Associations between lifelong spanking/slapping and adolescent physical and mental health and behavioral outcomes
These findings suggest that lifelong spanking/slapping is uniquely associated with adverse mental, physical, and behavioral outcomes in adolescents, and efforts should focus on its prevention.
https://doi.org/10.1177/07067437211000632
Commentary
Many parents use physical punishment, such as spanking, to correct their children's misbehavior. While some would suggest that spanking and slapping fall into the "milder" category of physical punishment, you should also know that they are consistently associated with poor outcomes for children. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between lifelong experiences of spanking and hand spanking and three adolescent outcomes.
a) mental health disorders
b) physical health conditions
c) defiant behaviour
Cross-sectional data from the Ontario Child Health Survey conducted in 2014 (N = 6,537 dwellings, response rate = 50.8%) were used. From this, data collected from adolescents and parents/caregivers were used to focus on one selected child (n = 1,883) aged 14-17 years in the household.
These results reported that lifetime exposure to spanking/slapping was independently associated with increased odds of mental health problems, physical health conditions, and defiant behavior in adolescents after adjusting for child adversity and child maltreatment. (Unadjusted and adjusted odds ratios ranging from 1.29 to 2.19)
Thus, spanking and slapping, which are generally considered mild, can be a future health hazard.
