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Spanking children may cause behavioural problems

One problem with assessing whether spanking your children harms them is that any association will be distorted by other risk factors (confounders). Furthermore, showing an association does not prove causation. In an attempt to tease out the issues, US researchers analysed data from a cohort of 2211 low-income urban families, while allowing for the quality of mother–child relationship. They used multivariate analysis to examine the associations between maternal spanking and child externalising behaviour (e.g. tendency to get upset, have tantrums and to be oppositional) when children were aged 1, 3 and 5 years, while taking account of the parental attachment style. In the previous month, mothers had spanked 27.5% of 1-year-old, 55.0% of 3-year-old and 50.7% of 5-year-old children. While spanking at age 1 was associated with externalising behaviour at age 3, this was true only for children with an insecure mother–child attachment style, but not for those with a secure mother–child attachment style. However, maternal spanking at age 3 was associated with externalising behaviour at age 5 regardless of the attachment style. The authors conclude that spanking your 3-year-old is associated with adverse outcomes in early childhood regardless of the strength of parental attachment, supporting the 2018 American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement which encourages parents to avoid spanking when disciplining children.