Science Confirms: Spanking Damages IQ

[Howl]

Saw this on CNN Web page:

The science confirms that corporal punishment lowers IQ and is correlated with higher levels of aggression and damages the ability of the brain to learn self control.

The meat of the matter:

...Harsh corporal punishment in the study was defined as at least one spanking a month for more than three years, frequently done with objects such as a belt or paddle. [b]Researchers found children who were regularly spanked had less gray matter in certain areas of the prefrontal cortex that have been linked to depression, addiction and other mental health disorders, the study authors say.

The researchers also found "significant correlations" between the amount of gray matter in these brain regions and the children's performance on an IQ test.

Several other studies support these findings. A 2010 study published in Pediatrics found that frequent -- more than twice in the previous month -- spanking when a child was 3 was linked to an increased risk for higher levels of child aggression when the child was 5.

Another, from the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma, found that corporal punishment doled out from the mother was independently related to a decrease in cognitive ability relative to other children. Corporal punishment had the largest effect on children 5 to 9.

Behind all this science-speak is the sobering fact that corporal punishment is damaging to children. That gray matter we've been spanking out of them? It's the key to the brain's ability to learn self-control.

full text of the article here.

[Antimony]

Possible. Actual sample sizes were good but if you follow through to the actual research article, the researchers have less sure-fire conclusions;

Exposing children to harsh HCP may have detrimental effects on trajectories of brain development. However, it is also conceivable that differences in prefrontal cortical development may increase risk of exposure to HCP.

and

Despite American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations to the contrary, most parents in the United States approve of and have used CP as a form of child discipline. The current findings suggest that even minor forms of CP, such as spanking, increase risk for increased child aggressive behavior. Importantly, these findings cannot be attributed to possible confounding effects of a host of other maternal parenting risk factors.

I don't advocate CP at all but a lot of science article conclusions are lost in translation for the sake of a more interesting news article. :shrug: The aggression one seems more certain though and make a whole lot intuitive sense to me. Pretty sad that people would need this much research to think that uh, maybe, we shouldn't hit children though.

[Childless]

CP is a sign of lazy parenting. There are much better, more effective, and less violent ways to teach discipline. They are, however, more time consuming and cerebral. A lot of parents don't want to put that much effort into teaching their children, so they hit. It's sad really.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Thanks for the link.

I'm always a bit suspicious of any article that states flat-out "science confirms", because the actual research articles rarely make such clear-cut conclusions.

The research findings do seem to be fairly consistent. What they don't reliably show, though, is whether the spanking CAUSES the lack of grey matter, or whether kids with less grey matter are more likely to be spanked. I suppose that a 3rd possibility would be that parents with less grey matter may be more likely to spank and also more likely to have kids who inherit a lower IQ.

I wonder if any cross-cultural studies would clarify this? You have areas where spanking is common, and areas where it is now frowned upon, so it may be possible to do some comparisons and see what effect spanking has when it is used by a "typical" family instead of one that is clearly struggling.

Ideally, researchers would also need to look at what else a parent does or does not do. Positive parenting isn't about just not spanking - it's about developing a whole other set of parenting tools and looking at child rearing in a different way. I have seen some families experience problems when they suddenly need to give up spanking (for example, because a child protection worker forced them), but have no clue how to manage without it. It is possible that perhaps the other parenting tools actually help a child's brain to grow, and that those tools are used less by spankers?

[August]

Thanks for the link.

I'm always a bit suspicious of any article that states flat-out "science confirms", because the actual research articles rarely make such clear-cut conclusions.

The research findings do seem to be fairly consistent. What they don't reliably show, though, is whether the spanking CAUSES the lack of grey matter, or whether kids with less grey matter are more likely to be spanked. I suppose that a 3rd possibility would be that parents with less grey matter may be more likely to spank and also more likely to have kids who inherit a lower IQ.

I wonder if any cross-cultural studies would clarify this? You have areas where spanking is common, and areas where it is now frowned upon, so it may be possible to do some comparisons and see what effect spanking has when it is used by a "typical" family instead of one that is clearly struggling.

Ideally, researchers would also need to look at what else a parent does or does not do. Positive parenting isn't about just not spanking - it's about developing a whole other set of parenting tools and looking at child rearing in a different way. I have seen some families experience problems when they suddenly need to give up spanking (for example, because a child protection worker forced them), but have no clue how to manage without it. It is possible that perhaps the other parenting tools actually help a child's brain to grow, and that those tools are used less by spankers?

I have seen parents just sub in time out for spanking, with no improvement in their parenting otherwise. So, instead of a conversation with them being punctuated by "do you want a spanking?" it's punctuated by "do you want a time out?". Yes, it's better, but it's still not great, and not working all that well to teach them how to function in the world.

[Full enough quiver]

My sister was one of those parents. You know, the ones that let their kids run amok until some arbitrary point when they annoy her, then gets off the couch to scream at them and spank them. The ones that don't have mealtimes or bedtimes, and then spank for "sneaking" snacks or not going to bed.

When the boys moved in with us, they had had no consistency in their lives. They didn't understand what behaviors were good and what behaviors were bad, and why. They didn't know how to clean their room, or brush their teeth, or take a shower. They didn't know how to communicate with each other or others, other than bickering and hitting. They had to be taught how to use their words. They had to learn table manners. Being screamed at to do those things, and hit if you don't, isn't teaching. They had to be shown how to do the behaviors we wanted, and have it explained to them why we wanted those behaviors, and why we didn't want other behaviors.

Also, creativity wasn't encouraged. They were to do what they were told, period. Not doing it immediately, her way, would get a spanking. They boys were never encouraged to think for themselves. They were terrified to try anything new, afraid to mess it up, and get screamed at and spanked.

I have seen, over these last two years, their test scores go from the 30th percentile for the older one, to the 90th. The younger one was in the 10th percentile, and is in the 75th now. My sister claimed that they were learning disabled. The younger one was, according to her, "retarded". Absolute bullshit. These boys are smart. She had them so afraid of making mistakes that they couldn't learn.

I think frequent spankers are crappy, lazy parents in general, who don't bother to teach their kids, and then are shocked when they don't turn out well It's more to do with general parenting style than spanking/not spanking. I'm not talking about the otherwise good parent that occasionally loses their cool and swats a misbehaving child on the bottom. We've all had our less than stellar parenting moments.

[Mama Mia]

Thanks for the link.

I'm always a bit suspicious of any article that states flat-out "science confirms", because the actual research articles rarely make such clear-cut conclusions.

The research findings do seem to be fairly consistent. What they don't reliably show, though, is whether the spanking CAUSES the lack of grey matter, or whether kids with less grey matter are more likely to be spanked. I suppose that a 3rd possibility would be that parents with less grey matter may be more likely to spank and also more likely to have kids who inherit a lower IQ.

I wonder if any cross-cultural studies would clarify this? You have areas where spanking is common, and areas where it is now frowned upon, so it may be possible to do some comparisons and see what effect spanking has when it is used by a "typical" family instead of one that is clearly struggling.

Ideally, researchers would also need to look at what else a parent does or does not do. Positive parenting isn't about just not spanking - it's about developing a whole other set of parenting tools and looking at child rearing in a different way. I have seen some families experience problems when they suddenly need to give up spanking (for example, because a child protection worker forced them), but have no clue how to manage without it. It is possible that perhaps the other parenting tools actually help a child's brain to grow, and that those tools are used less by spankers?

I agree. I think it would be really hard to separate out how much is that parents who approve of cp are going to use it a lot more with children who have a naturally more difficult to manage personality. Some kids are really, really, really challenging, and all of the awesome strategies that work with easier personalities just don't work with them.

My older kids were easy, generally cooperative children. They had their awful moments and occasional tantrums like any child, but were overall were just - cooperative personalities. I was super smug about my awesome parenting, until I had my third child. Who had a difficult birth that was, possibly, the cause of his very severe ADHD. That kid never met a risk he didn't want to take. From infancy. He had NO impulse control. None. I didn't use CP, although looking back I think he actually might have responded better to a slight smack on the butt then he did to any of the myriad other strategies we tried -- because he's a very physical person. Thinks like time-out were absolute TORTURE to him, and did no good. Talking through solutions and all the other things the books say to try were only extremely minimally effective as well. His childhood was very challenging, school was a nightmare from the first day to the last. I am pretty sure if they did brain scans they would show some differences.

[2xx1xy1JD]

I have seen parents just sub in time out for spanking, with no improvement in their parenting otherwise. So, instead of a conversation with them being punctuated by "do you want a spanking?" it's punctuated by "do you want a time out?". Yes, it's better, but it's still not great, and not working all that well to teach them how to function in the world.

I went to look up the research on 1-2-3 Magic (the leading "time out" program here) and found this:

http://www.123magic.com/site/ResearchPD ... enting.pdf

Bottom line: If you have parents who are clearly saying that they need help with their 3 or 4 yr old, giving them a 1-2-3 Magic program immediately is better than doing absolutely nothing for a few months. I'm not sure I'd call that a ringing endorsement, and in some areas, like anger, it didn't help at all.

Maybe I'd like the program better if they called it "1-2-3 a first step toward learning one parenting tool but not a reason to stop learning more".