To examine the prevalence of maternal and paternal spanking of children at 3 and 5 years of age and the associations between spanking and children’s externalizing behavior and receptive vocabulary through age 9.
The Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study, a longitudinal birth cohort study of children in 20 medium to large US cities, was used. Parental reports of spanking were assessed at age 3 and 5, along with child externalizing behavior and receptive vocabulary at age 9 (N = 1933). The data set also included an extensive set of child and family controls (including earlier measures of the child outcomes).
Overall, 57% of mothers and 40% of fathers engaged in spanking when children were age 3, and 52% of mothers and 33% of fathers engaged in spanking at age 5. Maternal spanking at age 5, even at low levels, was associated with higher levels of child externalizing behavior at age 9, even after an array of risks and earlier child behavior were controlled for. Father’s high-frequency spanking at age 5 was associated with lower child receptive vocabulary scores at age 9.
Spanking remains a typical rearing experience for American children. These results demonstrate negative effects of spanking on child behavioral and cognitive development in a longitudinal sample from birth through 9 years of age.
Comments
Maternal and Paternal Spanking
Spanking and Child Development Across the First Decade of Life Liliya Levkovets, Heath Study Student at Utica College; Utica, NY
Brooks-Gunn, Mackenzie, Nicklas & Waldfogel, (2013) conducted a study focusing on the effects of spanking on children at ages 3 and 5, predicting both aggression and receptive vocabulary across the first decade of life. The study adds onto previous literature that only demonstrated significant associations between maternal spanking and later aggression and not paternal spanking. The study held several limitations. Data was used from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being to demonstrate the effects of spanking. The recipients used may have skewed the results. The author was unclear where the population came from, other than it was from the Untied States. Past generations used spanking frequently on their children, and poor cognition was not a notable affect. Perhaps cognition and externalizing behavior would not be affected if another population were used. Cognition and behavior can be a result of malnutrition and environmental factors. Low socioeconomic status can have affects on the environment. The recipients used may have had signs of poor cognition due to other various reasons.
Spanking was measured by the frequency either mother or father engaged in spanking due to the their child misbehaving. They asked the question; "In the past month, have you spanked (Child) because (he/she) was misbehaving or acting up?"(Brooks-Gunn et al., 2013). It is difficult to accurately remember how many times this action has been done in a month, especially if it is frequent. A possible approach is to record frequency during the one-month testing period, to have more significant data. The PPVT has noted that maternal spanking at the ages 3 and 5 have shown significant externalizing behavior at age 9 but no significance in association with externalizing behavior at age 9 with any parental frequency spanking. Another study supports these findings, a child at 3 years of age that was maternally spanked 2 or more time a month showed increased aggression by the age of 5 (Lee, Manganello, Rice & Taylor, 2010). Other literature failed to show the significance in externalizing behavior due maternal spanking.
At age 3, 17% more mothers had spanked their children than father. It was noted that mothers spend more time with their children because they are the primary caregivers, which is a possible correlation for mothers to spank their children more than fathers. Future studies might yield a difference in results, if fathers become primary caregivers. Studies have noted there has been an increase in fathers becoming primary caregivers. Studies show mothers are seeking to become more career-oriented, with higher pay then their husbands, leaving their husbands unemployed and the primary caregiver (Barnes, Leach, Lewis, Ram, Stein & West, 2009). If paternal frequency of spanking increases in the future, it can lead to study to find if there is an increase of aggression due to paternal spanking. More studies should find if externalizing behavior is primarily caused by maternal spanking and also if cognition indeed is a factor due to spanking.
References
1.) MacKenzie, M. J., Nicklas, E., Waldfogel, J., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (November 01, 2013). "Spanking and Child Development Across the First Decade of Life". Pediatrics, 132, 5.)
2.) Taylor, C. A., Manganello, J. A., Lee, S. J., & Rice, J. C. (2010). Mothers' spanking of 3- year-old children and subsequent risk of children's aggressive behavior. Pediatrics, 125, 5, 1057-65.
3.) West, A., Lewis, S., Ram, B., Barnes, J., Leach, P., Sylva, K., & Stein, A. (2009). "Why do some fathers become primary caregivers for their infants? A qualitative study". Child: Care, Health & Development, 35(2), 208-216
Conflict of Interest:
None declared
Please Stop Publishing Inadequate Science about Spanking
The MacKenzie et al. article in Pediatrics is yet another inadequately supported attempt to disenfranchise parents from appropriate use of disciplinary spanking. This is the third study that Pediatrics has featured to the media recently, emphasizing unconditional anti-spanking conclusions despite unusually weak evidence. Two retrospective studies by Afifi et al.(1,2) claimed to provide evidence against all disciplinary spanking, when the key survey questions used only the terms "push, grab, shove, slap, or hit,"(2) not "spank." Now the article by MacKenzie et al. claims to have evidence against all spanking when only two of 16 outcomes were significant (after all controls were included), and the mean effect of spanking at the age of 3 was actually slightly in a beneficial direction. Overall, the mean effect size was equivalent to a meager odds ratio of 1.06 (OR = 1.00 indicates no association at all), easily explained by unmeasured confounding variables.
In defending their opposition to spanking, all three articles cited Gershoff's(3) meta-analysis, but its evidence against spanking is weak as well, based solely on cross-sectional (61%), retrospective (26%), and longitudinal (13%) correlations. Correlations make all corrective actions appear to be harmful for treating chronic problems, whether disciplinary or medical. For instance, patients who received radiation treatment last year are more likely to have cancer this year than the rest of us who did not have cancer and did not receive radiation treatment, thus making the treatment appear harmful. Even a perfect cancer treatment would appear harmful according to cross-sectional correlations, since during-treatment cancer would count as evidence against it. It would appear ineffective according to longitudinal correlations because cancer patients would then became indistinguishable from everyone else. Thus even a perfect corrective action would be regarded as harmful by most of Gershoff's(3) correlational evidence and ineffective (r = .00) according to her strongest correlational evidence.
Two recent meta-analyses of disciplinary spanking have moved beyond these biased correlations. Based on studies controlling statistically for pre-existing differences, one meta-analysis found tiny adverse effects of spanking of children under the age of 7 on externalizing behavior problems (partial r = .06, equivalent to OR = 1.24), which could easily be explained by unmeasured confounds.(4) The second meta-analysis found that physical punishment led to more adverse outcomes than alternative disciplinary tactics only when it was used severely or as the main disciplinary method.(5) When compared directly to other disciplinary measures (e.g., time-out), customary spanking was found to result in similar outcomes, except for one study favoring spanking. Conditional spanking (nonabusive usage when 2- to 6-year-olds respond defiantly to milder tactics) was actually associated with significantly less noncompliance or aggression than 10 of 13 other disciplinary measures to which it has been compared, including the only four randomized trials of spanking.
By co-sponsoring the only scientific conference on corporal punishment [Friedman & Schonberg, Pediatrics 1996;98(4, Part 2)], AAP became the leading society in promoting objective science on this important topic. Featuring unconditional anti-spanking conclusions to the media based on such weak evidence compromises that leadership position.
REFERENCES
1. Afifi TO, Mota NP, Dasiewicz P, MacMillan HL, Sareen J. Physical punishment and mental disorders: Results from a nationally representative US sample. Pediatrics. 2012;130(2):184-192.
2. Afifi TO, Mota N, MacMillan HL, Sareen J. Harsh physical punishment in childhood and adult physical health. Pediatrics. 2013;132(2):e333-e340.
3. Gershoff ET. Corporal punishment by parents and associated child behaviors and experiences: A meta-analytic and theoretical review. Psychological Bulletin. 2002;128:539-579.
4. Ferguson CJ. Spanking, corporal punishment and negative long-term outcomes: A meta-analytic review of longitudinal studies. Clinical Psychology Review. 2013;33:196-208.
5. Larzelere RE, Kuhn BR. Comparing child outcomes of physical punishment and alternative disciplinary tactics: A meta-analysis. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review. 2005;8:1-37.
Conflict of Interest:
None declared