PERSONAL STATEMENTS

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PERSONAL

STATEMENTS

Diana Baumrind, PhD

Scientific data do not support a blanket injunction

against the use of corporal punishment. The

short-and long-term consequences of corporal

punish-ment, or any other disciplinary practice within the

normative range, depend for their effects on the

cul-tural and child rearing contexts in which the practice

is embedded. Spanking is but one means that can be

used by a care giver in a disciplinary encounter, the

disciplinary encounter is but one socialization

strat-egy; and socialization is but one dimension of

opti-mal care giving. The disciplinary encounter is

in-tended to control the child’s short-term behavior: It

should be understood that such encounters do not

extinguish children’s motivated behavior once and

for all, but need to be reinforced periodically. The

long-term consequences to the child of nonabusive

aversive discipline is mediated by its meaning to the

child. The meaning to the child, in turn, depends

upon the normative standards of the community and

the extent to which the child believes that the parent

is generally responsive to his or her desires and

needs. A focus on spanking as a major cause of

violence is not only scientifically misleading, but also diverts attention from the systemic causes of violence associated with persistent poverty.

Spanking, as defined for this conference, is not

abusive or violent, although the practice is

intention-ally aversive. Under most circumstances, spanking a

child younger than 18 months or past puberty is

counterproductive: the infant lacks sufficient capac-ity to regulate his/her own behavior or to process the

care giver’s rationale for spanking, whereas the

ad-olescent (in most cultures, although not all) is likely to reject the care giver’s use of physical punishment,

which the adolescent views as illegitimate and

invasive.

Within the context of an authoritative style of dis-cipline (warm, responsive, rational, and temperate), aversive discipline is well-accepted by the child,

ef-fective in controlling short-term behavior and

un-likely to have harmful long-term consequences. By

contrast, if the child is caught unaware or if the care

giver reacts explosively (as may be the case in

per-missive homes where the parent disapproves of

aversive discipline), spanking is more likely to be

rejected by the child. In neglectful or parent-centered

homes, spanking is likely to be viewed by the child

as further evidence of parental rejection.

Studies of child rearing effects should focus on

how parents can generate optimal child outcomes

consistent with the values of a given culture.

Social-ization-an ongoing adult-initiated process by which

children, through education, training and imitation

acquire the values, attributes, skill, and habits of

their own culture-represents the accommodative

rather than the transformational force in society.

Be-cause behavioral compliance, achieved through

dis-ciplinary encounters and other socialization

prac-tices, is not the major child outcome desired by most care givers, socialization processes, including the

dis-cipline encounter, should be viewed in perspective

as having limited objectives.

This conference has helped shed light on what we

know and need to know about the conditions that

enable aversive discipline, such as spanking, to be

most efficacious. If the effectiveness of a disciplinary

practice is the extent to which it has the desired

outcome as typically used, and efficacy is the power or capacity of a practice to produce the desired effect

when properly used, then efficacy should concern

practitioners (eg, pediatricians, clinicians, and parent

educators) more than effectiveness. By being

consis-tently firm, rational, and responsive and by

proac-tively teaching the child to behave morally, care

giv-ers can minimize the need for spanking or other

punishment. However, spanking is not a generative

cause of aggression or pathology in children or

adults when used appropriately (ie, spanking is

con-trolled and contingent on the child’s behavior; the

child is forewarned; the parent uses more positive

than negative incentives; spanking is carried out in

conjunction with reasoning, with the intention to

correct, not retaliate, and does not escalate to abuse).

Stanford B. Friedman, MD and S. Kenneth Schonberg, MD

Although we attempted to achieve “neutrality,”

we must confess, that we had a preconceived

no-tion that corporal punishment, including

spank-ing, was innately and always “bad.” During the

conference, we became increasingly impressed

with the interactive nature of corporal

punish-ment, and that the issue of whether spanking is

harmful or beneficial to a child must be viewed

within the total context of a child’s life and

envi-ronment. We only have to look at our own

expe-riences, and those of our friends, to realize that

spanking alone does not invariably necessarily

re-sult in a violent or a maladjusted individual. Thus,

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spanking of children by such statements as: “I was

spanked and I turned out all right!”

During the conference it became clear, in our opin-ion, that corporal punishment is but one “risk factor” in the life of a child. Given a relatively “healthy”

family life in a supportive environment, spanking in

and of itself is not detrimental to a child or predictive

of later problems. However, when coupled with

other risk factors, such as violence within the family or the lack of affection from a parent, corporal

pun-ishment may well contribute to the emergence of a

conduct disorder, violence, or personality deficien-cies. Before the conference we had fallen into the trap of evaluating a practice, in this case corporal punish-ment, in isolation.

We were clear that there is a lack of research

related to the use of corporal punishment, or for

that matter, evaluating the consequences of

disci-plinary measures in general. Participants in the

conference outlined some of the current

deficien-cies in research. None of the studies evaluated

spanking, as compared with other forms of

disci-pline, in children seen in private offices of

pedia-tricians, or in other pediatric outpatient settings.

Some of us were convinced that the study most

needed was to randomly assign children who were

experiencing spanking to an intervention group

(eg, counseling by the pediatrician on alternative

forms of discipline) versus a control group with no

such intervention.

We were also impressed that spanking was

fre-quently justified as a means of “getting the child’s

attention.” Certainly, children are “slapped on the

wrist” for such infractions as stepping off the curb

onto the street, when the intention is to get the child’s attention and not inflict pain. Perhaps this should be called “nonpainful tactile stimulation for the purpose

of highlighting a potential danger.” This would be

similar to raising one’s voice when trying to obtain a

child’s attention.

Overall, we believe that the pediatric community

and other professionals now have a sense of the

“state of the art” relative to corporal punishment,

and can base their advice to parents regarding

disci-pline on what scientific evidence does exist.

Robert E. Larzelere, PhD

The most surprising aspect of this conference

was the poor quality and quantity of relevant

em-pirical studies on child outcomes associated with

physical punishment. Most empirical studies have

been cross-sectional, have included physical

pun-ishment of teenagers, or have used measures much

broader than nonabusive physical punishment (eg,

punishment in general, or abuse-dominated

mea-sures). There were only 18 peer-reviewed

publica-tions without at least one of those problems. The

strongest eight studies all found beneficial

out-comes associated with spanking in 2- to

6-year-olds. The other 10 studies were prospective (6

studies) or retrospective (4 studies), but none of

them took into account the original frequency or

severity of the child’s misbehavior.

Not taking into account the original degree of

child misbehavior would be like investigating the

effects of radiation treatment without considering

the severity, staging, or even existence of cancer in

the study participants. People who have had

radi-ation treatment 2 years ago would now have a

higher risk of cancer than the general population,

which is the only kind of “detrimental” outcome

found to follow physical punishment in the 18

relevant studies. Despite this methodological flaw,

only 3 of the 10 prospective or retrospective

stud-ies found apparently “detrimental” child outcomes

subsequently. Two of those three studies made no

attempt to rule out abusive or violent parents from

the spanking group. The results of the remaining

study were entirely due to the 1 1 kindergarten

children (4% of the sample) who had not been

spanked by either parent in the previous year.

They probably backed down at the slightest

con-frontation from either parents or peers, thereby

accounting for those results.

Other evidence also indicates that the

antispank-ing rhetoric far exceeds its empirical support. Not

one of the 18 studies found any alternative discipline response to be associated with better child outcomes than physical punishment, whereas seven alternative

responses were associated with poorer child

out-comes than physical punishment, mostly in 2- to

6-year-olds.

This entire pattern of data is not what I expected to

be associated with something considered the most

dysfunctional aspect of parental discipline. With so

much anti-spanking smoke, where is the fire? One

possibility is that the anti-spanking rhetoric is more value-based than scientifically grounded. That is fine

for audiences who share similar values against

spanking. But we should not be trampling all over

the diversity of cultural values to impose our

anti-spanking morality on others, given the meagerness

of the supporting evidence.

If we are going to respond as scientists rather than advocates, we should use this conference as a belated call to improve our research on this important topic. Such research should especially attempt to

discrimi-nate between beneficial versus detrimental usage of

spanking as well as alternatives and to understand

the process of escalation to physical abuse within a

discipline incident. Then we will be in a stronger

position to make scientifically grounded

recommen-dations about spanking and other aspects of parental discipline.

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Joan McCord, PhD

I would like to contribute the following notes

re-garding specific discussions during the conference:

Responding to Laurie Bauman on the need for

evidence: I agreed with her excellent summary

ex-cept for the judgment that a “gold-standard”

meth-odology could not be used because of a potential

danger to assigning people to a punishment group.

Families could, however, be randomly assigned to

conditions that would include nonintervention and

one in which they would be taught not to use

cor-poral punishments. That is, pregnant women (or

mothers of young children) could be coached in

methods for teaching children how to act without

resort to punishments.

Responding to Kenneth Polite’s comments to the

effect that he disapproved of white middle-class

per-missiveness: I would like the record to mention that

(as I pointed out) permissiveness is a different

di-mension-one running from strict to

permissive-from that which includes punishment. Others

en-dorsed the point.

Responding to Barbara Howard on the issue of

compliance: I asked that we consider the issue of

compliance rather carefully. It deserves attention

when we assess research, because different

mea-sures are likely to produce different results (eg,

when compliance is measured as doing the social-ized thing, results might differ from what they would be if it were obeying a parent or a stranger,

these latter might differ from each other). It

de-serves attention, too, when we consider whether to

count compliance as an appropriate goal. Worries

come from the fact that many children should be

taught how to resist social pressures. Teenagers,

for example, may be introduced to drugs through

their “compliance.”

Responding to a point made by Karen Colvard

regarding a focus on only those most at risk, I

urged us to continue to consider the larger

popu-lation who vote policies that have an impact on the inner-city.

Rebecca Socolar, MD

There is enormous public interest in corporal

pun-ishment. The major focus of this interest seems to be

on the issue of-TO SPANK OR NOT TO SPANK.

Although this is an important issue, it is likely that

the way in which the spanking is carried out is even

more crucial than whether or not spanking was used.

There are two important aspects of the way in which

spanking occurs-the mode of administration and

the context of the spanking.

By the mode of administration, I refer to:

1. Severity/Frequency/Chronicity-how hard are the

spanks, how many spanks, over what period of

time?;

2. Consistency-does the parent spank consistently

for the same kind of misbehavior? Does the child

know what to expect?;

3. Demeanor/Tone of Parent-is the approach toward

the child positive or negative? Does the parent

have an attitude of believing in the child’s

com-petence or of belittling the child? How angry is the disciplining parent and how is that expressed?; and

4. Follow-through- does the parent follow through with warnings?

The context of the misbehavior includes:

1. Child Characteristics:

a) Age;

b) Temperament-how difficult a child?; c) Sex;

2. Situational Context:

a) The Type of Misbehavior-what was the child

doing wrong?;

b) Previous Parent-Child Interaction-does the child

know the rules? Has the child gotten any

warn-ings for this misbehavior?;

c) Child’s Perception-does the discipline feel like

victimization or empowerment to the child?;

d) Energy Levels of Parent and Child-are they fa-tigued or ill?;

e) Opportunity for Child’s Input-what is the

de-gree of reciprocity in the discipline? Can the

child’s behavior affect what the parent does as

the discipline is occurring?; 3. Parental Characteristics:

a) Age/Sex;

b) Discipline Methods Used by Own Parents;

c) Parental Expectations of the Child-are they

realistic?;

d) Goals/Beliefs-what kind of child is the parent

trying to raise? What does the parent believe

about whether spanking works?; and

4. Family Characteristics: a) Social support; b) education; c) income; d) race/culture/norms; e) family composition.

Research to date has inadequately addressed

non-corporal forms of discipline as well as the mode of administration and the context of the discipline. As

we advise parents about spanking and other forms of

discipline and as we carry out research about

disci-pline, it is crucial to address these aspects of

disci-pline. Methods of discipline are not exclusive and

might be used in conjunction with each other. There

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used in conjunction with one and other, or to

mea-sure the effects of such use. In addition, it may be

useful to distinguish between reactive (after a misbe-havior), or proactive (before misbehavior, to promote

good behavior) discipline. Parents do many things to

structure the lives of their children to promote good

behavior. Research about discipline and advice to

parents needs to incorporate the concept of proactive discipline. The lack of a measure that encompasses

different methods of discipline and addresses the

mode of administration and context of discipline has impaired further progress in the field. Development

of such a measure should be the first order of

busi-ness in advancing research about discipline.

Finally, at the conference we used research about

short- and long-term consequences of spanking to

the child and care giver as the standard by which we

would evaluate whether or not to endorse spanking.

However, most of the research focuses on whether

misbehavior was effectively terminated in the

short-term and on long-term outcomes for children.

Al-though child outcomes are extremely important, the

process involved in disciplinary interactions should

not be forgotten. Many parents are uncomfortable

participating in a parent-child relationship in which

they are to hit someone they love. As we counsel

parents and study discipline, we need to learn more

about the relationship that parents and children have

with each other and what sorts of relationships they

want to foster.

Den A. Trumbull, MD

With respect to a parent’s use of spanking and its

effect upon the child, the findings of quality prospec-tive longitudinal studies are clear and consistent.

After more than 10 years of study:

Evidence from this study “did not indicate that

negative reinforcement or corporal punishment per

se were harmful or ineffective procedures, but rather

the total pattern of parental control determined the

effects on the child of these procedures” (underline added).’

After 10 years of study:

“Upon follow-up 10 years after the original data

collection, we found that punishment [including

physical punishment] of aggressive acts at the earlier

age was no longer related to current aggression, and

instead, other variables like parental nurturance and

children’s identification with their parents were

more important in predicting later aggression.”2 After 4 years offocused study:

Children from authoritarian homes, where

physi-cal punishment was often used, were “no . . . more

aggressive and resistant” than those from

accommo-dative homes.3

After 3 years offocused study:

“Once the effect of parental involvement was

re-moved, corporal punishment showed no detrimental

impact on adolescent aggressiveness, delinquency, or

psychological well-being.”4

The developmental outcome of child rearing is

determined by the overall quality of the parent-child

relationship, not simply whether or not a child was

spanked. According to the authoritative model,

op-timal child development results from a parent’s

bal-anced use of firm behavioral control (which may

include spanking) and a high degree of nurturance

(encouragement and love).’

The notion that spanking is a root cause of violence and child abuse in a society is contradicted by

Sweden’s experience. Since the 1979 legal ban on the

use of corporal punishment in Sweden, child abuse

has not decreased, in fact reported child abuse by

family members has increased fourfold from 127

cases in 1984 to 583 in 1994 and reports of teen

violence have increased by nearly sixfold.5 In the

United States, reports of child abuse have steadily

risen over the past decade while approval for

paren-tal spanking has steadily declined.6 Behavioral

re-search and child abuse statistics suggest that spank-ing is not a precursor to societal violence.

Limited research on spanking under 2 years of age

indicates that its use after 18 months can be effective

and developmentally harmless. Power and Chapieski7

found that the occasional use of spanking, integrated with alternative responses (childproofing, verbal

disap-proval, and removal), did not impede development of

the child. They state, “It is important to note that

[pri-mary] reliance on physical punishment, not physical

punishment itself, was the critical variable.” This study

illustrates “the importance of a multimethod

ap-proach” to parenting in that the excessive use of any

one response is eventually less effective in modifying problem behavior. Alternative disciplinary responses

are generally adequate to control behavior below the

age of 18 months and it is only after this age when the occasional use of spanking may at times be useful.

Parenting is a complex process affected by child

tem-perament, parental behavior, home environment, and

cultural standards. Parents need flexibility and latitude

to implement nonabusive, effective disciplinary

re-sponses to fit their individual values and settings.

REFERENCES

1. Baumrind D. The development of instrumental competence through

socialization. Minnesota Sy?np Cl:ild Psycl:ol. 1973;7:3-46

2. Eron LD. Theories of Aggression: from drives to cognitions. In:

Huesmann LR, ed. Aggressive Bel:az’ior, Current Perspectives. New York:

Plenum Press; 1994:3-11

3. Chamberlain RW. Relationships between child-rearing styles and child

behavior over time. An: JDis Child. 1978;132:155-160

4. Simons RL, Johnson C, Conger RD. Harsh corporal punishment versus

quality of parental involvement as an explanation of adolescent

malad-justment. IMarriage Fan:. 1994;56:591-607

5. Statistics Sweden. K R Info. Stockholm; Statistics Sweden; May 1995:1-6

6. National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse. Men:ora,:dum. National

Committee to Prevent Child Abuse; May 1995;2(5)

7. Power TC, Chapieski ML. Childrearing and impulse control in toddlers:

a naturalistic investigation. Dci’ Psycl:ol. 1986;22:271-275

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1996;98;857

Pediatrics