Study shows link between spanking and mental illness

Carolyn Robertson

posted: July 2, 2012, 11:02 am



Spanking has long been a hot topic among parents, and a new study on its effects likely won’t do much to quell the debate.

Published today in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the study shows a “significant link” between physical punishment and mental illness, says Dr. Tracie Afifi, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Manitoba and the study’s lead researcher.

Using data that tracked 35,000 Americans under the age of 20 from 2004 to 2005, the researchers looked at the 1,300 who received physical punishment including spanking, shoving or hitting at home. They did not include those who suffered serious physical or sexual abuse or emotional neglect during childhood.

Dr. Afifi says that approximately 2% to 7% of mental disorders in the study were linked to physical punishment: “There is a significant link between the two,” she tells the USA Today. “Individuals who are physically punished have an increased likelihood of having mental health disorders.”

Those who received physical punishment as children were 59% more likely to have alcohol addiction, 41% more likely to have depression and 24% more likely to have panic disorders.

“We’re confident of the reliability of our data, and the data strongly indicate that physical punishment should not be used on children — at any age,” Dr. Afifi tells the newspaper. “And it’s important for parents to be aware of that.”

Not everyone is convinced, though. Dr. Robert Larzelere, of Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, says that why and how a parent spanks is what really matters: “The motivation that the child perceives and when and how and why the parent uses (spanking) makes a big difference. All of that is more important than whether it was used or not,” he says, noting that the new study “does nothing to move beyond correlations to figure out what is actually causing the mental health problems.”

Spanking and other forms of physical punishment are now illegal in 32 countries. Though it remains legal in the US, it does seem to be on the decline: In 1968, 94% of Americans said that they agreed with spanking but in 2005 only 72% agreed that it is “sometimes O.K. to spank a child.”

I don’t spank my kids and I was never spanked growing up. I do agree with Dr. Larzelere that when and how a parent spanks is key, but I just feel like I’d find it harder to tell my children not to hit others if I didn’t model that same behavior at home.

What do you think of this new study? How do you feel about spanking?

Photo: Flickr

Carolyn Robertson


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20 Responses to Study shows link between spanking and mental illness

  1. Danny's Momma says:

    First let me say that I don’t think everyone should think the way I do. I’m not saying I’m better than anyone for how I feel about this, just offering up my opinion…

    I just can’t imagine causing my child physical pain. I don’t know if it’s because he’s only 4 and hasn’t done anything terrible enough to deserve a big punishment let alone a spanking, but the thought of causing my child to hurt by my own hand just eats at me. I remember being spanked as a child. I can’t for the life of me remember what I did to deserve it, but I remember it happening, and I remember feeling very scared. One particular time I can remember pleading for my mom to help me, but she just stood there and said I deserved it. For my son to EVER feel scared and alone like that is NOT ok with me. I am his mommy, I’m not supposed to hurt him no matter what he does. I’m supposed to protect him and guide him and teach him.

    Maybe I’m naive. Maybe I just don’t know because my kid is and has always been very good (by no doing of mine, I truely do believe that he is just naturally “good”). Or maybe I just know firsthand that it caused me to be distrustful of my parents. Also, I really do understand that there is a difference between a beating and a spanking, and I do not by any means think that I was being beaten. But it was just enough to make afraid to tell my parents ANYTHING because of how they might react. I don’t want my son to be afraid to talk to me, ever.

  2. Jessica says:

    Some parents spank & don’t speak. I think if you explain to your child why they got a spanking after they calm down then it can be effective. You have to spank them & let them know you don’t do it to scare them or because you don’t love them, but because they cannot get into trouble without consequences. I remember getting spanked & I always was held afterward & shown love. I got explainations every time that helped me understand. Now with some kids it doesn’t work. You can’t continuously do the same thing for years, get no results & still stick to it. There are different methods of discipline out there. It works for some, some not so much.

  3. pris says:

    I don’t spank, although there have been times I’ve wanted to. But looking back, that’s exactly when I shouldn’t b/c I was enraged. I have shoved, of which I’m not too proud. But my husband and I agree that we wouldn’t. It’s not 100% off the table and I know many loving wonderful parents that do, it’s just exactly what You (carolyn) said; I teach not to hit so how can I justify hitting her? And honestly, I’ve only been spanked once and so has my husband. And I can’t ever see raising a hand to her when I’m calm, which is the only way I would ever feel that would be appropriate.

    Just out of curiosity, do you know which countries it’s outlawed in?

  4. Jessica says:

    I do not believe correlation equals causation in this instance. There is a definitive genetic link when it comes to mental illness, so perhaps the prevalence of mental illness in those who were spanked is simply because they were predisposed to it by their parents. Perhaps their own parents spanked them because THEY THEMSELVES had some form of mental health issues.

    I also agree with the other Jessica (commenter #2) in that HOW you go about the discipline is key. If you just spank your kid and never explain to them WHY you’re doing it, that is likely to cause trust issues because they’re never going to know when you’re going to spank them. If you explain logically why they got a spanking to a point that they understand, and make them look at the infraction so that they understand what they did was wrong and why, then I believe they’re less likely to repeat it.

  5. Stefany says:

    I spank, not the way I was spanked growing up, but if DS blatantly does something he was told not to do (like looking us dead in the eye and doing it just to be defiant) then he will get a swat on the back side, or a smack on his hand. 90% of the time he’ll get a time out or be put on a sort of restriction instead though. As a PP said, 90% of the time he’s a really great kid, and always has been so we don’t need to “correct” him often.
    As yet another PP said, I honestly believe that the children need to know why they’ve been spanked. DS (4YO) is very aware of what actions will earn him a swat on the backside, or a smack on the hand, he also knows that those items are ones that could possibly harm him anyway (like running off in a parking lot).

  6. AVH says:

    1.) Jessica, above, is correct. Correlation does not equal causation. Did these investigators control for factors such as socioeconomic status and family history? Did they control for race, sex, parents’ ages, criminal history? What is a “significant” link? p>.05 or p>.0001? Are the data self-reported?
    2.) Their criteria for spanking includes “spanking, shoving or hitting.” These actions are, to be fair, quite different from one another, both in the minds of many parents/children and in the actual physical and emotional effects. Spanking is a swat on the bottom, or several as the case may be. Hitting and shoving are not so narrowly defined, and frankly, “shoving” seems overtly malicious. The classification of these behaviors is in dire need of improvement.
    3.) How prevalent were these disorders 50 years ago? 100 years ago? Back in those days, beating children was accepted and encouraged the world over. It still is in many cultures. Do such cultures have higher prevalence of the disorders mentioned (when controlling for the factors listed above)?
    4.) Finally, there is substantial evidence for significant genetic influence on many mental disorders including those mentioned in the article. The results presented here may fit well with a popular narrative of the origin of mental disorders that places more emphasis on “nurture” than “nature,” but that narrative doesn’t really hold water. Ultimately, the vague results here happen to play on the fears of average middle-class white mothers, namely having an abnormal child and appearing poor or low-class (i.e. hitting their child, which is something poor, uneducated people do).

  7. Laura says:

    I work in mental health advocacy and I think that is entirely plausible. In most cases, it seems there’s a genetic predisposition and some kind of trigger (trauma) so for most kids who get spanked, it may not cause any long last issues, but for those with a susceptibility to mental illness it could.

    I’m certainly not a perfect parent, but I really don’t get how people say that spanking is okay. Do I hit my husband? Do I hit my colleagues? Do I hit my pets? Of course not. Why are children different?

  8. Kris says:

    Ugh. I am so sick of these “studies”! I am not saying this is not true, just that there is a new study all the time and then there are other studies that contradict them. Just because a doctor does a study, doesn’t make it true.

  9. K says:

    I don’t spank. IMO it is never OK to cause physical harm to another person, except in self defense. Spanking sends the wrong message. My husband does things all the time that irritate me – I don’t hit him for it. Why shouldn’t this rule apply to my children as well ?

  10. Sonia says:

    I don’t hit my boss when s/he says no you can’t get a raise, I don’t hit the driver behind me who’s tailing me, I don’t hit the bank teller who says that’s the bank fee…you get my point?? I can’t hit them because there are ‘equals’ ie the same size as me. So I hit my kids when they say/do something I don’t like… because I can ..they’re smaller they can’t tell the police and I can get away with it.
    That, folks is BULLYING!

  11. Samantha says:

    While I am no advocate of spanking, the thing is correlation could indicate the opposite… that parents are more likely to be frustrated with and thus spank a child who has a mental illness…

    For example, schizophrenia typically rears its ugly head in puberty, however, children who later develop schizophrenia can be picked out of a crowd of children playing by researchers… bipolar is another such disorder, most children are diagnosed in their teens, yet there were signs early on. Depression, too, tends to have roots in childhood – many people looking back realize they experienced their first depressive episode as a child.

    So, another effect to be considered here is that parents who have a child with an undiagnosed mental illness are more likely to experience frustration with gentler forms of parenting and, really, that more parenting supports generally need to be in place for parents who are parenting beyond their ability.

  12. Liz says:

    I am not a big advocate of spanking but I definitely believe there is a big difference between spanking and hitting/shoving. I’m not buying into this study

  13. alyssa says:

    time outs or hand spanks nd i ony handspank if he’s about to do somehing that would hurt himself o somebody else like if he decided he wants to stick his finger in an outlet i’ll grab his hand and give him a light hit and tll him no you can’t do that but other then that i put him in his little red chair if what he did was really bad i face him towards the wall he hates it and everytime he gets up another minute s added to his sentence

  14. Tamar says:

    I can’t say for sure without examining the study specifically, but it seems to me that the results actually do suggest causation rather than correlation, since it seems they have controlled for other factors. However, even if it was purely correlational, this is one of many studies that show similar results and at some point, scientifically, you gotta conclude (much like scientists did, say, 20-30 years ago about all the probably mostly correlational research on the longterm effects of smoking – as it would not be ethical to conduct a true experiment and instruct one group not to smoke and another one to smoke, the same problem as spanking research as you can’t instruct one group of randomly assigned parents to spank or not spank) that spanking has a high probability of causing longterm negative effects. Even if you could point out plenty of people who do not have longterm negative effects from spanking, I’m sure you could find just as many people who smoked and did not end up with any smoking-related health problems. Even all moral and emotional reasons aside, is that enough justification though to take the risk and spank your children?

    From a parenting and emotional perspective, I am the first time mom of a toddler who is extremely “strong-willed”, energetic, and Gd help anyone who stands in her way or tells her no type of person. I gotta admit that there have been times where I have been very tempted to swat her, in fact, just today when she thought it was hilarious to run around in the middle of a very poopy diaper change in the Starbucks’ bathroom…but I made myself a promise long before I had children that I would never hit them.

    My daughter is not even two yet, so I can’t speak from a lot of experience I know, plus I will be the first one to admit that she will likely never win a most well-behaved award, as she will always have a mind of her own, but you know what…I don’t mind at all. Everyone who meets my daughter, instead, tells me how happy she is, how confident, how fearless, and my favorite, the other day, was a woman (also at Starbucks)who said that my daughter seemed so “well-loved”. In the longterm, that’s what I think will make a difference, and not the time I’ve wasted chasing after her and cleaning poop off of places I couldn’t imagine it would go:)

    The thing that bothers me about physical punishment – even if it is just a single swat on the hand – is that you’re sending your child the message that the person who loves them and protects them the most has the right to purposely hurt their body. It just seems like the ultimate act of betrayal, for the person on whom they completely depend to do this to them. And once that happens, it is very hard to repair.

    So those are my thoughts, as a parent just starting out.

  15. MomofTwoPreciousGirls says:

    I agree with PP about being very careful of reading into studies without know ALL of the factors that were taken into consideration. If the people being studied are not being being monitored 24/7 (which would be difficult to monitor 35,000 people continously for a year) there is absolutely NO telling what is happening in their lives or what other circumstances are involved.

    That being said, I feel very similar to Danny’s Momma. If my children do not feel safe with me they will never trust me (which may be the reason these children end up with mental illnesses, they do not feel trust for the people that are supposed to love and protect them, therefore, they don’t have anywhere to turn in time of need). There are many methods of discipline that do not involve physical punishment. I was spanked (and honestly, worse) throughout my childhood and the fear always came from not knowing what it was that was going to set my parents off. It wasn’t a punishment that was used sparingly or only for certain misbehavior. It was used for every situation, from talking back to leaving a light on…and it depended on what kind of mood they were in and how hard a day they had at work. I look back and consider it abuse, and it did have very harsh effects on me in my teenage years. I know myself and my experience would not allow me to use this method of discipline in a safe way, so I choose not to do it and the same goes for my husband.

    I do not feel it is necessarily wrong, but it has to be adminstered in a very careful way and I do not know that many people that use it have the ability to do that.

  1. MtnMama says:

    Here we go again. I was spanked as a child, not shoved or hit, but calmly spanked for misbehaving. I was a very sensitive kid and I turned out just fine. I had no long term effects other than not re-doing the action that caused the spanking in the first place. The issue with this article is their definition of spanking. Spanking for discipline is a few swats on the butt while calm. Shoving and hitting implies anger and emotion, which should never be involved while disciplining a child, whether using spanking or another method.

  2. AVH says:

    I get the analogy to the evidence that smoking caused cancer, etc., but it’s not apt. The problem is that tobacco smoke has quantifiable chemical constituents the effects of which can be evaluated without using human subjects (and in many cases probably without even using any living being). Psychological research is a different animal all together. (Speaking of animals, one could make the point that animals who are abused are often aggressive, but the key word there is, again, abuse).

    Further, I’m certain that the study itself has a detailed methods section that explains the design of the experiment and whether and what factors were controlled for, and I’m sure Pediatrics is a respected, peer-reviewed journal. Most people won’t read the actual study itself, and even fewer will be able to do so with a critical eye.

    I was spanked a few times as a child, and don’t plan on spanking my child(ren); though I don’t think that it would do anything to them if I did. The belief that inflicting even mild physical pain is a breech of the child’s “trust” is not wholly the result of abstract reasoning or emotion on the part of the parent. The culture in which we live and the people we associate with color our worldview. It’s safe to say most educated middle- and upper-class American parents don’t believe in spanking. Is that because those folks are more “enlightened,” or is it because they are adhering to cultural norms?

    I would argue that spanking is about “respecting” the parents’ authority, and respect is earned in different ways in different communities. Some communities value physical power, and establish authority thereby. Other communities place a higher premium on certain types of intellectual prowess (bargaining, argumentation). Is the latter truly “superior” to the former? Do studies like this imply–however unintentionally–that this is the case?

  3. notreknud says:

    Three big flaws with this study. First, although it rules out serious physical abuse, it includes hitting, shoving, and spanking. I read somewhere else that the study included grabbing and slapping. Those things sound horrible and degrading to me. I’ll explain later what I think spanking ought to be like. Second, the study shows a 2-7% link to mental illness. Does that number seem low to anyone? In other words, there’s a 93%-98% chance that the kids will be fine. In these subjective studies you ought to leave a margin of error, so a 5% risk of something could be reduced to absolutely no risk. Third, the researchers tell us that there is a link from spanking to mental illness. But they don’t tell us how they established that link. I googled to find more about this study, and that’s all they published. They could have had their minds made up when they started. Spanking is not popular these days. Rich moms who research parenting methods know spanking isn’t cool. People in poverty situations, and some people who make up their own minds about their kids, spank. Maybe the poverty link is more of a link than the actual spanking.

    I don’t “hit” my kids the way some people think of it. I would never punish my child in anger, or out-of-control. If I’m mad, I send my kid to his room while I cool down. Why do people always associate spanking with anger? I would never slap, grab, shove, or hit my kid because I was mad at him. Of course that would make him feel hurt or angry. When my child has done something in a rebellious, disobedient manner, this attitude must be dealt with. My child must recognize right and wrong behavior and attitudes. I always explain to my child what he did wrong, and that I still love him. I give him two or three swats with a wooden spoon, and afterwards we hug. It’s effective and it’s over quickly (unlike taking away privileges or grounding, which little kids don’t understand.) I did most spanking between the ages of 2 and 4. After that, usually a threat of spanking is enough to stop bad behavior, and as a child gets older they can understand more long-term punishments. Try telling a three year old he can’t watch TV all day because he disobeyed–he won’t get it. He’d forget about what he did wrong. I use threats of spanking even with my 2 year old, and it stops him in his tracks. If he went ahead and disobeyed, I would carry through with the threat. But if he listens to me, good! I don’t have to spank! I use other forms of punishment, such as time out or loss of privileges, and I always explain why we do or don’t do certain things. But I don’t believe spanking is wrong. When I first started time outs, I spanked my son when he got up from the time-out spot. I only had to spank him once, and now he stays in the time-out spot. My sons adore me and constantly tell me that they love me and think I am sweet. We have a great relationship, full of cuddling and fun times. They know I only spank to help them learn right from wrong, and they respect that I am their authority, that I want what’s best for them, and that they need boundaries. Kids like knowing their boundaries, and they will test them and push you to the limits until you show them where they are. Once they know the boundaries, they can behave pretty well. My kids also know about forgiveness, and they know that I won’t hold their disobedience over their heads any longer than it takes to give them the spanking (a few seconds.)

  4. notreknud says:

    My kids hurt themselves more by running, jumping, and playing than by getting spanked. They complain more about getting vaccinated than getting a spanking–they are upset that I would take them to a place and let someone cause pain to them, but that doesn’t stop me from doing it because it’s for their own good. They do feel safe, and love and trust me with their whole beings, even though I am a mom who spanks. Or maybe because of it, since I don’t have to scream at them to get them to behave. Just a simple calm “Do you want a spanking?” Those of you who would never spank your boss–I assume you would put him in time-out or tell him he can’t go to the movies? It’s not your job to teach grown-ups right from wrong, but it is your job to teach your kids. Spanking doesn’t teach them that it’s okay to hit people; my kids know better than that. It teaches them that when mom says no, she means no and it’s better to obey. They don’t make the connection to hitting other people; they know hitting is wrong. They’re smart enough to see that spanking isn’t the same thing. My little one started hitting before he was a year old, and he wasn’t spanked until he was nearly two. Why did he hit? Because he wanted his own way. That’s wrong. Why do I spank? Because I’m mad and I want my own way? Absolutely not. I use self-control when I spank, and I don’t do it out of selfishness. I spank because I want what is best for my child and for other people. When he is spanked, he learns to control himself, and self-control is very important.

  5. This study is correlative, but it is real science. You can’t conduct classical scientific experiments with spanking and children, because its unethical. It is very similar to the smoking research, which is ALL correlative. This research project alone isn’t completely conclusive, but there have been meta-studies of 100s and 100s of studies on spanking. There is about 93% agreement, which is really high and compelling.

    I am trying to produce a documentary about spanking where mothers can learn about the science on spanking, learn about how most European countries have even banned spanking in the home (because the body of scientific evidence is so compelling) and then have an open discussion with each other. Would you please go to http://stopspanking.org and tell me what you think! I would really appreciate it.

    This documentary is trying to create an open dialogue on a really important subject.

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