our findings are indicative of corporal
punishment turned into physical abuse, it may be that parents choose
to use corporal punishment more - or to use more severe punishment -
on days when their children will not be exposed to mandated child
abuse reporters such as teachers at school," Bright said.
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More than half of parents report using corporal punishment for
children younger than 10 years old, and most parents do so for
children from two to eight years old, researchers note in JAMA
Pediatrics. Corporal punishment is legal in the U.S. and may result
in pain, but it's considered abuse when it causes injuries.
While abuse might be motivated by poor grades or behavior at school,
kids who are abused are also more likely than other children to
struggle with academics and attention as well as emotional and
behavioral problems, the authors note.
In Florida for the school year studied, report cards were most
likely to come home on Friday, followed by Thursday.
It's possible that what happens in Florida isn't representative of
what might happen elsewhere in the country.
Still, parents need to understand spanking doesn't improve kids
grades or behavior, and often has the opposite effect, said Dr.
Antoinette Laskey of the University of Utah School of Medicine in
Salt Lake City, who wrote an editorial published with the study.
"Spanking also has a significant negative effect on the parent-child
relationship," Laskey said by email. "Parents would do better to
understand why their child is struggling in school and seek to
address that issue as opposed to instilling fear of consequences for
bad grades."
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2A0eUiE JAMA Pediatrics, online December 17,
2018.
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