I got this from the "Psychwatch" newsletter. It was prefaced with the question "Sad news?" Sad news...Gotta love that scientific neutrality! To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/health/A58526-2001Aug24.html New Study Gives Green Light to Occasional Spanking SAN FRANCISCO #150; The occasional spanking does no long term- damage to a child's emotional or social development, undercutting theories which say any physical punishment of children is harmful, according to a study released on Friday. Psychologist Diana Baumrind surveyed more than 100 families and found that children who are spanked occasionally can still grow up to be happy, well-adjusted adults. "We found no evidence for unique detrimental effects of normative physical punishment," Baumrind said in an address to the American Psychological Association annual meeting in San Francisco. "I am not an advocate of spanking," said Baumrind, "but a blanket injunction against its use is not warranted by the evidence. It is reliance on physical punishment, not whether or not it is used at all, that is associated with harm to the child." Baumrind, who co-wrote the study with fellow University of California-Berkeley psychologist Elizabeth Owens, separated out parents who use spanking frequently and severely from those who who occasionally spank their children. The study, which focused on spanking in middle-class, white families was undertaken in response to anti-spanking advocates who have claimed that physical punishment, by itself, has harmful psychological effects on children and hurts society as a whole. Surveying extensive records on California families conducted by earlier studies at Berkeley's Institute of Human Development, other archival material and independent observations and interviews, the psychologists compiled a "Parent Disciplinary Rating Scale" to assess various strategies of parental discipline and their effects on children. Only a small minority of parents, from 4 percent to 7 percent depending on the time period, used physical punishment often and with some intensity. While not legally abusive, these parents appeared to be overly severe and impulsive when doling out physical punishment, according to Baumrind, adding that punishment styles often include using a paddle or other instrument to strike the child, or hit on the face or torso, or lifting, throwing, or shaking the child. 'RED ZONE' Baumrind said that when this "red zone" group of parents was removed from the study sample, most of the correlations between spanking and long-term harm to children also disappeared. "Red zone parents are rejecting, exploitative and impulsive," Baumrind said. "They are parents who punish beyond the norm. You have very little to explain after you remove this small group." The children of less-determined spankers, classified as falling into orange, yellow and green zones, appeared to show no long-term harmful effects, she said. "There were no significant differences between children of parents who spanked seldom (green zone) and those who spanked moderately (yellow zone)," Baumrind said. Verbal punishment, in which parents use words rather than physical action to discipline a child, appeared to yield similar results, with researchers saying severe verbal punishment could sometimes have a more serious long-term effect on a child than physical punishment. "What really matters is the child-rearing context. When parents are loving and firm and communicate well with the child the children are exceptionally competent and well adjusted, whether or not their parents spanked them as preschoolers." ------- End of forwarded message ------- ************************************************************************ Jim Guinee, Ph.D. Director of Training & Adjunct Professor President, Arkansas College Counselor Association University of Central Arkansas Counseling Center 313 Bernard Hall Conway, AR 72035 USA (501) 450-3138 (office) (501) 450-3248 (fax) "Almost every sect of Christianity is a perversion of its essence, to accomodate it to the prejudices of the world." -- William Hazlitt **************************************************************************
