Parental Attitudes
and Beliefs Regarding Punishment as a Means of Child Discipline
Ronald
L. Pitzer, (retired 2001) Extension Family Sociologist
University of Minnesota Extension Family and Consumer Sciences, Specialist
Research Report June, 1993 (reviewed 2001)
There
is a popular conception in America that most people use only love
and permissiveness in rearing children. Some outspoken speakers say
that "permissiveness" has caused all sorts of irresponsibility
and crime in this nation. The fact is that high proportions of parents
believe in physical punishment and use force or the threat of force
as the major approach to child rearing. Slapping, spanking, and paddling
children for purposes of discipline are accepted, pervasive, adult
behaviors in U.S. families. Although anger, physical attack, and pain
are involved between two people of vastly different size, weight,
and strength, such behavior is commonly accepted as a proper exercise
of adult authority over children. (Gelles, 1978; Straus, 1990; Straus
and Gelles, 1990; Graziano and Namaste, 1990). Physical force toward
children tends to be accepted or even encouraged in subtle, and at
times not so subtle, ways by parents and other family members; by
some "professional experts" in child rearing, education,
and medicine; by the press, radio, and television; and by some professional
and popular publications.
Indeed,
according to Wauchope and Straus (1990), there is a normative expectation
in American society that parents will use physical punishment with
their children. In their words: "Both the legal and the informal
norms of the United States give parents the right to use physical
violence in controlling and training children. Parents are expected
or obligated to use physical punishment "when necessary".
The existence of this normative expectation to use physical punishment
is rarely perceived until it is called into question by a parent who
fails to conform. Carson (1986) found that 80-90 percent of the population
considers parents to have not just the right, but the moral obligation,
to spank or slap. Non-spanking parents tend to be the objects of social
control efforts by friends and relatives in the form of polite but
pointedly expressed doubts about consequences for the child. Carson
found that non-spanking parents, like other "deviants,"
tend to develop socially acceptable accounts to justify their unwillingness
to use physical punishment to themselves and others.
A
1988 Harris Poll and a 1989 Gallup Poll report that 86 percent of
adults agree that parents have the right to "hit, spank, or physically
discipline children." Fewer than half (44 percent) think teachers
have that right. Men more strongly supported the notion of hitting
or spanking a child than did women.
Ironically,
but not really surprisingly, women more often carried out spanking
(because they are more frequently there and carry a larger share of
the nurturing and disciplining load). Ninety percent of the parents
in the 1975 National Family Violence Survey expressed at least some
degree of approval of physical punishment (Straus, Gelles and Steinmetz,
1980). A 1986 NORC national survey found that 84 percent of parents
agreed or strongly agreed that "It is sometimes necessary to
discipline a child with a good hard spanking." (Straus, 1989)
When asked whether they agreed or disagreed that, "Spanking helps
children to be better people when they grow up," over one-third
(35 percent) of parents responding to a recent survey agreed, nearly
half said it "doesn't matter," and 17 percent disagreed.
(Moore and Straus, 1987)
Data
from 2191 low-income parents of infants and young children in five
states (California, Delaware, Nevada, South Carolina, and Utah) show
that 41 percent agree that parents should use physical punishment
to teach children right from wrong (Dickinson, 1990; Cudaback, 1992).
According
to Moore and Straus (1987), this approval does not apply only to small
children. Their New Hampshire Child Abuse Survey found that less than
half of the parents interviewed (47%) strongly disagreed with the
statement, "Parents have a right to slap their teenage children
who talk back to them." In another study by Dibble and Straus
(1980), 82 percent of parents expressed at least some degree of approval
of slapping or spanking a 12-year-old. There was virtually no difference
in approval of spanking or slapping a 12-year-old between whites (81
percent) and blacks (83 percent). A somewhat higher proportion of
whites than of blacks reported actually spanking or slapping their
12-year-old youngster during the past year (59 percent vs. 51 percent)
(Cazenave and Straus, 1979).
There
is reason to be concerned about parental attitudes about physical
punishment, as there is evidence that, regarding this matter, attitudes
direct behavior. Studies show, for example, that parents who approved
of physical punishment actually did use physical force about four
times more often than those who did not approve. In addition, those
parents who approved physical punishment were much more likely than
non-believing parents to go beyond ordinary physical punishment and
assault children in ways more likely to injure them -- kicking, biting,
punching, and hitting with objects more frequently (Straus, 1989).
A recent study by Simons and Associates (1993) also found that parents
who believed in "punitive strategies" were more likely to
use harsh discipline and less likely to use supportive (nurturant)
parenting.
Research
tends to indicate that while high proportions of the public believe
parents have the right (or even the duty) to use spanking or other
forms of physical punishment to guide and control children's behavior,
many of these same parents have reservations about its effectiveness
and consequences. For example, according to the annual National Public
Opinion survey recently released by the National Committee for Prevention
of Child Abuse, 72 percent of the American public believes that physical
discipline of a child can lead to injury (Cohn, 1990).
University
of New Hampshire researcher Barbara Carson (1989) found that 40 percent
of parents who regularly spanked their children thought spanking was
rarely, if ever, effective. One out of three felt guilty and blamed
themselves after spanking a child. Her findings contradict the traditional
assumption that parents spank their children because they think it's
an effective way of changing a child's behavior. In Carson's study,
parents reported that their own fatigue, frustration or bad mood often
had more to do with whether a child got spanked than did the child's
behavior.
Another
study found that the more parents used physical punishment, the greater
the percentage who worried that they might get carried away to the
point of child abuse (Frude & Goss, 1979).
The
study referred to above (Dickinson, 1990; Cudaback, 1992) of over
2000 low-income mothers of young children in five states found these
mothers did not believe that spanking was very effective in teaching
children "good behavior" or teaching children "not
to hit," even though they frequently spanked with these very
intentions in mind. Specifically:
"Children
are more likely to learn good behavior when spanked." 24 percent
of total sample of low-income mothers agreed; 19 percent of California
Hispanic mothers agreed.
"A
good way to teach a child not to hit is to hit him/her." 15 percent
of total sample of low-income mothers agreed; 13 percent of California
Hispanic mothers agreed.
Dickinson
(1990) and Cudaback (1992) compared low-income mothers who agreed
with the above two statements and the statement on the preceding page
("believers" in physical punishment) with mothers who disagreed
with all three statements ("non-believers" in physical punishment).
Of the total sample, 16 percent of women agreed with all three statements
(were "believers"). Attitudes toward physical punishment
were significantly related to education and race. As education of
respondents increased, beliefs in physical punishment significantly
decreased. Forty-two percent of black respondents agreed with all
three physical discipline statements compared to 9 percent of Hispanic
women, and 9 percent of white, non-Hispanic women. Women with children
in Headstart were significantly more likely to report belief in physical
punishment (27 percent) than were those who did not have children
in Headstart. Compared to "non-believers," those who strongly
believed in physical punishment reported using significantly fewer
sources of parenting information (such as magazines, doctors and other
professionals, classes, books). Those who believed in physical punishment
also expressed significantly less desire for information about discipline.
There
were no significant relationships between attitudes toward physical
punishment and receipt of financial assistance, living arrangement,
or marital status, nor were there significant differences between
teen mothers and older mothers.
The
source in one's own childhood of one's inclinations toward the use
of physical punishment is indicated by Straus' finding that the more
physical punishment a parent experienced as a child, the higher the
proportion who engaged in abusive violence toward their own children
and spouses (Straus, 1990). Another interesting study by Herzberger
and Tennen (1985) found that young adults who reported having experienced
a particular disciplinary method (for example, spanking) were more
supportive of the use of that method than were those who did not remember
having experienced it. In answer to the question of why the opposite
effect does not occur (empathy for those sharing a similar plight),
the investigators posit that empathy does not result merely from exposure
to a particular treatment. Spanking, slapping, or other physical punishment,
unless accompanied by explicit processing of its impact on others,
does not help the child recognize the consequences of the action for
others. When disciplined for misbehavior by spanking or other forms
of physical (or verbal) hurt, children focus on their own pain rather
than on the effect of their behavior on others. Physical punishment
not only provides a model of aggression, but fails to encourage the
child to consider the implications of aggression from another viewpoint.
(Reference
list available upon request from Ron Pitzer, Rural Sociology, 92 COB,
U of MN, St. Paul MN 55108; (612) 625-8169)
