Subabusive Violence in Child Rearing in Middle-class American Families

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PRESENTATION

Subabusive

Violence

in

Child

Rearing

in

Middle-class

American

Families

Anthony M. Graziano, Jessica L. Hamblen, and Wendy A. Plante

This article will summarize the results of our

re-cent study of subabusive violence in child rearing in

middle-class families, and will then discuss the

im-plications of the findings for the questions before

us-”What are the short and long term effects of

corporal punishment of children?”; “Should we try

to reduce its use?”; so, can we be advised by these

results on how to accomplish that?”

Subabusive violence against children’ consists of

those ordinary, everyday acts of violence-spanking, hitting, slapping, etc-that do not rise to the common

definitions of abuse. Most parents accept these as

proper acts of discipline in the children’s best inter-ests.

The pervasiveness of subabusive violence in child

rearing is not in doubt. It is rooted solidly in

Amer-ican traditions2 and is supported by commonly held

religious beliefs.3 Surveys46 indicate that some 90%

of parents use corporal punishment in child rearing,

and its continued use in public schools has been

well-documented.7

Although its pervasiveness is not in doubt, there

are questions about its effects on

children-in-tended and unintended, positive and negative

ef-fects. Is it an effective set of disciplinary tools?

Does it harm children? Do its costs outweigh its

benefits? There is no doubt that abusive violence

against children has harmful effects, but what

about subabuse? It has been argued that

subabu-sive violence may have direct negative effects on

child development, may be a risk factor for abuse,

may escalate to abuse under some still unknown

conditions, may violate humanitarian values, and

may contribute to maintaining a general culture of

violence.’ Its pervasiveness-and therefore its

pos-sible effects on nearly all children-makes this an

important phenomenon to study.

Middle-class families constitute the largest single

socioeconomic status group and they may thereby

function as the major culture carriers for child

rear-ing practices. Thus, when studying subabusive

vio-lence in child rearing, it is important to focus on this

segment of society, as was done in the study

sum-marized below. (This study was discussed in more

detail in an earlier paper).8

From the Research Center for Children and Youth, Department of

Psychol-ogy, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York.

The research summarized in the first part of this paper was carried out from

January 1, 1993 to December 31, 1993.

Acad-emy of Pediatrics.

The Sample

SUMMARY OF THE STUDY

The sample consisted of 320 families (320

chil-dren, 315 mothers, and 275 fathers). They were

middle socioeconomic status, nonabusive, intact,

well-educated, suburban, primarily white,

two-parent families, with an average of 2.6

children-the very families we wanted to study. Seen in small

groups, they responded to questionnaires about

their families’ current use of corporal punishment in child rearing (the types of corporal punishment,

who applies it and for what reasons, its frequency

and intensity, use of objects such as whips, the

emotions experienced, the parents’ own

retrospec-tive histories of punishment) and so on. One or

both parents and one child in each family

re-sponded independently to the items, ie, children

were in a separate room where their responses

could not be influenced directly by their parents.

The Findings

About 17% of the families reported they “never”

use corporal punishment in child rearing, a

consid-erably higher proportion than the 7% we had found

in earlier research5 that used retrospective reports of

college students rather than current reports of

par-ents and children as in the present study. Also, the

earlier subjects had grown up in the 1960s and 1970s,

while the children in our current sample were born

in the 1980s-which is suggestive of a possible

de-crease in corporal punishment use in that latter

de-cade.

Interestingly, while 17% of the parents do not

physically punish their children, 12% reported that

they had not been physically punished themselves as

children, suggesting that there may have been a

greater rejection over the past two decades of corpo-ral punishment in child rearing, at least by

middle-class families. (This hypothesis requires further

re-search).

The small difference that we found might be

at-tributable not to a generational difference per Se, but

to reporting biases or perhaps to socioeconomic

sta-tus differences. It may be that working-class parents

are more prone to use corporal punishment than are

middle-class parents. Thus, the difference between

the 12% who were not hit as children and the 17%

who now do not use corporal punishment might

reflect parents who have risen economically into the

middle class.

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846 SUPPLEMENT

middle-class families (83%) although only

infre-quently in most families (less than a few times a

month) and at only moderate to mild levels of

intensity. Although these infrequent and mild

1ev-els characterize most families, there is a sizable

minority of parents (about 25%) who use corporal

punishment as frequently as a few times a month

or more, which brings it into about a once-weekly

usage. Further, a small minority (just over 2%)

report they usually inflict pain that is considerable

and about 1% report that they usually do cause

welts and bruises. This small minority of families

seem to be pushing the limits of subabuse into

abusive levels.

We found some disquieting indications of higher

levels of severity and frequency. It is sobering to note

that the above responses describe their usual levels

of corporal punishment use, but even these generally mild hitters sometimes escalate to higher levels. Just over 12% reported that their most severe punishment

resulted in considerable pain and 5% admitted to

raising welts and bruises during their most severe

punishment. We do not know how frequently such

severe punishment occurs, but occasional escalation

to more severe levels of violence does occur, even in

this group of middle-class families, giving some

sup-port to our concern about escalation of subabusive

violence to abusive levels.’

In this sample of intact, middle-class families, a

sizable minority of children may be physically

pun-ished to a considerably higher degree. About 35% of

the children reported that objects are used in

corpo-ral punishment, such as sticks, paddles, whips, and

cords; and half of those children (17%) report that

objects are used at least half of the time. Although just under half of the children reported there is little

to no pain during punishment, over half reported

some or much pain. For most children the frequency

is low (a few times a month or less), but nearly 17%

of the children report being hit a few times each

week and just over 4% report it occurs everyday.

Spanking and slapping are the most commonly

used (hair-pulling, pinching, and shaking are much

less commonly used). These parents use spanking

and slapping in response to a considerable array of

children’s behaviors, most notably when there is a

sharp parent-child conflict situation. The parents

punish most when the child is out of control,

disobe-dient, or disrespectful of adults. They are more

tol-erant when their children are whining, annoying, too

demanding, or they make a mess, or even break

things. The most punished behaviors, then, are those

in which the parent perceives that the child is, in

some manner, actively noncompliant, disobedient, or

is disrespectfully challenging parental authority.

Other less willful, less direct, authority-challenging violations are not as readily punished.

These middle-class parents not only use corporal

punishment but they justify it. They believe it is a

useful and effective approach, that it teaches children

important lessons, and nearly 93% of the parents say

it is justified. However, it is not necessarily the most effective approach, being seen as effective only in the

short run, not in the long-term. More than 85%

would rather not use it at all, and would use

alter-native means if any good alternatives were available.

Thus, the parents use it, but are not completely at

ease with it, feeling some remorse over their actions.

Perhaps this degree of ambivalence will be a key

factor in future work in predicting how readily

par-ents will abandon corporal punishment. Those with

the greatest degree of certainty that it is justified, may be far more resistant to change. That hypothesis

should be examined in future studies.

Our data show that high negative emotion

sur-rounding the use of corporal punishment is the

rule. Parents and children feel upset and angry

about it. Indeed nearly 86% of the parents

recog-nized that their children felt resentment, anger,

sadness, and hurt feelings, and were moderately to

extremely upset when physically punished. The

parents themselves (85%) express moderate to high

anger, remorse, and agitation while punishing

their children. What effects might such negative

feelings, particularly anger, have on parent-child

relationships and children’s development? If

pun-ishment teaches children lessons, as the parents

believe, might not those lessons be attenuated by

the emotionality of the experience? Is the negative

emotion acceptable to the parents, perhaps as an

unfortunate cost of using an otherwise good child

rearing procedure? How much of that repeated

anger is due to the child’s infractions, and how

much is actually stimulated by engaging in the

violent punishment? That is, do parents hit

be-cause they are angry, or do they hit and then both

parent and child become angry over the violence?

These questions need to be answered.

And what of the children? They show an

interest-ing mix of opposition to corporal punishment and

yet acceptance of it, almost as a recognition that it is a parental right and a fact of life. The children

pro-vide good agreement with their parents on their

reports of the types, frequency, and severity of

cor-poral punishment, thus providing validity checks on

the reports. Almost all the children report that

phys-ical punishment causes them pain, and they become

angry over it. Overall, most of the children in this

middle-class sample are hit infrequently and at low

levels of intensity. They do not like it, they feel upset, hurt, and angry, but they accept it as a parental right.

Here might be the roots of adults’ acceptance of

corporal punishment-it may begin and perhaps

even become strongly established at these young

ages.

We found that four factors are significant

predic-tors of corporal punishment use: 1) the parents’

stated commitment to its use; 2) their own past

pun-ishment experiences as children (a positive

correla-tion); 3) their authoritarian parenting styles; and 4)

their children’s tendency to externalizing behavior.

Parents’ commitment to its use is the strongest

pre-dictor. Family size may be a factor for fathers, but not for mothers.

There is high agreement between parents and

chil-dren. Because they responded independently

(par-ents and children were in different rooms) this

pro-vides some measure of validity to the findings. There at Viet Nam:AAP Sponsored on September 1, 2020

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are two areas of disagreement: 1) mothers report that

they do most of the punishing while dads report that

they do; 2) parents and children agree that pain and

emotion are involved, but children seem to judge

both to be greater than judged by parents.

SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS

The goals of this project were to learn about the

everyday use of corporal punishment in child

rear-ing by parents in intact, middle-class families. A total of 320 families participated. A large majority of those

parents (83%) use corporal punishment although not

at high frequency or intensity. Mothers, fathers, and

children, are strongly consistent in their reports of

the type and use of corporal punishment in their

families.

Spanking and slapping are most commonly used,

and most often for child behaviors that involve

chil-dren’s active disobedience and noncompliance.

Par-ents are more tolerant of rule-breaking that does not

directly challenge parental authority.

Although this sample as a whole reports mild and

infrequent corporal punishment, there is a surprising

minority of children, perhaps as high as one third,

who suffer more frequent and more severe

punish-ment, and who report that parents use objects such

as wooden spoons on them.

Corporal punishment is surrounded by a good

deal of negative emotion felt by both children and

parents and questions are raised concerning the

ef-fects of such emotional experiences.

Parents accept and justify corporal punishment

use, but believe it is effective only in the short-term.

They are uneasy with it and would use alternatives if

effective alternatives were available. The best

predic-tors of corporal punishment use by parents are their

commitment to its use, their own experiences with

corporal punishment as children, authoritarian

par-enting styles, and the children’s tendency to

exter-nalize behavior. Family size was a predictor for

fa-thers but not for mothers.

Implications of the Findings

The major purpose of this conference is to develop

consensus statements regarding the use of corporal

punishment in child rearing. In this section we will

consider the findings of the study that have implica-tions for that task. Particularly we are interested in one of the important implicit issues for this

confer-ence-social interventions to reduce corporal

pun-ishment use.

The first finding is that the routine, everyday use

of corporal punishment is pervasive in our sample of

educated, economically successful, intact,

middle-class families.

Most disturbing is that although the frequency and

severity of corporal punishment are low for most

families, a large minority-some 30%-sometimes

engage in higher levels of corporal punishment use.

This minority reports that their harshest corporal

punishment causes severe pain and

I

or raises welts

and bruises. Under some conditions they escalate

from subabusive violence to violence levels that

ar-guably appear to be abusive. That so high a

propor-tion of this group is prone to such escalation is cause for concern. It gives some support to the escalation

hypothesis and to the idea that subabusive violence

may be a risk factor for abuse’and the risk factor is

not limited to economically deprived families, but

has been found here in these intact, middle-class

families.

Added to the escalated severity of the punishment

is the report of 35% of the children that objects

(sticks, paddles, whips, and cords) are used, and 17%

of the children reported objects are used at least half the time.

The implications are that some 30% of

middle-class families may be at risk for child abuse through

the escalation of subabusive corporal punishment;

and one target of prevention efforts is the reduction

of subabusive corporal punishment, thus reducing

the probability of escalation.

Another important implication is found in the

parents’ moderated acceptance of corporal

punish-ment in child rearing. They seem ambivalent-but

not enough to stop! The parents’ ambivalence is

revealed in three findings: their assessment that

corporal punishment works only in the short-term

and is not effective for long-term change; their

agreement with the children that it is surrounded

with emotionality and causes the children pain

and distress; and their agreement that if effective

alternatives were available they would use them

instead of using corporal punishment. This unease

might constitute a useful target in attempts to

change the parents’ views and usage. The points

constituting the ambivalence need to be explored

as the potential bases for change strategies. The

ambivalence appears to be a hopeful finding.

Another implication derives from what the

chil-dren told us-essentially that they do not like

cor-poral punishment and the pain and anger

surround-ing it, but they accept it as a parental right! One of the

major predictors of parents’ corporal punishment

use is exposure to it as children. Perhaps its not the

exposure per se that links early experience with its

future use, but the degree to which the child is

co-opted by the experience, develops tolerance and

sup-port that eventually may coalesce into the adult’s

cognitive-emotional set of commitment to its use.

Commitment was found to be the major predictor of

parents’ corporal punishment use. Assuming that

commitment is important and was formed in

pro-cesses early in life may help us to think through and

to determine procedures to alter that

commitment-perhaps by addressing children as well as

par-ents-so as to reduce corporal punishment use by

parents.

Our findings on the conditions under which

par-ents apply corporal punishment and the types of

corporal punishment used also have implications for

change strategies. Parents use corporal punishment

most frequently when they are angry and when the

child’s “infraction” involves the direct challenge to

parental authority- disobedience. Applying a social

role theory analysis (A.M.G., unpublished data,

1995), corporal punishment is used most when the

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848 SUPPLEMENT

major norm of the child role as defined by parental

expectancies-challenging and failing to honor the

parents’ authoritative dominance. Corporal

pun-ishment is used less in response to other

infrac-tions such as those involving conflict among

sib-lings or damaging household objects. One possibly

important strategy for reducing corporal

punish-ment use might be to help parents understand

better the nature of seemingly disrespectful

behav-ior, and

1

or to become less willing to attribute a

deliberate challenge to authority and thus become

more tolerant to a wider range of children’s

behav-iors.

This research has implications for developing

change strategies applied to middle-class

families-that is, strategies to reduce or eliminate corporal

punishment in those who already use it, and to

pre-vent its use by those who are not yet parents. The

findings suggest that such strategies should include at least the following:

1) teaching parents actual alternatives to corporal punishment;

2) teaching parental anger control skills;

3) exploring with and explaining to parents the

normal need of children for independence;

4) enhancing parents’ understanding of authority

conflicts and how to deal with them;

5) exploring parental ambivalence surrounding

corporal punishment use aimed at increasing its

neg-ative valence;

6)

exploring with children their own early

accep-tance of corporal punishment; and

7) discussion of the finding that 17% of parents

report they do not use corporal punishment, thus

challenging the notion some may have that corporal

punishment is necessary in child rearing.

Perhaps the most important intervention to test

and the central task, at least as suggested by our

data, is to bring about a cognitive change in the

parents’ commitment to the use and correctness of

corporal punishment. That is, we could test ways to

bring about cognitive change for parents who are

already committed to its use, and ways to develop

the alternative-a commitment not to use corporal

punishment but to use alternatives instead, in young parents. Let us assume, as suggested by our findings,

that children are co-opted at an early age into an

unquestioned acceptance of the inevitability of

cor-poral punishment as power that is rightly wielded by

their parents. It is reasonable to infer that acceptance

of the fact gradually hardens into an important

norm, one of many that help to define for the child,

the desired characteristics of the parental role.

Pre-sumably, then, when that child eventually assumes a

parental role, one important norm-the correctness

of corporal punishment use in child rearing, exists,

and is unquestioned. Norms identify and prescribe

the expected behavior for role enactments-it

ap-pears that people do not make any specific,

intellec-tual decision that they will use corporal

punish-ment-rather, it is more likely that they simply enact,

unquestioned, the norm-defined roles that have been

developed in their own experience. Thus, an

inter-vention strategy to test is having potential parents

make a definitive, conscious decision and

commit-ment not to use corporal punishment, rather than

simply enacting an overlearned norm without much

thought.

On a final note, I want to suggest that the issue of

whether corporal punishment is an effective child

rear-ing tool is irrelevant for the question of whether it

should be discouraged. This argument, succinctly, is:

1) even if corporal punishment is shown to be highly effective, it does not constitute the only approach; there are many effective nonpunitive alternatives

available and thus corporal punishment can be

abandoned;

2) because effective alternatives are available, the

central issue is not a technical one of effectiveness, but is about the morality in a supposedly enlight-ened world of inflicting pain on children;

3) it is therefore reasonable to assume the position

that corporal punishment in child rearing should

be discouraged because it is morally objectionable and, in any event, is not even needed.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Supported by grants from the Harry Frank Guggenheim

Foun-dation and the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy.

REFERENCES

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1996;98;845

Pediatrics

Anthony M. Graziano, Jessica L. Hamblen and Wendy A. Plante