Doctors tighten stance on corporal punishment
Physicians group updates policy, advises against spanking kids
The American Academy of Pediatrics has made its stance on spanking clear. In a new policy statement released last week, the organization explicitly advises parents not to spank their children.
The new policy is an update from the 1998 version, which stated, “Parents should be encouraged and assisted in developing methods other than spanking in response to undesired behaviors.”
“The main difference (between the two statements) is that the other policy suggested pediatricians discourage parents from using corporal punishment, and instead encourage them to use other means of discipline,” explained Dr. Robert Sege, study co-author and pediatrician at Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. “We now advise parents not to spank their children — not to use corporal punishment.”
Spanking is the most common form of corporal punishment, Sege said, but not the only one. The term is broader and includes hitting a child with a branch, belt or paddle, in addition to the barehanded method most are familiar with. The policy statement noted that most people understand “corporal punishment, physical punishment and spanking as synonymous.”
It also noted that a 2016 survey of more than 780 U.S. pediatricians found just 6 percent of the doctors held positive attitudes toward spanking, with more than 2 percent expecting positive outcomes from spanking. Seventyeight percent of respondents did not agree that spanking was the “only way to get the child to behave,” and 75 percent disagreed that “spanking is a normal part of parenting.”
Because of this and other research, Sege said the academy thought it was the right time to “revise (the statement) and make it stronger.”
While it reads like a study or research paper, Sege said, it is not the result of original data collecting; it is a declaration of where the AAP stands as an organization on the topic of corporal punishment.
Sege, along with co-author Benjamin Siegel, used current research and three separate studies to justify the AAP’s stance.
The first study found that when parents spanked their children, the child’s misbehavior increased, sometimes repeating the bad activity within 10 minutes.
The second was a meta-analysis — a study that looks at other studies — that showed corporal punishment did not teach a child how to behave well long-term.
“Spanking certainly works within the minute because it sort of grabs the child’s attention,” Sege said. “That’s controversial, but there are certainly older studies that say it works in the minute. But if you look two or three years down the line, it clearly doesn’t work.”
The third study is more recent and used MRI scans.
“The study looked at the brains of children — some of whom had been spanked, some of whom had not — and the ones who were consistently spanked had differences in their brains compared to the other ones,” explained Sege. “In particular, the region of the brain responsible for self-regulation appeared to be smaller in kids whose parents spanked them consistently.”
Sege acknowledged that use of corporal punishment can vary based on the parent’s own experience with domestic violence, drug use, mental health disorders or not knowing other techniques.
He also noted that the use of corporal punishment is decreasing in the U.S., and that’s true regardless of race.
“I think that some adults in different cultures are more likely to think that their elders expect them to use corporal punishment,” Sege said, “but their own beliefs and practices, at least from the few studies we looked at, don’t seem to actually vary whether you’re black, white or Latino.”
Sege said he believes children’s most important relationship is the one they have with their parents, and it should be “a loving relationship.”
“The way the policy statement boils down is there’s absolutely no need for fear and violence entered into the loving relationship,” he said. “We can do better. We have parents already doing better, and pediatricians can help with that.”
Sege offers three alternatives to spanking, based on a child’s age.
“It might be as simple as distracting them,” he said. “If the child is crawling over something dangerous, you just pick them up and then let them continue crawling a different direction, and it’s all done.”
“They really crave their parents’ attention, so make sure they know what is expected of them. Be sure to give them more attention for behaving well than for misbehaving. As they get older, there’s sort of more natural consequences: If they make a mess in the kitchen, they have to clean it up, etc. Tie the punishment more like a coach would: If you don’t do this, you can’t do that.”
“Realize that one of the most important things for teenagers is becoming more independent. Think about the kids’ need for independence, talk with them and provide them the guardrails that teenagers need to resist peer pressure and to be able to know what’s right.”