A good spanking may leave a mark on a child that鈥檚 worse than the red handprint. Spanking and other corporal punishments stunt children鈥檚 intelligence, new research shows.
The IQs of 2- to 4-year-olds who received regular spankings from their parents dropped by more than 5 points over four years, compared with kids who were not spanked.
鈥淭he practical side of this is that paediatricians and child psychologists need to start doing what none of them do now, and say, 鈥楴ever spank under any circumstances,'鈥� says , a sociologist at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, who led the new study along with at the Prevention Research Center in Berkeley, California.
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No excuses
Theirs isn鈥檛 the first evidence that spanking children comes with a cost: several previous studies have hinted at the association, and a recent brain-imaging study found that children who underwent severe corporal punishment had less brain grey matter 鈥� which includes neurons 鈥� compared with other children. Stress, anxiety and fear might explain why spanking slows cognitive development.
However, the new research makes a stronger case for a cause-effect relationship between spanking and intelligence than other studies, says , a child development researcher at the University of Texas, Austin, who was not involved in the new study. This is because it examined children over the course of four years and accounted for many confounding variables, such as a parent鈥檚 ethnicity, education and whether they read to their children or not.
Straus and Paschall analysed data collected in the 1980s as part of a nationwide survey of children鈥檚 health. In 1986 a previous study measured the IQ of 1510 2- to 9-year olds and also noted how often their mothers meted out corporal punishment. The researchers repeated the IQ tests four years later.
Straus and Paschall split the kids into two age groups 鈥� 2 to 4 years and 5 to 9 鈥� because some child psychologists contend that occasional spanking is acceptable in toddlers, but not older children.
Smacked down
The figures revealed that 93 per cent of mothers had spanked 2- to 4-year-olds once or more per week, whereas only 58 per cent had turned to physical discipline with the older kids. Nearly half of toddlers鈥� moms had spanked their children three or more times per week, Straus and Paschall found.
Four years later, younger children who had never felt their mother鈥檚 palm had gained an average of 5.5 IQ points compared with kids who had suffered corporal punishment, while older unspanked children had gained 2 IQ points, on average.
These results cast doubt on the practice of spanking only younger kids, Straus says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 one of the cruel ironies that younger children are more at risk because their brain is in the most formative part of development.鈥�
Spanked but bright
Although Straus and Paschall accounted for many other factors that could affect intelligence before concluding that corporal punishment leads to lower IQ, spanking isn鈥檛 a guarantee of intellectual mediocrity.
In the younger children, the thing that made the biggest difference to IQ scores was whether or not mothers provided cognitive stimulation. This was more important than anything else, including corporal punishment.
鈥淟et鈥檚 say you have a child that comes from educated parents, warm and supportive parents, who provide cognitive stimulation, and they spank: that kid鈥檚 going to be OK anyhow, [though] maybe not quite as OK [as the child would be] if they didn鈥檛 spank,鈥� Straus says.
However, he has little patience for the argument that spanking accomplishes what other forms of discipline cannot. 鈥淭he research simply doesn鈥檛 show that,鈥� he says. 鈥淪panking doesn鈥檛 work any better with a 2-year-old than saying, 鈥楴o, don鈥檛 do that.'鈥�
He adds, 鈥淚 spanked my kids when they were little: I wish I hadn鈥檛 now that I know all this.鈥�
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