SALT LAKE CITY — Spanking is not an effective disciplinary tool and could cause long-term harm to children, according to a new policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics that also warns parents against harsh verbal discipline designed to shame or humiliate their kids. In the statement, released Monday during the group's annual conference in Orlando, the nation's largest pediatric association recommends pediatricians help families adopt strategies that teach children right from wrong and improve behavior long term using positive-parenting techniques.
The guidance is online in the journal Pediatrics. If you think of discipline at its roots as teaching, that's not an effective way to teach children better behavior," said Dr. Spanking and harsh or belittling verbal discipline teach "behaviors that probably make children more aggressive over the long haul and less respectful. The policy statement calls corporal punishment and harsh verbal discipline "aversive disciplinary strategies" and deems them "minimally effective in the short-term and not effective in the long-term.
Researchers link corporal punishment to an increased risk of negative behavioral, cognitive, psychosocial and emotional outcomes for children. The report includes in its definition of corporal punishment and spanking "noninjurious open-handed hitting with the intention of modifying child-behavior. Although the academy as early as discouraged spanking, the wording is much stronger now and it's the first time in policy the group has addressed harsh verbal abuse, said policy statement co-author Dr.
Benjamin S. Wirkus rejects the notion that "my parents spanked me and I turned out just fine. It doesn't improve things like self-esteem and learning how to be a better citizen. The thing I think we all ought to be looking at is positive ways to teach our children, like rewarding good behavior," he said.
The do-nots are not the only important piece of the new guidance, according to Siegel. A lot of the paper refers to positive parenting — thinking ahead of time about what the child's developmental needs are. Part of the statement is how we can help parents become much better and more effective in terms of discipline. Instead of using spanking to interrupt bad behavior and deter future bad behavior, which evidence doesn't suggest actually happen, "we should be thinking how do we help kids learn better behavior to begin with," said Wirkus.
