The case against physical punishment
Section snippets
Background and introduction
The behavior of children is always of interest to parents, advocates for children, and researchers alike. All of these groups would like children to behave in ways that are prosocial, and would like to minimize the amount of children's behavior that is antisocial or aggressive. Physical punishment is one way that many parents have used in their attempts to control children’s aggressive behavior. Certainly, in the empirical research literature on parenting, one of the focal areas of research
Broad overview of empirical research on physical punishment
A large tradition of research has found that the parental use of physical punishment is associated with undesirable outcomes for children. Much of this research has made use of large broadly representative samples with longitudinal research designs [3, 4, 5••, 6•, 7]. The most comprehensive assessments of this literature can be found in large meta-analytic reviews [2, 8••]. A more recent review that examined 111 effect sizes from 75 studies, spanning 50 years of research, found that parents’
Plausible theoretical mechanisms
Theoretically, the discussion about the impact of physical punishment on children has largely centered around three theories: (1) attachment theory, (2) social learning theory, and (3) coercion theory. We discuss each theory below.
Parent effects and child effects
In debates over parental use of physical punishment, a great deal of attention has been focused on the question of whether a causal case can be made against physical punishment, or whether physical punishment is in fact elicited from parents by child behavior [22]. Any case against parental use of physical punishment is arguably less strong if punishment does lead to children's behavior problems but it is in fact a result of earlier child behavior.
Attention to such matters requires some
Moderation by neighborhood, parental warmth, culture, or race and ethnicity
Another question within the research literature concerns statistical moderation; that is to say, the question of whether the negative effects of corporal punishment are equally salient across social contexts. Theoretically, this might be considered a question of whether physical punishment would be less injurious in families where parents show warmth and affection, and in social contexts where physical punishment is more normative. Key contextual differences of potential concern in the research
Neighborhood context
Recently, there has been an increased interest in understanding the concurrent effects of the immediate environments associated with parents and family and the more distal social contexts of the communities and neighborhoods that underlie the course of child development [35]. Two lines of empirical inquiry have found the importance of neighborhood context in understanding both parental physical punishment and child developmental outcomes. The first stream of research suggests that the
Physical punishment as part of a continuum of violence
Much of the debate in the popular parenting literature concerning physical punishment, and in the empirical research literature as well, centers around the question of whether physical punishment should be considered part of a customary parenting disciplinary ‘tool kit’, or whether physical punishment should be considered a type of family violence, qualitatively similar to child physical abuse, though arguably somewhat less severe in degree. Theoretically, the idea is that in cases where
Toward positive parenting and positive policies
There is an ongoing global discussion on the importance of a violence-free environment for optimal child development [39••, 40]. Since its implementation in 2006, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child continues to urge the global movement towards legal elimination of all forms of physical punishment to ensure children's rights and dignity [41]. To date, almost all countries have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and 52 nations have passed laws that prohibit physical
Conflict of interest statement
Nothing declared.
References and recommended reading
Papers of particular interest, published within the period of review, have been highlighted as:
• of special interest
•• of outstanding interest
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