Should parents use corporal punishment to discipline children? Never, says one doctor. Yes, but don’t use your hand, says another

When a family member’s young son slipped from her hands and tried to make a dash into busy traffic, she caught him just in time – then she slapped him on his bottom. He howled, more from indignation than pain. I asked her why she had smacked him. He needs to understand the danger he’d exposed himself to, she said, so next time he’ll be more careful. This way he would remember, she said. I remember thinking her distress was greater than his, and that the smack had been delivered partly in panic. A reaction to his recklessness, the fleeting loss of her control as he escaped her grip. I also wondered, is there ever a reason to spank a child? Definitely not, says Anita Cleare, director of the Positive Parenting Project and author of a new book, The Work/Parent Switch: How to Parent Smarter not Harder. “I would never advocate spanking or any form of physical punishment,” says Cleare. “Being a good parent when one is stressed is difficult. But the problem with parents’ stress is that it tends to create a short circuit in our brains. “When we are stressed, we bypass the thoughtful front regions of the brain and fall back on the more instinctive visceral brain regions that trigger our defensive fight-or-flight reaction. And when it comes to dealing with a screaming toddler, a fight-or-flight response is not helpful. We’re likely to lash out rather than responding calmly.” Jorge Cuartas of the Harvard Graduate School of Education says spanking is bad for kids. “More than 50 years of research from the fields of psychology, paediatrics, social work and education has shown that spanking is not effective and can interfere with children’s healthy development,” says Cuartas, who recently led research on the subject. “It should continue to be an option for loving parents to employ when disciplining their children Robert Hamilton, doctor “Spanking does not make children more compliant. Instead, it’s linked with significantly more aggression and behaviour problems, as well as poor relationships with parents, lower academic performance and a higher risk of mental health problems. “Our study provides evidence of the adverse effects of spanking on a child’s development. We found that children who were spanked exhibited heightened brain reactivity in multiple regions of the prefrontal cortex to threatening stimuli, relative to children who were never spanked. “These regions tend to be engaged in emotional processing and regulation, thus suggesting that the association between spanking and adverse child outcomes might be explained by a higher risk of atypical brain development.” Not everybody agrees. Professor Robert Larzelere, of the department of human development and family science at Oklahoma State University in the United States, says the problem with studies like Cuartas’ one is that they regard all spanking the same, “and fail to take into account how it was used, what it was used for and the context in which it was used”. He says that backup, or conditional, spanking is more beneficial than most alternative actions that a parent could use. “This is non-abusive – a couple of short, sharp swats to the bottom – used to enforce cooperation [together] with a milder disciplinary tactic, like ‘timeout’, [to be used] when children between two and six, say, refuse to cooperate with a milder tactic,” he says. “When used in this way, even the most defiant children learn to cooperate, so that the spanking gets phased out first and timeout next. That type of spanking is more effective than 10 of 13 disciplinary tactics it has been compared with directly.” A short withdrawal of play time is usually enough for children to realise that a certain behaviour is not a good idea Anita Cleare, director, Positive Parenting Project In 2019, Robert Hamilton – a US doctor and author of 7 Secrets of the Newborn – wrote in The Wall Street Journal warning of conflating discipline with abuse. He recommends limiting spanking to one to three swats with a wooden spoon, not a hand. “They should ‘sting’, not ‘injure’, and should come as soon as possible after the offending behaviour, and be followed by a reflective moment, reconciliation and a hug.” This “proper” spanking, he says, is rare, but is highly effective in shaping a child’s character and behaviour. “It should continue to be an option for loving parents to employ when disciplining their children.” Clinical psychologist Quratulain Zaidi, founding director of Hong Kong’s MindNLife psychology practice in Central, says spanking is not positive modelling behaviour. “Spanking can be instantly effective in stopping testing and embarrassing behaviours from your child, but the use of physical aggression for conflict resolution is not a positive modelling behaviour for children.” Cuartas agrees. “Research has shown that exposure to different forms of violence in childhood – corporal punishment, severe physical maltreatment, witnessing intimate partner violence and sexual abuse – can make children feel threatened and interfere with brain development.” A common belief, says Zaidi, is that spanking never hurts anyone. “People say things like ‘my parents spanked me and I turned out OK’” but even the word spanking can minimise or normalise hitting, she says. “I understand that ‘child abuse’ is overdramatic and lumps the practice in with the most vicious, high-level malice. However, it normalises acceptance of this form of disciplining and allows use of violence in conflict resolution and that is not OK,” Zaidi says. Cleare advocates the coach approach – that is, catching children being good and encouraging them to do that more often. “Children up to about the age of 10 are motivated by two key drivers: play and attention. Attention is to kids like sunshine is to plants – they will grow in its direction. And they are highly motivated by play, so a short withdrawal of play time is usually enough for children to realise that a certain behaviour is not a good idea.”