Physical Punishment and Mental Disorders

Parent Cafe
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<p>There was a previous thread about this topic in the Parents Forum.</p>

<p>[Study</a> links physical punishment of kids to adult mental disorders ? USATODAY.com](<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-06-28/spanking-mental-problems/55964610/1?csp=34news]Study”>http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-06-28/spanking-mental-problems/55964610/1?csp=34news)</p>

<p>“Children who are spanked, hit, or pushed as a means of discipline may be at an increased risk of mental problems in adulthood — from mood and anxiety disorders to drug and alcohol abuse, new research suggests.”</p>

<p>“Parents’ right to use physical punishment has been abolished in more than 30 nations, but not in the USA or Canada, says the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment, endorsed by the United Nations and others.”</p>

<p>The above article is citing the following as the publisher of the study.</p>

<p>[Physical</a> Punishment and Mental Disorders: Results From a Nationally Representative US Sample](<a href=“http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2012/06/27/peds.2011-2947]Physical”>http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2012/06/27/peds.2011-2947)</p>

<p>This includes a PDF to the full study.</p>

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<p>It’s nothing new for studies to be slanted so that the outcomes support the author’s agenda. Physical punishment was the norm throughout most of history up till the last couple of generations. Were our parents and grandparents more cookoo than our politically correctly raised generations?</p>

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<p><a href=“Deaths Put Focus on Pastor’s Advocacy of Spanking - The New York Times”>Deaths Put Focus on Pastor’s Advocacy of Spanking - The New York Times;

<p>This is the article that was involved in the previous thread. </p>

<p>Cuckoo?</p>

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<p>From the same article in the first link:</p>

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<p>yes, of course…Two of my three kids got a swat on the behind once from my H around the age of 4…the third learned from the older two what not to do. Having had a few behind swats of my own from my 50s parents I had not given the possibility or any thought one way or the other regarding my H’s reaction, I probably would have done the same thing had I been the one in the moment of unacceptable behavior. LOL so now I’m on record…</p>

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<p>“Certainly OVERLY SEVERE PHYSICAL PUNISHMENT is going to have adverse effects … (emphasis mine)”</p>

<p>Well yeah, especially if there is a genetic component to mental health issues in which case both dad and kid might carry genetic susceptibility. As for the study itself, it sounds a lot like those studies that conclude that children of wealthy parents tend to be wealthier as adults than children of poor parents. Gee, who-da figured?</p>

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<p>^^Reading one paragraph of the abstract would reveal comment #5 is untrue.</p>

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<p>This kind of thing drives me crazy. Serious mood disorders such as bipolar 1 are brain-based, often genetic, akin to epilepsy. Schizophrenia and OCD are also brain-based. Mood disorders are not caused by family dysfunction or physical punishment, but this study will no doubt be distorted and used against families already burdened by a child with a psychiatric disorder, and will aggravate outdated prejudices against such families that persist despite scientific advances in understanding the brain.</p>

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<p>“RESULTS: Harsh physical punishment was associated with increased odds of mood disorders, anxiety disorders, alcohol and drug abuse/dependence, and several personality disorders after adjusting for sociodemographic variables and family history of dysfunction (adjusted odds ratio: 1.36–2.46). Approximately 2% to 5% of Axis I disorders and 4% to 7% of Axis II disorders were attributable to harsh physical punishment.”</p>

<p>I’m not advocating “harsh physical punishment.” But the abstract isn’t claiming that spanking a child creates a direct path to psychological problems for that child later in life. </p>

<p>How about studying this hypothesis? Poorly behaved kids get spanked more than well-behaved kids.</p>

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<p>Correlation doesn’t equal causation… The adults that eventually have these problems were probably problem children, and thus got beaten more often… So perhaps the problems caused the beatings, rather than the inverse.</p>

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<h1>7 I don’t view this research as being relevant to the nature, nurture controversy (though it may be).</h1>

<p>Its relevance is to me is what it states about child rearing practices and how children should be disciplined. </p>

<p>That hitting children does lead to mental illness seems like a logical consequence to me.</p>

<h1>8 Define poorly behaved. Frequently children are punished for inconveniencing adults - not for being poorly behaved. They are behaving “age appropriate”.</h1>

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<p>EliKresses in Post #9: Very good point. We don’t know what’s the cause and what’s the effect.</p>

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<p>I know that anecdotal evidence is not the same as proof. However, I’ll but my head in the lion’s mouth and say that for me, yes the study is true.</p>

<p>I was regularly beaten by my mother. No, I was not a problem child, though my mother had convinced everyone I was by way of justification. I had a cigarette stuck in my eye as “an accident.” I was neglected and fell through steps up to the sliding pond and had a scared face for a year. The accident occurred when I was 18 months. Why was I climbing over a cement area by myself? The list goes on and on. At 14 I told my mother she could no longer hit me without me fighting back. This was the only reason she stopped. At 17 my dad hit me too, and I left home without having a senior year in high school. I chose the least expensive college and basically funded my own education.</p>

<p>I have a PhD and a tenured job for 28 years. I never hit or raised my voice to either child. When my H lighted tapped on the the back of her hand for disciplinary reasons I told him he could move out if he did it again, and he didn’t.</p>

<p>My kids are both in grad school and have always been extremely well-behaved. Neither were ever reprimanded at school for anything, but both are fun loving.</p>

<p>There is not a day when I don’t have a flashback of being beaten. It was so many years ago, but I’ll be thinking of something else, and there it will be.</p>

<p>I have tried therapy and meds, but neither has really brought relief, so I do live with a low level depression.</p>

<p>My mother is doing extremely well. She is 88, has plenty of money, lives in a wonderful, expensive complex with many friends and activities. She has a healthier body and has been unaffected by this abuse, although she does acknowledge it. I am still Cinderella. She will give to my kids, but not to me.</p>

<p>I have worked for agencies specializing in abuse of women. It is also true that people who are hit tend to hit others, so this goes on.</p>

<p>As for mood disorders being chemically based and hereditary, I am sure that is true. However, no one has proved that certain experiences don’t change brain chemistry. In fact they do. This is not to say that this is the cause of mood disorders, but it may be contributing factor in some cases.</p>

<p>And the consensus of the psychiatric profession is that I’ve done extremely well considering my early life. So any professional I’ve worked with, does tacitly acknowledge this correlation.</p>

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<p>mythmom --OMG – {hugs}. I am so sorry for the abuse you suffered as a child. You have survived and consciously chosen to break the pattern. Extremely difficult, and completely admirable.</p>

<p>My brothers and sisters and I grew up with violence and the threat of violence. All someone has to do is unspool their leather belt from their pants and threaten you with it – that does almost as much damage as hitting you with it.</p>

<p>I too have never struck my kids (but I did tickle them when they were young :))</p>

<p>Love and support to everyone who’s been hit or slapped or verbally abused.</p>

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<p>Given enough time and money I’m sure we can come up with studies showing that kids who are given non-physical punishment fare worse than those who are not punished at all or had an occasional whack on the bottom. After all, can’t mental punishment have a more severe impact than a physical one? So why not ban all sticks and only permit carrots? Unless of course someone is affected for not receiving a carrot and gets depressed - so no punishment or rewards.</p>

<p>Also let’s do a study on behavior of those who have been convicted of a crime versus those who haven’t. If it shows that those with a criminal history have a higher tendency to commit more crime in the future, is the solution to stop convicting people in the first place?</p>

<p>There are many aspects of life where an action or a practice has some desirable and some unwanted consequences. In the majority of scenarios, it is not black and white enough to take a binary solution. eg. you can find numerous scenarios of alcohol abuse with worse consequences than the mental illness of those who’ve received corporal punishment - does it mean we should have prohibition and I shouldn’t have an occasional glass of wine because there’s a study that shows lots of people who are negatively impacted by alcoholism?</p>

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<p>Classof2015: Thank you and the same hugs to you.</p>

<p>I can’t see how it can ever be right to hit someone smaller and weaker than you are. I don’t need a study to tell me that.</p>

<p>And the argument that people in the past weren’t loony, well perhaps they were. Both Wilhelm Reich and Alice Miller, two major health care professionals, have concluded that the obedience and lack of empathy of the Third Reich (and all the people who went along with it) can be directly traced to the harshness of German child rearing during the proceeding period.</p>

<p>The world was simpler, with fewer options, and people got into lock-step with the program – a marriage at 18 or 20 with a factory job and child rearing was the scope of most people’s lives, and before that, a farm and the same.</p>

<p>With so much initiative required in our world I think we want to make sure our children are creative and flexible thinkers so they can adapt as society rapidly changes. I don’t think corporal punishment is the best tool to achieve those goals.</p>

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<h1>14 - re paragraph 2 - The issue is the punishment, not the conviction. ie the SCOTUS decision this past week related to children. There is a tendency now to not imprison people in many places because it leads to increased recidivism. How about the decriminalization of marijuana?</h1>

<p>Please feel free to cite the studies that you claim exist.</p>

<p>From the abstract:</p>

<p>“The current research investigated the possible link between harsh physical punishment (ie, pushing, grabbing, shoving, slapping, hitting) in the absence of more severe child maltreatment (ie, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical neglect, emotional neglect, exposure to intimate partner violence) and Axis I and II mental disorders.”</p>

<p>This study claims to be investigating lesser forms of punishment (not severe discipline, but more of what people feel is “ok”, ie. will not harm a child, what the authors refer to as harsh discipline.) The above defines what they are measuring, further.</p>

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<p>Maybe we’re looking at it backwards. Instead of discussing whether the harsh physical discipline itself causes mental illnesses in children, or whether the children bring it on by behaving badly, maybe we should focus on the parents. Perhaps mental issues in the parents result in their being more apt to beat their children. It is difficult to grow to an emotionally strong and healthy child if you were raised by an emotionally unhealthy parent. What I’m hypothesizing is that the beatings are an aspect of the child’s environment, not the sole cause, of children developing issues.</p>

<p>By the way, cyber hugs to mythmom and any others in her situation. Mythmom, you must have been incredibly strong to have accomplished all you did, and become the parent you obviously have.</p>

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<p>hayden: That’s what they tell me, but I still feel a lot of sadness. I just don’t have a giving up kind of personality. I have rescued other people too, which has been a great privilege. However, perhaps as a product of my upbringing, I measure myself by what I couldn’t accomplish. My parents’ actions sent me to State U where I could pay for myself and not Yale where they would have needed to help. These aren’t very important things, but they loom larger to me than they should.</p>

<p>I was helped by “the hippie movement”, and I had a huge peer group protesting mistreatment of children (napalming) by the US in Southeast Asia and working to bring about peace was therapeutic.</p>

<p>I have also seen folks undone by narcissitic parents and neglectful parents.</p>

<p>I don’t think the point is to criticize parents. Mine isn’t. We are all products of our upbringing and heredity. My mother was very damaged. The only point of a study like this is to encourage parents to refrain from physical expressions of anger.</p>

<p>A swat on the behind to teach a child something is different from the “harsher” things described which are expressions of the parent. A very measured swat is not terrifying, even if it is unpleasant. When parents lose control the child is in a very emotionally precarious position.</p>

<p>I would never use that “swat” because I think there are many better ways of communicating with children, but I think the category of “harsh” is speaking to a different set of actions.</p>

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<p>But i do think parents play some part in it and that in itself is a lesson. My H who gave 2 of the 3 kids a swat on the behind to get their attention is also someone who barks out a word or two when he’s upset or wanting to get peoples attention. He doesn’t argue and he doesn’t rant…but he will bark…so it makes sense that he would swat a kid on the bottom to get attention. Me, I lower my voice, calm my body and start speaking slowly and watch out as every one who knows me knows I’m trying to get attention and disrupt whatever is happening. Swinging or barking out an order would not be my demeanor. There is a world of difference between abuse, a world of difference between a swat on the butt to get attention and taking a kid to the woodshed with a belt. How the kids react is also part of the puzzle. When my parents were mad at us I would argue and my sibling would quietly back out of the room and go upstairs and shut the bedroom door. Ultimately my parents would still be mad at me an hour later and they would be worrying about my sibling so kids learn early how to cause a reaction just as adults learn how to cause a reaction. Kids start doing that at about age 2 and test and test and test up until about age 18 I think. And I agree with Mythmom that this is very different than adults losing control which would make a small child feel like they were in a very chaotic situation.</p>

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<p>A more pointed question than intended, I think, since alcohol and abuse are often linked. But the only real point I can glean is that misery begets misery, and there is always too much of that to go around.</p>

<p>On this day that celebrates Independence, Kudos to those who rise above.</p>