Spanking Boomerangs Into Misbehavior, Study Suggests

Parents who spank their children are provoking the very misbehavior they are trying to stop, but they don’t see the “boomerang” effect because it happens over weeks or months, a new study suggests.

Many past studies have linked spanking with increased aggressiveness in children, but authors of the new study say they have found the strongest evidence yet of cause and effect.

“When parents use corporal punishment to reduce antisocial behavior, the long-term effect tends to be the opposite,” the researchers wrote in the August issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

A team led by sociologist Murray A. Straus, co-director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire, analyzed 1988 and 1990 national-survey data from 807 mothers of children ages 6 to 9, and compared levels of antisocial behavior among spanked and unspanked children over the interval.

Forty-four percent of mothers reported spanking their children in the week before they were interviewed, and they spanked them an average of twice that week, the researchers said.

The more spanking at the beginning of the study period, the higher the level of antisocial behavior at the end, independent of other traits that can affect such behavior, such as the family’s socioeconomic status and the amount of warmth and support parents give their children, researchers said.

Antisocial behavior included cheating or lying, bullying and other misbehavior.

Proponents of spanking are not swayed.

A spokesman for Alabama Gov. Forrest “Fob” James Jr., who advocated successful state legislation approving corporal punishment in schools, said, “Corporal punishment is appropriate in some cases. It’s a time-tested method of discipline. It’s been used for thousands of years by parents and teachers.”