American Psychological Association (APA). (2010). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/principles.pdf [ Google Scholar] Lee SJ, Grogan-Kaylor A, & Berger LM (2014). Parental spanking of 1-year-old children and subsequent child protective services involvement. Child Abuse & Neglect, 38, 875–883. 10.1016/j.chiabu.2014.01.018 [ PMC free article] [ PubMed] [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar] Larzelere RE, Cox RB, & Smith GL (2010). Do nonphysical punishments reduce antisocial behavior more than spanking? A comparison using the strongest previous causal evidence against spanking. BMC Pediatrics, 10, 10. 10.1186/1471-2431-10-10 [ PMC free article] [ PubMed] [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar] That’s the theory. Since the 1970s, more than 100 books have been published by educators, parents and individuals espousing this ‘strong’ version of positive discipline. But there is little evidence for its effectiveness. Prior research provides supporting evidence for some components of such parenting (e.g., being warm and responsive, avoiding corporal punishment, promoting cooperation), but there is little comprehensive, systematic research investigating the effectiveness of the approach. Kersey, K., & Masterson, M. (2012). 101 principles of positive guidance with young children: Creating responsive teachers. Pearson Professional Development.

Parents and the general public should be educated about the body of research indicating physical punishment is ineffective and may be harmful to children. Professional associations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics (1998, 2014), the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (2011), the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (2012), and the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (2016) have all issued policy statements both urging parents to avoid using physical punishment and directing professionals who work with parents to advise them to discipline their children with nonphysical techniques. Larzelere RE, Kuhn BR, & Johnson B (2004). The intervention selection bias: An underrecognized confound in intervention research. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 289–303. 10.1037/00332909.130.2.289 [ PubMed] [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar] Gershoff ET. Corporal punishment by parents and associated child behaviors and experiences: A meta-analytic and theoretical review. Psychological Bulletin. 2002; 128(4):539–579. doi: 10.1037//0033-2909.128.4.539. [ PubMed] [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar]

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Britto, P. R., & Ulkuer, N. (2012). Child development in developing countries: Child rights and policy implications. Child Development, 83, 92–103. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01672.x This uncertainty about the best alternative to corporal punishment poses important questions for parents. Arguably, the sharpest contrast between the traditional form of chid discipline and the strong form of positive discipline can be illustrated in the concept of “time out”. CRC General Comment No. 8 (2006): The Right of the Child to Protection from Corporal Punishment and Other Cruel or Degrading forms of Punishment (U.N. CRC/C/GC/8) Ending the practice of spanking young children may require more individualized, belief-based dialogue with parents Caderao is the 217,322 nd most common family name globally, borne by approximately 1 in 3,861,975 people. It occurs predominantly in Asia, where 98 percent of Caderao live; 98 percent live in Southeast Asia and 98 percent live in Fil-Southeast Asia.

Grogan-Kaylor A (2004). The effect of corporal punishment on antisocial behavior in children. Social Work Research, 28, 153–162. 10.1093/swr/28.3.153 [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar] Why do parents persist in a behavior that may increase the risk of harm to their children? A primary reason is that they believe it to be effective at improving child behavior and are unaware of its potential harms to children ( Holden, Miller, & Harris, 1999), in part because they themselves were spanked as children and believe that they “turned out OK.” These beliefs are not often challenged by the media, which typically frames stories about spanking as a “debate” among researchers without adequately vetting the strength of the evidence (e.g., Moyer, 2016). It is also the case that not all psychologists refute the notion that spanking is ineffective and inadvisable. In a 2016 survey of 843 members of the American Psychological Association (APA), the majority of these psychologists agreed that spanking children was harmful and would not recommend it to parents, yet substantial minorities held favorable views. For example, nearly 30% of survey respondents did not agree that spanking is harmful to children, 28% did not agree that spanking is a form of violence against children, 17% did not agree that spanking is a bad disciplinary technique, 14% said they advise parents with whom they work to spank with a hand occasionally, and 15% to 36% were unsure whether research has linked spanking with particular negative outcomes ( Miller-Perrin & Rush, 2018). There are also a few psychologists who argue that, because experiments of spanking are, for the most part, not possible, we can never definitively conclude that spanking causes harm to children ( Larzelere, Gunnoe, Roberts, & Ferguson, 2017). In short, there remains an information gap between what researchers in psychology, medicine, and other disciplines have confirmed about the harms linked to spanking and what the majority of parents and a substantial minority of psychologists continue to believe. Ma J, Han Y, Grogan-Kaylor A, Delva J, & Castillo M (2012). Corporal punishment and youth externalizing behavior in Santiago, Chile. Child Abuse & Neglect, 36, 481–490. 10.1016/j.chiabu.2012.03.006 [ PMC free article] [ PubMed] [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar] Irfan, S., & Cowburn, M. (2004). Disciplining, chastisement and physical child abuse: Perceptions and attitudes of the British Pakistani community. Journal of Muslim Affairs, 24, 89–98. https://doi.org/10.1080/136020042000212151 The committee that monitors compliance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) has declared that physical punishment is a form of “legalized violence against children” ( United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2007, para. 18). The Committee stressed that all physical punishment of children, including that in homes, should be eliminated through “legislative, administrative, social and educational measures” ( United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2007, para. 18). As of 2018, 53 countries, including most of Europe and South America, have banned all physical punishment of children (Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children, 2018).Scientific evidence is easily sidelined by parental beliefs and displaced by critical anecdotes on the Internet. Bitensky, S. H. (2010). The mother of all human rights: The child’s right to be free of corporal punishment as hard international law. Ohio Northern University Law Review, 36(3), 701–720.