Spanking Perhaps no topic generates as much heated debate among parents and child development experts as corporal punishment. While defenders argue for the continued necessity of the practice, new research shows more clearly the benefits of sparing the rod and avoiding corporal punishment altogether.

These studies cite numerous reasons against corporal punishment, from increasing aggression in children to the practice's moral repugnance. This paper, however, focuses on studies that show corporal punishment as an ineffective way to address misbehavior. In fact, numerous studies have shown that practices like spanking or slapping do not address the reasons behind a child's unwanted behavior.

In fact, a parent who spanks a child may unwittingly reinforce a child's bad behavior.

Types of corporal punishment

Part of the difficulty in addressing this issue lies in the lack of a common definition of spanking or corporal punishment. Some school districts, for example, equate corporal punishment with paddling and nothing else. Generally, however, corporal punishment practices like spanking are broadly defined as "hitting a child with an open hand without causing physical injury" (Gilbert 1997).

Aside from spanking, common forms of corporate punishment include grabbing a child and hitting a child with a variety of objects (Straus and Donnelly,...

One survey found that 90% of adults today received this form of spanking as a child (Spurgeon 1997).
Effects

Experts remain divided, though, on whether such practices cause other unseen injuries.

Most of these studies, for example, show a positive link between spanking and anti-social behavior in children. The children who were spanked were also more likely to lie, cheat or bully other children (Gilbert 1997).

One study by Marjorie Gunnoe, for example, examined the link between corporal punishment on a child's anti-social behavior and tendency to get involved in school fights. After following her subjects for five years, Gunnoe found that children who received corporal punishment at home also reported a greater incidence of fighting at schools (Gunnoe, qtd in Gilbert 1997). This study is thus consistent with the prevailing theory that in the long run, corporal punishment is counterproductive.

However, Gunnoe's results were also affected by factors like age, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. The opposite effect was observed among toddlers and African-American children. Gunnoe explains the anomalous result by theorizing that parents who do not practice corporal punishment in these instances fail to…