Our life experience and most research results suggest that corporal punishment leads to "immediate obedience."
However, the devil is lurking in this miraculous effect: one beating and obedience, a few more beatings, and corporal punishment slides into abuse.
Written by | Frost Morning Moon
I collapsed in my chair and sobbed weakly. I remember it was the only time in my childhood that I actually shed tears, and strangely, I didn't even cry because it hurt. The second whiplash was not very painful either. Fear and shame seemed to give me anesthesia. I cried, partly because I felt that this was what they expected me to do, partly out of sincere remorse, but partly because of a deeper grief that only childhood had and was not easy to articulate: a bleak feeling of loneliness and helplessness, a feeling of being locked not only in a hostile world but in a very evil world, where the rules were actually something I couldn't follow.
- George Orwell, "Such a Happy Childhood"
Corporal punishment, or "corporal punishment" (also known as spank, slap, punching, kicking), is generally defined as "the use of physical or physical force to punish a child with the aim of causing the child to experience pain rather than injury, in order to correct or control the child's behavior" [1]. With the development of modern civilization, the world has paid more and more attention to the protection of children's rights and interests, and in 1989, world leaders adopted the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which clearly states: "States Parties shall ensure that no child is subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." In recent decades, many countries have enacted laws prohibiting corporal punishment of minors.
Nevertheless, there are still different attitudes towards corporal punishment in countries around the world, which fall into three main categories: outright prohibition, partial permissibility and express permissibility.
Countries that completely ban corporal punishment include 58 countries, including Denmark, Germany, Sweden and Norway. Prior to 1989, only Sweden (banned in 1979, the first in the world), Finland (1983) and Norway (1987) issued prohibitions. In 2020, Japan became the 58th country to completely ban corporal punishment of children.
The second type of attitude is that teachers are prohibited from corporal punishment of students, but there is no requirement for parents. Corporal punishment of students by teachers has been banned in Hong Kong since 1990, in mainland China since 1991, and in Taiwan Province since 2006.
At present, corporal punishment is explicitly permitted in the United States, Singapore and Australia, but there may be specific restrictions on the procedure, age and location of corporal punishment to prevent it from evolving into abuse. For example, 23 states in the United States limit corporal punishment of students to a maximum of 5 spankings with a small bench; Singapore allows schools to whip boys aged 6 to 19 who commit serious offences, but only up to six lashes; Australia has dedicated correctional chambers that offer different corporal punishments depending on the specific disciplinary situation.
We can see that the first to completely ban corporal punishment were the economically developed Nordic countries such as Sweden, Finland and Norway, which have ranked among the highest in the world in terms of national happiness in recent years. Whether the development of Northern Europe and the happiness of the Nordics is related to its prohibition of corporal punishment is not yet clear to us. But is corporal punishment really a heinous thing? If the child is too much, can't he discipline and discipline?
1
Be obedient with a beating, but there is another price
Although there are many reports of children or adolescents taking their lives as a result of corporal punishment on the Internet, most parents believe that these are only exceptions, and that their children will not be so extreme, and that discipline should still be disciplined. After all, there are always times when children can't listen to reason. Aren't there also many people who grow up thanking their parents for their strict discipline?
So, how will the emotional, intellectual and social development of minors who have experienced corporal punishment, in addition to changing their behavior and submitting to corporal punishment, be affected?
A classic meta-analysis published in 2002 aggregated data from 88 studies related to corporal punishment [2] and found that the experience of corporal punishment influences 11 important child behaviors and experiences, including desirable and undesirable beliefs underlying child development. The so-called construct refers to the child's developmental tendency, and the ideal development tendency includes immediate obedience, internalization of moral sense, good parent-child relationship and healthy psychological state; Adverse developmental tendencies generally include strong aggression, criminal and antisocial behavior, future abuse of their children or spouses, and victims of abuse by their parents.
The overarching conclusion of this meta-analysis study was that corporal punishment was significantly associated with a range of negative child behaviours and experiences. In other words, corporal punishment has clear negative effects on children's behaviour and experiences, not only in the short term but also in the long term; It affects not only the child himself, but also the child's relationship with the outside world.
While corporal punishment does induce children to "immediately obey" (not all studies fully support this result), it is also associated with 10 undesirable beliefs. For example, corporal punishment can impair the quality of parent-child relationships, undermine children's mental health, and enhance aggressive and antisocial behavior. The stark contrast is that immediate obedience is the most positive effect of corporal punishment – and the desired outcome of the adult who inflicts it, but physical abuse is a very negative experience. These two completely different ideas show the strongest correlation. That is, children who have been subjected to corporal punishment associate "obedience" with painful memories of beatings, and for them, obedience is painful. This probably won't be what adults want.
In particular, the researchers warn that while corporal punishment does provide the benefit of "immediate obedience in a short period of time," it can easily translate into physical abuse. In addition, when children are in danger, corporal punishment may be necessary to make them obey immediately, but corporal punishment disciplines children by bringing fear to them, and does not actually help them internalize moral norms and social rules, and thus does not help them achieve truly successful socialization.
In the past decade, many studies in this area have further refined the harm of corporal punishment on children's development in terms of mental health and behavior, cognitive and social development.
A study published in 2015 [3] selected samples from many European countries to comprehensively assess the mental health of participants (children) by collecting data from children, parents and teachers, and found that frequent corporal punishment not only significantly increases the probability of external behavioral problems (such as behavioral disorders and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) in children, but also is more likely to affect the mental health of individuals, causing children to have adverse psychological problems such as fear, anxiety and depression. And these negative effects are not mitigated by any cultural differences.
Other studies have also found [4-6] that the experience of corporal punishment increases the likelihood of suicide in adolescents [4] and affects children's academic performance [5]. Even a 2021 neuroscience study [6] found that this negative experience left an imprint on children's brain development: compared to children who were not spanked, spanked children showed stronger activation in multiple areas of the inner and outer prefrontal lobes (which is the regulatory center of cognition, emotion and other mental functions) when faced with faces with fearful expressions. These results suggest that corporal punishment may resemble more serious forms of abuse and alter an individual's response to environmental threats from neural activity.
In addition, from an interpersonal perspective, psychologists have also found that children who have been physically punished at home are more likely to experience corporal punishment from teachers or bullied by other classmates at school [5]. This seems like a broken window effect, or a response to the Chinese proverb, "Disaster is not alone." Not only that, corporal punishment is also easy to be transmitted between generations, that is, people who experienced corporal punishment as children are more inclined to use corporal punishment for their children after becoming parents.
2
Why can't you help but hit the child?
Despite the negative effects of corporal punishment and the fact that many countries have enacted laws prohibiting corporal punishment, epidemiological studies show that at least 80% of parents worldwide still use corporal punishment in the education of their children [7]. Why "knowingly do it badly"? What factors influence parents' decision to physically punish their children and the intensity of corporal punishment?
First of all, as mentioned earlier, parents themselves receive corporal punishment education when they are young, which can easily lead to their children in the same way as adults; The child's own situation and parents' perceptions and attitudes towards corporal punishment are also important. In every family, parental attitudes and norms towards education may be related to many factors, such as the social environment, national policies, cultural background and the quality of parent-child relationships.
A recent study from 2022 found [7] that children with any developmental or psycho-emotional impairment, or children perceived by parents as dysfunctional, tend to believe that corporal punishment is positive for their children. That is, these parents believe that corporal punishment of children is good for children, corrects children's behavior patterns, allows them to study well, and makes family relationships more harmonious (because children are more obedient).
Some researchers have proposed a "process-context model" [2] to analyze the context in which corporal punishment occurs, as well as the direct and indirect effects of corporal punishment on children. This model divides the context in which corporal punishment occurs into three levels:
1) the broadest socio-cultural context;
2) the relatively stable individual and relationship backgrounds of members within the family;
3) The context of the interaction when corporal punishment occurs.
From these three levels, it is not difficult to find that the factors affecting corporal punishment are very complex. From the level of socio-cultural background, local public policies, the socioeconomic status of families, etc. will affect parents' attitude towards corporal punishment, for example, we often hear that adults in poorer families tend to prefer to beat children; Every family in the village beats children, so corporal punishment is naturally normal. Individual and relational contexts include the personality traits of parents and children, for example, the aggressiveness and attribution patterns of both partners also affect the way they typically interact during education. In the process of interaction of specific events, factors such as the degree of emotional arousal and information awareness of both parties will affect the occurrence of corporal punishment and its effect (consequences).
The above analysis also specifically mentions the influence of the child's gender. A number of studies have found that parents use corporal punishment more frequently and more severely in the process of educating boys. But is this because boys are inherently more aggressive, or is it because this parenting model causes boys to be subjected to more brutal corporal punishment and thus develop more aggressive? This becomes a question similar to "chicken lays eggs" or "eggs give chickens".
The Process-Situational Model of Corporal Punishment[2]
In addition, studies have also highlighted that the age, education, occupational type, and psychological state of the caregiver also influence the occurrence of corporal punishment [3]. In general, relatively young, less educated, non-professional or managerial parents are more likely to use corporal punishment in education. A 2015 study of 76 mothers and families from special backgrounds compared the effects of six variables, including (1) social support, (2) socioeconomic status, (3) depression, (4) self-efficacy, (5) knowledge of child development, and (6) history of postpartum depression, on the effects of maternal corporal punishment of their children [8]. Unlike the complex "process-scenario model," this study found that postpartum depression was the only variable that significantly increased corporal punishment, and that "more likely to hit a child" was prevalent in women at high risk of postpartum depression, suggesting that the mother's emotional state was a key factor in deciding whether to corporal punishment. This result also implies that it is likely that "socioeconomic status" does not directly affect corporal punishment, but affects the occurrence and intensity of corporal punishment by acting on the psychological and emotional state of parents.
3
Parenting other than corporal punishment
In summary, we can see that corporal punishment is a way of upbringing that is not worth the loss. It not only damages the physical and mental development of children, but also harms the parent-child relationship. So, what parenting styles are there besides corporal punishment?
Current developmental psychology divides the way families around the world raise children into four different parenting styles based on the two elements of "intimacy" and "rules".[9, 10]: authoritarian parenting, authoritative parenting, permissive parenting, and neglect Rejecting-Neglecting Parenting)。
Specifically, the differences between these types of parenting styles are:
A. Authoritarian parents emphasize rules and neglect intimacy. They emphasize rules and parental authority, have extremely high demands on children and establish very strict rules, require children to be absolutely obedient and obedient, have no room for discussion of rules, and are often enforced through punishment and threats.
B. Authoritative parents emphasize rules and value intimacy. They have high standards, high expectations and strict requirements for their children, similar to authoritarian parents, but authoritative parents also give their children a high degree of support and tolerance, making them feel respected and warm. Such parents emphasize reasoning and interpretation, which can help children learn to anticipate the consequences of their actions and learn to make rational decisions.
C. Permissive parents ignore rules and value intimacy. Permissive parents rarely set rules and let their children make their own decisions. Like authoritative parents, they care about their children and like to communicate with them, but the difference is that they do not believe that parents should intervene and guide their children too much, but advocate that children take on most of the decision-making tasks themselves, believing that children can learn what to do and what not to do from the consequences of their actions.
D. Neglectful parents ignore rules and neglect intimacy. They are cold to the child, or leave the child alone, pay little attention to the child's needs, and sometimes even completely ignore and abuse it. Such parents often have stressful lives and do not have the time and energy to care for their children.
Children who grow up with different parenting styles also often have different personalities [10]. For example, children raised by authoritarian parents tend to be more anxious, insecure, and have a higher probability of antisocial behavior (this seems to overlap with the effects of corporal punishment). Children raised by authoritative parents are generally more confident, independent, and enthusiastic, and overall more likely to have a happy and successful life. Children raised by tolerant and laissez-faire parents tend to have less mature personalities and are more impulsive or dependent on others. Of course, specific to each family, often due to the differences in parents' personalities and educational concepts, the type of parenting style of a particular family should be a mixture of two or more of them.
In the family, rules should be as important as affection. There are no rules, but if there are only rules left in the home, without intimacy and trust, the home cannot become a warm harbor. Therefore, for families with enough time and energy to accompany their children, psychologists believe that the "authoritative" parenting style is more suitable for most children, because this type can best represent the type of enlightened and loving parents, which can help children build a sense of inner security and personality integrity to the greatest extent, so that children can fully develop their potential.
Ten years of trees, a hundred years of tree people. Although education is a very complex matter, every child often has his or her own unique talents and dispositions, so many times the impact of corporal punishment will vary from person to person, and whether corporal punishment can be carried out may also vary from case to case. However, with the progress of the times, perhaps parents in the future can take a more comprehensive view of the impact of corporal punishment and choose more gentle and flexible parenting methods.
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[2] Gershoff Elizabeth Thompson. (2002). Corporal punishment by parents and associated child behaviors and experiences: a meta-analytic and theoretical review. Psychol Bull, 128(4), 539-79. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.128.4.539
[3] duRivage Nathalie., Keyes Katherine., Leray Emmanuelle., Pez Ondine., Bitfoi Adina., Koç Ceren., Goelitz Dietmar., Kuijpers Rowella., Lesinskiene Sigita., Mihova Zlatka., Otten Roy., Fermanian Christophe., Kovess-Masfety Viviane. (2015). Parental use of corporal punishment in Europe: intersection between public health and policy. PLoS One, 10(2), e0118059. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0118059
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