Is There a Difference Between Spanking and Physical Abuse?

Decades of research confirms that spanking and physical abuse harm children in nearly all the same ways.

Is spanking a barbaric ritual of the past, or does parenting today require a firm hand? The issue of spanking children has been revisited time and time again by parents and law-makers, but a recent study published in the Journal of Family Psychology may finally put the debate to rest.

Based on 50 years of research, experts at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Michigan have concluded that spanking and physical abuse damage children in nearly all the same ways.

In a press release, Elizabeth Gershoff, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin, explained, "We as a society think of spanking and physical abuse as distinct behaviors, yet our research shows that spanking is linked with the same negative child outcomes as abuse, just to a slightly less degree.”

SEE ALSO: The Case Against Spanking Children

Gershoff and her co-author Andrew Grogan-Kaylor conducted a meta-analysis of spanking studies published in past 50 years, representing a total of 160,927 children. They found that spanking was connected to 13 of the 17 negative outcomes they examined including antisocial behavior, aggression, mental health problems, and cognitive difficulties.

"We found that spanking was associated with unintended detrimental outcomes and was not associated with more immediate or long-term compliance, which are parents' intended outcomes when they discipline their children," Gershoff said. She notes there is no clear evidence that spanking brings about any positive changes in a child’s behavior.

Spanking is currently legal in many countries including Canada, the United Kingdom, and all 50 States. It is often distinguished from physical abuse as a corporal punishment that doesn’t cause lasting harm or leave a visible mark, but Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor’s findings suggest there is no logic behind this definition.

All 13 of the negative outcomes linked to spanking were also linked to physical abuse, and the connection was nearly as strong as with physical abuse. The more often a child was spanked, the more likely he/she was to demonstrate these behaviors and attributes.

All of this evidence agrees with a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that calls for "public engagement and education campaigns and legislative approaches to reduce corporal punishment." These measures can go a long way to changing the public’s mindset about spanking, but change will be slow.

A 2014 UNICEF study estimated that up to 80 percent of parents around the world spank their children, and those that were spanked themselves as children are more likely to support physical punishment, according to Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor’s findings.

"We hope that our study can help educate parents about the potential harms of spanking and prompt them to try positive and non-punitive forms of discipline," Gershoff said.

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