I could not disagree with this more. One of my children has sensory issues, is on the spectrum, and has problems controlling their emotions, and we’ve been able to help them without any physical harm learn to manage their feelings when they anger quickly or have the urge to be violent with another child (including their older sibling).

I don’t think spanking is ever warranted, and I’m shocked someone would recommend it.

> Research has long underscored the negative effects of spanking on children’s social-emotional development, self-regulation, and cognitive development, but new research, published this month, shows that spanking alters children’s brain response in ways similar to severe maltreatment and increases perception of threats.

> “The findings are one of the last pieces of evidence to make sense of the research of the last 50 years on spanking,” says researcher Jorge Cuartas, a Ph.D. candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, who coauthored the study with Katie McLaughlin, professor at the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. “We know that spanking is not effective and can be harmful for children’s development and increases the chance of mental health issues. With these new findings, we also know it can have potential impact on brain development, changing biology, and leading to lasting consequences.”

> Perhaps surprisingly, says Cuartas, spanking elicits a similar response in children’s brains to more threatening experiences like sexual abuse. “You see the same reactions in the brain,” Cuartas explains. “Those consequences potentially affect the brain in areas often engaged in emotional regulation and threat detection, so that children can respond quickly to threats in the environment.”

https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-knowledge/21/04/eff...

https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cdev.13...