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AAP updates corporal punishment policy, offers parents alternatives to spanking
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ORLANDO, Fla. — The AAP updated its policy on corporal punishment today, emphasizing ways that pediatricians should encourage parents to seek alternatives to spanking.
“Parents rely on us for the information they need to make their own decisions about raising their children. We now have substantial evidence that corporal punishment is ineffective and may cause harm to children, so we owe it to parents to give them advice on techniques that work to teach children what right from wrong is without potentially hurting them,” Robert D. Sege, MD, PhD, an author of the policy statement and past member of the AAP Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect, told Infectious Diseases in Children.
Sege and Jennifer Shu, MD, FAAP, medical editor of HealthyChildren.org, discussed the updated policy at a press conference at the AAP National Conference & Exhibition.
The policy statement updates a 1998 AAP clinical report titled, “Guidance for effective discipline,” which suggested that “parents should be encouraged and assisted in developing methods other than spanking in response to undesired behaviors.”
In the updated policy statement, the authors noted that all forms of corporal punishment and yelling at or shaming children are minimally effective in the short term and not effective in the long term, and parents should use other alternatives to raise children.
“For many children, spanking increases their aggression and anger, instead of teaching responsibility and self-control,” said Sege, who is also a pediatrician and researcher at Tufts Medical Center and Floating Hospital for Children.
He mentioned that research cited in the updated policy statement showed that children who were spanked showed more aggressive behavior when they were older.
“Not only does spanking lead to more aggressive behavior by children, but it can undermine the very important parent-child relationship,” Sege said.
Research is finding that support for spanking is dropping, with young parents much less likely to believe in spanking. The updated guidelines noted a 2013 Harris Interactive poll that found that support for the statement “a good, hard spanking is sometimes necessary to discipline a child” had dropped from 84% in 1986 to 70% in 2012. Parents in that poll who were younger than 36 years more often believed that spanking was never appropriate.
Sege said he “highly recommends that parents feel free to bring discipline problems to pediatricians.”
In the updated guidelines, pediatricians recommend alternatives to spanking.
“It’s important for parents to have realistic expectations of their child’s development,” Shu said. “They have to get into their child’s brain and be a bit of a child psychologist.”
Parents should try to encourage good behavior by using positive feedback when possible, she said. “Don’t say no, say yes.”
Shu said there are ways that parents can set their children up for success. For older children, a checklist will help them get organized in the morning. For younger children, posted pictures can help with tasks, such as remembering to brush their teeth.
Another discipline challenge that Shu discussed was the possible acting out of an older sibling once a family has another baby. She said the parent should try to catch the older child in the process of being good and reward them.
Parents should be consistent with discipline. They can also “use bad behavior as a teaching opportunity,” Shu said.
“There is no need for putting fear into children,” Sege concluded. – by Bruce Thiel
Reference:
Sege RD, et al. Pediatrics. 2018;doi:10.1542/peds.2018-3112.
Disclosures : Sege and Shu report no relevant financial disclosures.