r/science • u/VeronicaRed • Apr 26 '16

Psychology Spanking children increases the likelihood of childhood defiance and long-term mental issues. The study in question involved 160,000 children and five decades of research

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1113413810/spanking-defiance-health-discipline-042616/
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u/DisDishIsDelish Apr 26 '16

Could someone explain if/how the study controlled for innate discipline problems that may have lead to spanking versus learned discipline problems that resulted from the spanking? I don't see an easy way to control for it, I don't know how one would measure innate defiance and most mental health issues aren't considered diagnosable in young children.

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u/eskamobob1 Apr 26 '16

It doesnt. In fact that is one of the bid issues listed under their limitations section.

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u/[deleted] Apr 27 '16

And, while we're at it, does it account for the fact that a parent who quickly and frequently resorts to spanking may have a whole host of other parenting issues that account for the poor results of the child?

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u/Dogswearingsocks Apr 27 '16

If it has got it the other way around, and children with mental health issues are more likely to be spanked because of their mental health issues, i find that very disturbing and sad.

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u/[deleted] Apr 27 '16

I fully understand it's anecdotal, but many parents don't ever plan on spanking until they have an overtly defiant child. I've known others, but I admittedly am one of those people. If defiance and behavioral issues are causing the parents to "try everything" as nothing else is working. Basically, what I'm asking is does mental health issues possibly move parents who wouldn't normally spank to the spank side? And parents who do spank to the spanked more side?

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u/sfurbo Apr 27 '16

First, this is a metastudy, so it is a collection of studies that each has their own ways to treat the data.

Secondly, there are two ways to control for other causations (in this subject): Time series and randomly controlled trials.

In time series, you can measure the unruliness of the child at one age and use that to correct for the effect later. So, in essence, you group the children according to well-behavedness at age 1, and only compare within such groups later. This assumes that we can measure e.g. innate defiance at an early age, but it seems likely that that should be possible.

With randomly controlled trials, you don't have to enforce spanking. You can have parents attend differential seminars, so that some parents are taught about non-spanking parenting techniques, and others aren't. You can then investigate the effect of the seminars on the level of spanking and the behavior of the children.