Is corporal punishment really good? | International Day Against Hitting Children

Our life experience and most research results show that corporal punishment can make children "obedient immediately."

However, the devil lurks in this magical effect: if you beat them once, the child will be obedient; but if you beat them more than once, corporal punishment will slide into abuse.

Written by | Shuang Chenyue

I collapsed on a chair, sobbing feebly. This was the only time in my childhood that I remember being beaten to tears, and the strange thing was that I wasn't even crying because of the pain. The second lashing didn't hurt much either. Fear and shame seemed to have anesthetized me. I cried partly because I felt that this was what was expected of me, partly out of genuine remorse, but partly also out of a deeper grief that comes only with childhood and is not easy to explain: a sense of bleak loneliness and helplessness, a sense of being locked up not only in a hostile world but in a very evil world, a world whose rules were actually beyond my control.

——George Orwell, "Such a Happy Childhood"

Corporal punishment, or "disciplinary spanking" (related expressions include: Spank, Slap, Punching, Kicking), is generally defined as "the use of physical force to punish a child, with the purpose of causing pain rather than harm to the child, in order to correct or control the child's behavior" [1] . With the development of modern civilization, the world has paid more and more attention to the protection of children's rights. In 1989, leaders of countries around the world adopted the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which clearly stipulates: "States Parties shall ensure that no child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." In recent decades, many countries have successively enacted laws to prohibit corporal punishment of minors.

Despite this, countries around the world currently have different attitudes towards corporal punishment, which can be mainly divided into three categories: complete prohibition, partial permission and explicit permission.

The number of countries that have completely banned corporal punishment includes Denmark, Germany, Sweden and Norway. Before 1989, only Sweden (banned in 1979, the first in the world), Finland (1983) and Norway (1987) had issued bans. In 2020, Japan became the 58th country to completely ban corporal punishment of children.

The second type of attitude is to prohibit teachers from corporal punishment of students, but there is no requirement for parents to do so. Hong Kong, China has prohibited teachers from corporal punishment of students since 1990, mainland China has prohibited it since 1991, and Taiwan Province has prohibited any form of corporal punishment in schools since 2006.

Currently, the countries in the world that explicitly allow corporal punishment include the United States, Singapore and Australia, but there may be specific restrictions on the procedure, age and location of corporal punishment to prevent it from evolving into abuse. For example, 23 states in the United States limit corporal punishment of students to a maximum of five strokes on the buttocks with a small stool; Singapore allows schools to cane boys aged 6-19 who have committed serious offenses, but only six strokes at most; Australia has a special punishment room that uses different corporal punishments according to the specific violations.

We can see that the first countries to completely ban corporal punishment were economically developed and small countries such as Sweden, Finland and Norway in Northern Europe. These countries have also ranked among the top in the world in terms of national happiness in recent years. We still don’t know whether the development of Northern Europe and the happiness of the Nordic people are related to their ban on corporal punishment. However, is corporal punishment really a serious crime? If a child goes too far, can’t he be disciplined?

1

A beating will make them obey, but there are other costs

Although there are many reports online of children or teenagers committing suicide due to corporal punishment, most parents believe that these are just exceptions and that their children will not be so extreme and should be disciplined. After all, there are always times when children will not listen to reason. Aren’t there many people who thank their parents for their strict discipline when they grow up?

So, apart from changing their behavior and obeying the punisher, what impact will corporal punishment have on the emotional, intellectual and social development of minors who have experienced corporal punishment?

A classic meta-analysis published in 2002 gathered data from 88 studies related to corporal punishment [2] and found that corporal punishment experiences affect 11 important child behaviors and experiences, including potential ideal constructs and undesirable constructs of child development. The so-called construct refers to the developmental tendency of children. The ideal developmental tendency includes immediate obedience, internalization of moral sense, good parent-child relationship, and healthy psychological state; undesirable developmental tendencies generally include stronger aggressiveness, criminal and antisocial behavior, abuse of one's own children or spouse in the future, and victim mentality of being abused by one's own parents.

The main conclusion of this meta-analysis is that corporal punishment is significantly associated with a series of negative children's behaviors and experiences. In other words, corporal punishment has a significant negative impact on children's behaviors and experiences, which is not only short-term but also long-term; it affects not only the children themselves but also their relationship with the outside world.

Although corporal punishment can indeed make children "immediately obedient" (in fact, not all studies fully support this result), it is also associated with 10 undesirable constructs. For example, corporal punishment can damage the quality of parent-child relationships, undermine children's mental health, and enhance children's aggression and antisocial behavior. The most striking contrast is that immediate obedience is the most positive effect of corporal punishment-it is also the desired result of adults who impose corporal punishment, but physical abuse is a very negative experience. These two completely different constructs show the strongest correlation. In other words, children who have been corporally punished will firmly associate "obedience" with painful memories of being beaten. For them, obedience is painful. This is probably not the result that adults want.

The researchers specifically warned that although corporal punishment can indeed bring the benefit of "making children obey immediately in a short period of time", it can easily turn into physical abuse . In addition, when children are in danger, it may be necessary to use corporal punishment to make them obey immediately, but corporal punishment disciplines children by bringing them a sense of fear, which actually cannot help them internalize moral norms and social rules, nor can it help them achieve truly successful socialization.

In the past decade, many studies in this area have further detailed the harm that corporal punishment does to children's growth from the perspectives of mental health and behavior, cognition and social development.

A study published in 2015 [3] selected samples from multiple European countries and conducted a comprehensive assessment of the mental health of the subjects (children) by collecting data from children, parents and teachers. The results showed that frequent corporal punishment not only significantly increased the probability of children having external behavioral problems (such as conduct disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), but also more easily affected the individual's mental health, causing children to have negative psychological problems such as fear, anxiety and depression. Moreover, these negative effects are not alleviated by any differences in cultural background.

Other studies have also found [4-6] that corporal punishment increases the likelihood of suicide in adolescents [4] and affects children’s academic performance [5] . There is even a 2021 neuroscience study [6] that found that this negative experience also left a mark on children’s brain development: compared with children who were not spanked, spanked children showed stronger activation in multiple areas of the medial and lateral prefrontal cortex (the prefrontal cortex is the regulatory center for psychological functions such as cognition and emotion) when facing faces with fearful expressions. These results suggest that corporal punishment may be similar to more severe forms of abuse, changing an individual’s neural activity in response to environmental threats.

In addition, from the perspective of interpersonal communication, psychologists have also found that children who have experienced corporal punishment at home are more likely to be corporally punished by teachers or bullied by other classmates at school [5]. This seems to be a broken window effect, or a Chinese saying that "misfortunes never come alone." Moreover, corporal punishment can easily be passed down from generation to generation, that is, people who experienced corporal punishment as a child are more likely to use corporal punishment on their own children when they become parents.

2

Why can't you help but hit your children?

Although corporal punishment has far-reaching negative effects and many countries have enacted laws prohibiting corporal punishment, according to epidemiological research, at least 80% of parents around the world still use corporal punishment to discipline their children.[7] Why do parents “knowingly do something wrong”? What factors influence parents’ decision to corporally punish their children and the intensity of corporal punishment?

First, as mentioned above, if parents themselves were subjected to corporal punishment in their childhood, it is easy for them to educate their children in the same way when they grow up; the child's own situation and the parents' concept and attitude towards corporal punishment are also important. In every family, the attitude and norms of parents towards education may be related to many factors, such as social environment, national policies, cultural background and the quality of parent-child relationship.

The latest research in 2022 found that [7], parents of children who have any developmental, psychological-emotional, or academic disabilities, or who are considered to have disabilities by their parents, tend to believe that corporal punishment has a positive effect on their children. In other words, these parents believe that corporal punishment is good for their children, that it can correct their children's behavior patterns, help them study well, and make family relationships more harmonious (because the children are more obedient).

Some researchers have proposed a "process-context model" [2] to analyze the context in which corporal punishment occurs, as well as its direct and indirect effects on children. This model divides the context in which corporal punishment occurs into three levels:

1) the broadest socio-cultural context;

2) the relatively stable individual and relationship background of family members;

3) The interactional context in which corporal punishment occurs.

From these three levels, it is not difficult to find that the factors affecting corporal punishment are very complex . From the perspective of social-cultural background, local public policies and the family's socioeconomic status will affect parents' attitudes towards corporal punishment. For example, we often hear that adults in poorer families tend to beat their children more; if every household in the village beats their children, then corporal punishment is naturally normal. Individual and relationship backgrounds include the personality characteristics of parents and children. For example, the level of aggressiveness and attribution patterns of both parties will also affect the usual way of interaction during the education process. In the interaction process of specific events, factors such as the degree of emotional arousal and information awareness of both parties will affect the occurrence of corporal punishment and its effects (consequences).

The above analysis also specifically mentions the impact of the child's gender. Many studies have found that parents use corporal punishment more frequently and more severely in the process of educating boys. But is this because boys are inherently more aggressive, or is it because this kind of parenting model causes boys to encounter more brutal corporal punishment, thus developing more aggressiveness? This becomes a question similar to "which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

Process-Context Model of Corporal Punishment[2]

In addition, some studies have also emphasized that the age, education level, occupation type and psychological state of the caregiver can also affect the occurrence of corporal punishment [3] . Generally speaking, relatively young parents with low education levels and who are not engaged in professional or management positions are more likely to use corporal punishment in education. In 2015, a study surveyed 76 mothers and families from special backgrounds and compared the effects of six variables, namely ① social support, ② socioeconomic status, ③ depression, ④ self-efficacy, ⑤ child development knowledge and ⑥ history of postpartum depression, on maternal corporal punishment of their children [8]. Unlike the complex "process-context model", this study found that postpartum depression was the only variable that could significantly increase corporal punishment, and that "more likely to hit children" was very common among women at high risk of postpartum depression, indicating that the mother's emotional state is a key factor in determining whether corporal punishment is used. This result also suggests that it is very likely that "socioeconomic status" does not directly affect corporal punishment, but affects the occurrence and intensity of corporal punishment by acting on the psychological and emotional state of parents.

3

Parenting methods other than corporal punishment

In summary, we can see that corporal punishment is a way of parenting that is not worth the cost. It not only harms the child's physical and mental development, but also damages the parent-child relationship. So, besides corporal punishment, what other parenting methods are there?

Current developmental psychology divides the way families around the world raise children into four different parenting styles based on the two elements of "intimacy" and "rules" [9, 10] : authoritarian parenting, authoritative parenting, permissive parenting, and rejecting-neglecting parenting.

Specifically, these parenting styles differ in the following ways:

A. Authoritarian parents emphasize rules and neglect intimacy. They emphasize rules and parental authority, have extremely high expectations for their children, and establish very strict rules, requiring their children to be absolutely obedient. There is no room for discussion about various rules, and they are often enforced through punishment and threats.

B. Authoritative parents emphasize rules and also value intimacy. They have high standards, high expectations, and strict requirements for their children, which is similar to authoritarian parents, but authoritative parents also give their children a high degree of support and tolerance, making them feel respected and warm. This type of parents emphasizes reasoning and explanation, which can help children learn to anticipate the consequences of their behavior and learn to make rational decisions.

C. Permissive parents ignore rules and value intimacy. Permissive parents rarely set rules and let their children make their own decisions. Like authoritative parents, they care about their children and like to communicate with them, but the difference is that they do not believe that parents should intervene and guide their children too much. Instead, they advocate letting children take on most of the decision-making tasks and believe that children can learn what to do and what not to do from the consequences of their own behavior.

D. Neglectful parents ignore rules and intimacy. They are cold or indifferent to their children, paying little attention to their children's needs, sometimes to the point of outright neglect and abuse. Such parents often have great pressure in their lives and therefore do not have the time and energy to care for their children.

Children who grow up with different parenting styles usually have different personalities [10]. For example, children raised by authoritarian parents tend to be more anxious, insecure, and more likely to engage in antisocial behavior (this seems to overlap with the effects of corporal punishment). Children raised by authoritative parents are usually more confident, independent, and enthusiastic, and are generally more likely to have a happy and successful life. Children raised by permissive and laissez-faire parents tend to have less mature personalities and are more likely to be impulsive or dependent on others. Of course, for each family, due to differences in the personalities of the parents and their educational concepts, the parenting style of a particular family should be a mixture of two or more of these types.

In a family, rules and family affection should be equally important. There is no order without rules, but if there are only rules in the family and no intimacy and trust, the family cannot become a warm harbor. Therefore, for families who have enough time and energy to accompany their children, psychologists believe that the "authoritative" parenting style is more suitable for most children, because this type of parenting best represents the kind of enlightened and loving parents who can help children build a sense of inner security and personality integrity to the greatest extent, allowing children to fully develop their potential.

It takes ten years to grow a tree, and a hundred years to cultivate a person. Although education is a very complicated matter, and every child often has his or her own unique talents and temperament, the impact of corporal punishment often varies from person to person, and whether corporal punishment is appropriate may also vary from case to case. However, as the times progress, perhaps parents in the future will be able to look at the impact of corporal punishment more comprehensively and choose more gentle and flexible parenting methods.

References

How are parental practices and attitudes towards corporate punishment related to child academic, developmental, or psychological-emotional dysfunctioning? Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry, undefined(undefined), undefined. doi:10.1007/s00787-022-02061-z

[2] Gershoff Elizabeth Thompson.(2002). Corporal punishment by parents and associated child behaviors and experiences: a meta-analytic and theoretical review. Psychol Bull, 128(4), 539-79. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.128.4.539

[3] duRivage Nathalie., Keyes Katherine., Leray Emmanuelle., Pez Ondine., Bitfoi Adina., Koç Ceren., Goelitz Dietmar., Kuijpers Rowella., Lesinskiene Sigita., Mihova Zlatka., Otten Roy., Fermanian Christophe., Kovess-Masfety Viviane.(2015). Parental use of corporate punishment in Europe: intersection between public health and policy. PLoS One, 10(2), e0118059. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0118059

[4] Cramm Laura., Elgar Frank J., Pickett William.(2023). Corporal punishment bans and adolescent suicide rates: An international ecological study. Child Abuse Negl, 137(undefined), 106022. doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2023.10602

[5] Ferguson Christopher J.(2013). Spanking, corporal punishment and negative long-term outcomes: a meta-analytic review of longitudinal studies. Clin Psychol Rev, 33(1), 196-208. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2012.11.002

[6] Cuartas Jorge., Weissman David G., Sheridan Margaret A., Lengua Liliana., McLaughlin Katie A. (2021). Corporal Punishment and Elevated Neural Response to Threat in Children. Child Dev, 92(3), 821-832. doi:10.1111/cdev.13565

[7] Heekes Sasha-Lee., Kruger Chloe B., Lester Soraya N., Ward Catherine L.(2022). A Systematic Review of Corporal Punishment in Schools: Global Prevalence and Correlates. Trauma Violence Abuse, 23(1), 52-72. doi:10.1177/1524838020925787

[8] Knox Michele., Rosenberger Ryan., Sarwar Sajjad., Mangewala Vikas., Klag Natalie.(2015). History of postpartum depression and the odds of maternal corporal punishment. Fam Syst Health, 33(4), 395-9. doi:10.1037/fsh0000157

[9] Maccoby, EE, Martin, JA Socialization in the context of the family: parent-child interaction[J]. Handbook of child psychology : formerly Carmichael's Manual of child psychology / Paul H. Mussen, editor, 1983.

[10] Baumrind, D. The Influence of Parenting Style on Adolescent Competence and Substance Use[J]. 11(1):56-95.

Produced by: Science Popularization China

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