Don't Spank Your Children

Over the years, many studies have been devoted to assessing the usefulness of this method, often coming to confusing—even opposing—conclusions. One of the latest lightning rods is a five-year review of the research literature by a committee of child development specialists sponsored by the American Psychological Association. The committee came out against corporeal punishment, finding evidence that spanking caused more behavioral problems than other types of punishment, producing more aggressive, more depressed, more anxious children with lower IQs. A spring 2010 study, led by Tulane University School of Public Health researcher Catherine Taylor, confirms the findings. It found that 3-year-olds who were spanked more than twice in the month prior to the study were 50 percent more likely to be aggressive by age 5, even when controlling for differing levels of aggression among kids and for maternal depression, alcohol or drug use, or spousal abuse.

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As researcher Murray Straus noted in an interview with Scientific American Mind, the linkage between spanking and behavioral unpleasantness is more robust than the linkage between exposure to lead and lowered IQ. More robust, too, than the association between secondhand smoke and cancer. Few people argue about these associations; indeed, people win lawsuits with associative numbers in those health-related cases. So why is there so much controversy about whether to spank, when there should be none? Good question.

I do know that inductive parenting takes effort. Hitting a kid does not. In my opinion, hitting is a lazy form of parenting. If you’re wondering, my wife and I don’t do it.

Enough studies confirm the detrimental effects of this practice that it shouldn't even controversial, but it is.