What science tells us about smacking children

Children who are smacked by their parents are more likely to develop aggressive behaviours and mental health disorders, a new report reveals (Photo: Shutterstock)

Paediatricians are calling for an outright ban on smacking a child in England and Northern Ireland in a move that would bring the law in line with Wales and Scotland.

While many people find the idea of physically punishing a child in any shape or form unacceptable others believe it can have a role to play in a child’s upbringing in certain circumstances.

But whatever your stance there is a good deal of scientific evidence that smacking is not only ineffective in terms of discipline, but can make a child’s behaviour worse and have long-term negative effects on their development.

“Scientific evidence tells us that all types of physical punishment, including smacking, are negative for children,” Ana Aznar, and academic at John Cabot University in Rome and founder of REC Parenting, an online platform to support parents, told i.

“Smacking is a discipline technique. And the aim of discipline is to teach the child that their behaviour was wrong and why. But when we smack a child, the only thing we are teaching them is to be afraid of us. The child may stop doing whatever it is they were doing but only because they are afraid of us.

“Research shows that smacking does not make a child behave better in the short or in the long term. And in some cases, smacking may even make children’s behaviour worse because even if unpleasant, smacking is a form of attention, and some children may need it,” she said.

A 2021 study, led by University College London and published in The Lancet, analysed 69 science papers and came up with some clear findings on physical punishment.

Firstly, that it makes things worse, with the scientists coming to the “overwhelming conclusion that physical punishment predicts an increase in behaviour problems over time,” in part by making the child more aggressive.

And second, that there is nothing good to say about physical punishment for the child’s development, with some of the studies analysed finding it had a detrimental and others that it had no effect.

“The consistency of these findings indicates that physical punishment is harmful to children and that policy remedies are warranted….it is linked with increases in negative child outcomes,” wrote lead author Anja Heilmann, of UCL.

“The review has documented compelling evidence that physical punishment is harmful to children’s development and wellbeing and has shown no evidence that it is beneficial for children,” she added.

“The results were largely mixed between findings of detriments and findings of no association; across these studies. There was no evidence of associations with positive outcomes related to children’s attention, cognitive abilities, relationships with others, or stress reactivity,” she said.

That study was broader than just smacking, including slapping and spanking. But it excluded more severe forms of physical punishment, such as hitting a child with an object, slapping them on the face, throwing an object at or beating them.

The word spanking is more commonly used in the US, to denote striking with an open hand – or slapping – typically on the bottom.

A 2021 study from Harvard University, published in the journal Child Development, found that spanking can be so traumatic it can change the way a child’s brain functions.

“We know that spanking is not effective and can be harmful for children’s development and increases the chance of mental health issues. With these findings, we also know it can have potential impact on brain development, changing biology, and leading to lasting consequences,” said Jorge Cuartas, who did the research at Harvard and has since moved to New York University

The study found that spanking reduced a child’s ability to control their emotions under stress in ways similar to severe maltreatment.

Using MRI, researchers observed changes in brain response while the children viewed a series of images featuring facial expressions that indicate emotional response, such as frowns and smiles. They found that children who had been spanked had a higher activity response in the areas of their brain that regulate these emotional responses and detect threats — even to facial expressions that most would consider non-threatening.

A further review of 34 previous studies, carried out by the University of São Paulo in Brazil and published in the journal Trauma Violence Abuse in December, found that smacking by mothers was linked with higher levels of anxiety, social withdrawal, aggression, and bullying. It did not look at fathers.

“The results showed that in 94 per cent of the studies, there were significant associations between maternal spanking and corporal punishment with deteriorated child behavior and development, concurrently or later,” said study author Marina Dias Macedo de Melo Avezum.

Dr Aznar says the overwhelming evidence against smacking means it should be banned completely with parents using alternative ways to discipline their children.

These include ‘time out’ – removing a child from an environment where they are doing something that they should not do – reasoning with them, or taking away privileges, such as removing their video game console for the weekend, Dr Aznar recommends.