Smacking A Child – Good or Bad Psychology?

The ‘Old school – New school’ divide on smacking will be heightened by the research findings of a joint project conducted by the McGill University in Montreal and the University of Toronto. The study was made of two groups of West African children of five to six in age, one group from one private school and one from another. 63 youngsters were involved. And did smacking cause more psychological problems than it cured? Yes. And here’s why.

The six year olds did much better if they avoided corporal punishment, scoring ‘significantly higher’, than those who were smacked. It is even claimed that a harshly punitive environment could have downside effects on young childrens’ verbal intelligence and their executive functioning ability.

To compare effectively, one school used corporal punishment for a range of misdemeanours, whereas the other used verbal warnings and time-outs. Significant too was that all the children came from the same home background, same area and their parents actually were in favour of corporal punishment.

The monitoring of the children surrounded tests of their executive functioning skills in relation to some tasks set them.

The report claims too that the study demonstrated that corporal punishment does not teach children how to behave or to improve heir learning.

Interestingly from a cognitive standpoint, it was found that smacking reduced the child’s ability to think on the spot and change their behaviour, as against those given verbal correction. And sustained smacking made it more difficult for them to control their behaviour in terms of any rules or to get them to understand the justification for them.

The research reported by the Daily Telegraph would suggest that smacking – and even moderate smacking at that- is far more than just an issue of the human rights of children. It has serious implications for the psyche of children. If it leads them to set up behavioural patterns to defend themselves, such as lying or other hidden anti-social activities, then these could dog them for the rest of their lives were they to continue uncorrected.

Gerry Neale