eMedicineLive

Think of an incident when your children did something that you had strictly warned them against doing.  Most probably, the first thing that would have come to your mind was to spank them for their behavior. Now, if you think spanking or thrashing can serve your purpose of disciplining your children, think again. For a long time now, there has been a debate concerning which is the better and more effective way to reduce antisocial behavior? While some people feel spanking is the best solution for this; many psychiatrists feel that non-physical punishments will prove to be a more efficient option.
 
The most potent casual evidence stating that customary spanking does more harm than good by increasing the antisocial behavior is based on those prospective studies, which control statistically for initial antisocial differences. No study or research has thus far investigated or suggested any other disciplinary tactic that can be used by parents as an alternative to spanking. In a study done to assess the effectiveness of non-physical punishment versus spanking researchers found that in comparison to spanking, punishments, such as sending children to their room and depriving them of privileges did not contribute much towards causing anti-social behavior.

Around 94% of the parents across the world resort to spanking or any other form of physical punishment to discipline their children. However, realizing the potential side effects of physical punishment, increasing number of countries worldwide have banned its use. In fact some pediatricians in America have expressed strong opposition against the use of any form of corporal punishment. Similarly, there are some others, who strongly feel that in certain situations, it’s a better option for parents to resort to non-abusive spanking as a disciplinary action.

Gershoff ET, author of a prominent literature review on “Corporal punishment by parents and associated child behaviors and experiences” is strongly opposed to any form of spanking. In what is considered to be the only prominent scientific consensus conference on the subject on corporal punishment, both supporters as well as critics of the ‘ban on spanking’ accepted the fact that there’s a lack of relevant scientific evidence on this subject. This is the reason why the conference fell short of reaching a conclusion that spanking should be opposed by all.

Current research is in sync with the residual confounding, a statistical artifact that states that the actions of parents and psychologists can be responsible for increasing anti-social behavior among children. It can be concluded that there’s still a need of improved research methods for the purpose of discriminating between effective and counter-productive use of disciplinary tactics. Also, it’s more essential to determine how and when disciplinary tactics should be used rather than focusing on which type of tactic should be adopted.

Disclaimer: This article is written by a non-medical professional.