Children Raised in Educational Homes Get Spanked Less, Study Says

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Children Raised in Educational Homes Get Spanked Less, Study Says

Wednesday, January 24, 2007
By Robin Lloyd

Children in homes full of books and educational games are less likely
to get spanked, new research shows.

Recent studies have found that corporal punishment can cause
significant antisocial behavioral, such as lying, cheating, and
hitting, in children as they grow older. So Andrew Grogan-Kaylor of
the University of Michigan and his colleague Melanie D. Otis of the
University of Kentucky wanted to find out what factors, independent of
others, predict whether or not a parent is likely to "spare the rod."

Their analysis of answers from 800 respondents on questions about
their use of corporal punishment as well as many other family issues
arrived at the intellectual stimulation factor.

"This is a little bit surprising for parenting researchers that
cognitive or intellectual stuff would cross over into behavioral
stuff," Grogan-Kaylor told LiveScience. "Real people may know this
altogether, but researchers have tended to separate the two areas."

A home environment that is intellectually stimulating gives children
an opportunity to work through and practice their emotions, think
through the consequences of their actions and imagine possibilities
for alternative actions in the future, he said. "Allowing children to
stretch their brains in that kind of way is allowing children to
behave less anti-socially down the road," he said.

Cultural contexts

The researchers also found that Protestants were more likely to spank
than parents with other religious affiliations.

The neighborhood, geographic region or economic status of a family
made no difference in the use of spanking, but children's odds of
getting whacked decreases as they grow older by 3 percent per year,
Grogan-Kaylor said. And parents of black children were more likely to
use corporal punishment than parents of white children.

"To reduce the use of physical punishment, it may be beneficial to
focus on interventions that teach parents to increase the amount of
intellectual stimulation in the home," said Grogan-Kaylor, who has
also done research showing that children with fewer behavioral
problems come from homes with increased intellectual stimulation.

Social workers and child and family advocates trying to reduce the use
of corporal punishment should pay attention to the role of cultural
factors in parents' beliefs about spanking, Grogan-Kaylor and Otis
write in the journal Family Relations. Parents often spank because
they think it is an effective approach to discipline. Child and family
advocates should suggest to parents more effective alternatives to
spanking, they write, while acknowledging mothers' and fathers' desire
to be good parents.

'Bad kids'

It's easy enough to justify disciplining a child, physically or
otherwise, and the spanking study found what you might expect - kids
who act out, or externalize their problematic behavior, are more
likely to be spanked, while chldren who tend to withdraw inwards and
become anxious or depressed, are less likely to be spanked.

The researchers were surprised to find that factors other than bad
behavior have an effect on whether or not kids are spanked.

"The interesting thing is that there are a lot of other things in the
model, aside from what parents tell us kids are doing, that have an
effect on whether or not they are spanking," Grogan-Kaylor said.
"Kids' behavior is only one of a whole bunch of things that go into
the decision as to whether or not to use corporal punishment."

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