Effects of Corporal Punishment on Children

Says who? I'm a Behavioral Programmer, clinically trained in the use of Behavior Modification/Management to address targeted inappropriate behaviors. I've seen the effect physical techniques have versus psychological techniques first hand. Physical pain only lasts a little while. Words can ring in your head forever.

Those techniques are psychologically damaging and to be used sparingly, lightly. and not at all in State Mental Health Facilities.

There's a tear in our society's fabric around parenting. Too many parents silently wish their kids didn't have phones, or play Roblox, or use Instagram, or ... the list goes on.

These same parents wish they were empowered to make their wishes come true. But they don't feel empowered.

A quick anecdote. We have a 5yo son whom we've decided to be withhold screens from for as long as humanly possible. This decision comes from lived experience with our other kids who are 8 and years older and not from having read a book or listening to podcasts. We've lived the nightmare once and hope to avoid it this time around.

Anyways, my son was at a playdate with a classmate of his which was supposed to be swimming outside. It wasn't long before his classmate kept asking his mom to go inside. Turns out, that classmate has some game console with Minecraft in the basement. Our son asked my wife if he could play play but sadly obliged to just watch. Now at home he says how badly he wants to play Minecraft.

What does this have to do with corporal punishment? I think video games and social media cause kids to be more self centered than if they spent the same time with other humans. And this leads to all sorts of behavioral challenges that parents feel ill equipped to handle.

I'm not saying corporal punishment is the answer. But neither is gentle parenting. I think many parents are looking for something that works.

Scientific Evidence Supports Customary and Backup (Conditional) Spanking by Parents: Update of Larzelere and Baumrind (2010) and Fuller (2009) Robert E Larzelere, Jason Fuller

2019, Session at the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts

Abstract This outline provides pincite references for research supporting appropriate disciplinary spanking, in contrast to the predominantly correlational evidence used to oppose all spanking by the APA and AAP. Two major publications in the past year showed that (1) the correlational evidence against customary spanking becomes trivial after adjusting for pre-existing child differences. Moreover, that trivial evidence can be either harmful or beneficial on average, depending upon the statistical method used to adjust for pre-existing differences. (2) The second recent publication shows that the evidence against customary spanking is identical to the apparent effects of most corrective actions when analyzed in the same way (e.g., longitudinal analyses controlling statistically for initial differences in the outcome). This is true whether the corrective actions are by parents (e.g., other disciplinary responses) or professionals (treatments for depression in women). The outline summarizes other meta-analyses ignored in scientific summaries used to oppose all spanking and evidence that back-up spanking and phased-out spanking result in better outcomes compared to never-spanked children.

No punishment, ever, of any sort.