Spanking children is not educational

Research has repeatedly highlighted the negative effects of corporal punishment on cognitive processes and development . Systematically spanking children in the first place can damage the gray matter of the brain. Gray matter forms part of the central nervous system that is still developing in children. Areas involved in perception, language, muscle control, memory, planning, impulse control, decision-making, problem solving and judgment skills are part of the gray matter.

Some research has supported the hypothesis that children and adolescents who experienced neglect and abuse in their childhood have less gray matter than those who were not abused. When we talk about abuse we are also referring to verbal violence (offenses, humiliations, recurrent devaluations).

A link between corporal punishment and increased aggressive behavior in children . This alleged “educational method” is often associated with dysfunctional behaviors within the school setting and low achievement.

Children exposed to recurrent corporal punishment develop hostility attribution bias, which is a tendency to expect others to be violent with them. In short, they perceive the world as hostile and bad, and for this they need to defend themselves by showing themselves hostile in the same way.

They have one bad frustration tolerance . Educating children with beating is also predictive of vulnerability to depression, especially in girls, and of antisocial behavior and substance addiction, especially in boys. A meta-analysis search of 14 different studies on the effects of spanking children highlighted the relationship between corporal punishment and aggressive behavior in children (Gershoff & Grogan-Kaylor, 2016). We might think it’s not so much beating children that makes them aggressive, but aggressive children are more likely to get hit.

However, a study of 12,000 children showed that children who were spanked when they were 5 were more likely to develop aggressive behavior at the age of 6 and 8. (Gershoff, Sattler, & Ansari, 2018).

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