When disciplining, do not hit, and do not yell or call them stupid: children often hit or yelled at have more behavior and mood problems

Children often hit are more aggressive and have more mental problems, are more distant from parents, and get heavier hitting more often. Whether hitting makes a child obey on the spot is unclear in the evidence. Children often yelled at or called stupid at age 13 later get in more trouble and have more depression; even warm parenting day to day does not cancel that.

Cost

No money. The hard part is stopping hands and mouth when anger rises, and switching to a way of parenting without hitting or yelling. What to switch to is in item 17 of this section (parenting classes that teach concrete skills).

Benefit

First, hitting. One meta-analysis counted only “open-hand spanking of the buttocks or limbs.” It pooled 75 studies, 111 effect sizes, 160927 children. Of 17 outcomes, 13 clearly linked to spanking, all in the bad direction. d is effect size; 0.2 is small, 0.5 medium. Childhood aggression d = 0.37 (95% CI 0.13–0.61, credible range). Externalizing problems 0.41 — hitting, breaking rules. Internalizing 0.24 — anxiety, depression. Mental health problems 0.53; poor relationship with parents 0.51; low self-esteem 0.15; poorer cognition 0.17. Physical abuse by parents 0.64. Adult antisocial behavior 0.36; adult mental health problems 0.24. Across 111 effect sizes, d = 0.33 (0.29–0.38). Whether the child obeyed on the spot was not clearly linked to spanking (d = 0.14, −0.19–0.47); that outcome had only 5 effect sizes. Another review looked only at before-and-after follow-up studies, 69 of them. Physical punishment stably predicted more later behavior problems; no link to any long-term good outcome was seen. Of 7 studies that counted how often hitting happened, 5 found more hitting linked to worse problems. Next, yelling. A U.S. study followed 976 two-parent families. At age 13, if parents often yelled, used foul language, or called the child stupid or lazy, misconduct and depressive symptoms both rose between ages 13 and 14. Whether parents were usually warm did not cancel the link. The reverse also held: children with more misconduct at 13 later got yelled at more. In law, parents must not use domestic violence against a child. Article 2 of the Anti-Domestic Violence Law (反家庭暴力法) lists forms of domestic violence: beating, binding, maiming, restricting personal liberty, and habitual insults and intimidation. Article 12 requires guardians to do family education in civilized ways. When parents infringe a child’s rights, residents’ and villagers’ committees must counsel and stop them, and report serious cases to public security. Public security, procuratorates, and courts that find this must admonish the parents and may order them to accept family-education guidance (nationwide)

Notes

Controversial. Almost all these studies only follow records and have no assigned controls, so they cannot show which caused which. In the spanking meta-analysis, 72% of studies only looked at whether two things appeared together, or relied on later recall. Another meta-analysis took only before-and-after follow-up studies. After subtracting the child’s prior behavior, the link of spanking to externalizing problems fell to 0.07, and to internalizing to 0.10. Those authors judged the effect small. Still another meta-analysis found “conditional spanking” better than 10 of 13 other discipline methods at reducing defiance and antisocial behavior. It also found that hitting too hard or relying mainly on hitting was worse than other methods. So the opposing side can show: light, conditional spanking is not necessarily worse than other methods. Heavy hitting and frequent hitting and yelling are worse on both sides. An occasional single hit or shout is not named domestic violence in the statute, which names beating and habitual insults and intimidation. Main beneficiaries are children. If someone else in the household hits the child, police reports and protection orders are in Section 8, item 43 (personal safety protection order). Anyone who sees long-term hitting of a child in another household may dissuade or report to public security, civil affairs, or education. For a stranger’s household, calling 110 or telling the residents’ committee is enough — do not go in yourself to break up a fight.

Sources · 8

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2. Heilmann A, Mehay A, Watt RG, et al. (2021). Physical punishment and child outcomes: a narrative review of prospective studies. Lancet, 398(10297), 355–364. doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)00582-1
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4. Ferguson CJ. (2013). Spanking, corporal punishment and negative long-term outcomes: a meta-analytic review of longitudinal studies. Clinical Psychology Review, 33(1), 196–208. doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2012.11.002
5. Larzelere RE, Kuhn BR. (2005). Comparing child outcomes of physical punishment and alternative disciplinary tactics: a meta-analysis. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 8(1), 1–37. doi.org/10.1007/s10567-005-2340-z
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