Spanking Leads to Serious Mental Issues in Children

Spanking children leads to slow cognitive development and increased criminal and anti-social behavior, a research done for over four decades by a professor of University of New Hampshire states.

Murray Straus, founder and co-director of the Family Research Lab and professor emeritus of sociology at the University of New Hampshire, writes in his latest book that although spanking is known to correct misbehavior it also causes some serious harm to children.

The research published in the book ‘The Primordial Violence” (Routledge, 2013)’ analyzed longitudinal data collected from over 7,000 U.S. families as well as results from a 32-nation study.“Research shows that spanking corrects misbehavior. But it also shows that spanking does not work better than other modes of correction, such as time out, explaining, and depriving a child of privileges. Moreover, the research clearly shows that the gains from spanking come at a big cost. These include weakening the tie between children and parents and increasing the probability that the child will hit other children and their parents, and as adults, hit a dating or marital partner. Spanking also slows down mental development and lowers the probability of a child doing well in school,” Straus wrote in a press release.