The Facts Of Life

Study finds smacking damages children in long term

Kathleen Nutt
Monday 11 November 2013

CAMPAIGNERS have renewed calls for a ban on smacking after a major new study carried out in Scotland found significant evidence it posed a serious risk to children's development.

It found youngsters who had received corporal punishment before the age of two were twice as likely to have emotional and behavioural problems when they start school as those who had not.

Alison Todd, director of children and family services at the charity Children 1st, said Scotland, as part of the UK, was now one of only four European Union countries not to have banned physical punishment of children.

"As this research indicates, hitting a child as a way of disciplining can clearly have damaging impacts on their development," she said. "It is a situation 'deeply regretted' by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Children are Unbeatable coalition of which we are a member."

She added: "The Scottish Government has a number of current legislative opportunities through which to address this issue. We share the Government's aspiration for Scotland to be the best place to grow up, and giving children the same right to protection from assault that adults enjoy would be a huge step towards making it reality."

Under the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act parents are allowed to hit a child so long as the punishment goes no further than "reasonable chastisement". They cannot hit a child on the head or with an implement, or shake a child.

The new study is the first piece of research to explore the association between parental use of smacking and emotional and behavioural problems in young children living in Scotland.

Dr Sonya Scott, a public health specialist at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, was the lead researcher on the project carried out at the Institute of Health and Wellbeing at Glasgow University.

She also called for new laws to be introduced to ban smacking. The researchers analysed the behaviour of 1600 Scottish children around the age of 46 months, including 327 who had received corporal punishment before they were 22 months old.

Adjustments were made to take account of the family's socio-economic background, the child's gender and number of siblings.

The study found more than 13% of those who had been smacked scored poorly on a standarised questionnaire used by doctors and health visitors to assess a child's social development.

Of the children who had not been smacked, just 6% had "abnormal results".

The assessment, called the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), covered ability to get on with peers, hyperactivity, and conduct.

"The association between exposure to main care-giving smacking and behavioural problems was also evident when emotional and behavioural problems were measured by parent-reported SDQ scores, with 13.4% of smacked children having abnormal scores compared with 5.9%of children who had never been smacked," said the study published in the academic journal Child: Health, Care and Development.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/study-finds-smacking-damages-children-in-long-term.22648854

Were you one of the 13%?  :D

I'm guessing from the content in that article that the 13% were abnormal from the very beginning of their lives.

And therefore who can blame their parents for smacking them, but it's out of frustration rather than an attempt to discipline them.

Then you guess wrong, read it again.

 

NUTT by name...
NUT by nature !!

 

ON the other hand :

* There IS a big difference between a light smack or a tap, and a "beating" - which is the title of that policy mentioned in the story; and
* Hitting any child under 3 or 4 years old says more about the parent then that child ~ children under 2 are still practically babies, a nd there is never any reason towards "corporal punishment" towards them !

[BY the time kids are 7 or 8 they quite well know the difference between right and wrong ~ just try asking them sometime !   ]

So what do the experts blame for the children who are not smacked and apparently hardly ever disiplined with behavioural problems now starting school, like the ones hitting all the other children, the ones aggressive towards teachers and the quite high number of children excluded, as young as five, for innappropriate sexual behaviour?

Well, the ones that are aggressive must have learnt it at home, probably smacking, haven't children always had inappropriate sexual behaviour, doctors and nurses anyone.

Doctors and doctors!   

Most parents don't smack the little prince or princess these days though do they, you are more likely to see them trying to reason with or bribe the little terrors.

I've seen lots of people smack their kids, and most bullies at school are smacked at home.

My experience of school was quite the opposite I and my peers were smacked and caned and as far as I know none of us are axe murders, bullies or particularly aggressive, the bullies we had were usually the ones spoilt rotten by doting parents and I believe its the same today only worse because far more children are over indulged and spoilt theses days.

Well, we will have to disagree, because the bullies I came across were passing on what they had been taught at home, violence.

Well, if you smack them hard enough you can turn them into Torries and Republicans.

Lurker wrote:Well, if you smack them hard enough you can turn them into Torries and Republicans.

such
LOL
I dont know if its smacking or the fact that smacking is often accompanied by other signs of inadequate of inappropriate parenting that turn out such horrible kids

I think it is needed with some children, it is also unfortunate that some parents cant use it appropriately and it becomes a 'go to' for all punishment because of their lack of parenting skills and ability to reason with and teach the child in better ways.

I don't think there is any point in smacking 'after the fact' it needs to be immediate and does not need to be very hard (tightly grabbing most children's wrist is sufficient, but there are always extra naughty ones).

I disagree with Bee on the age thing, I believe it becomes less effective as they get older plus with age comes greater capacity to reason with them. If a 2-6 year old is doing something dangerous (Road and water safety were 2 I can remember as a kid) then the physical pain of the smack is only a fraction of what they avoided but should still fire the primal learning responses that learning from an accident/injury would cause. We are animals and physical re-enforcement of a 'lesson' fires more neurons causing an increased probability of remembering and learning.

I would also point out I believe it should solely be for safety education purposes, it should not be used for social conditioning purposes, if the kid wont say please or thank you they can learn through experience and reasonable explanations. You wont smack empathy or respect into them.