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Learners’ challenging behaviour is a growing concern in primary schools. Reports reveal that many learners in South African primary schools are presenting with challenging behaviour - disrupting lessons, causing chaos, putting learners’ and teachers’ safety at risk, and interrupting school functionality. To understand this phenomenon, a systematic review of literature spanning three decades was conducted to determine whether physical punishment of children leads to the onset of challenging behaviour in primary schools. The social cognitive theory emphasised how children learn and replicate behaviour, and punished children can quickly adopt punishing behaviours themselves. Thematic analysis of forty-five research sources on the impact of physical punishment on children’s behaviour identified several primary types of challenging behaviours physically punished children displayed in primary schools. The review established a clear link between physically punished children and the manifestation of challenging behaviour in school settings. These results imply that physical punishment of children can be painful, and the types of challenging behaviour displayed in primary school result typically from physical punishment. These results further imply that physical punishment of children can lead to the onset of challenging behaviour in primary schools. Education stakeholders should consider the behaviours presented in this review to improve and change how they view, support and manage misbehaving children. This should encompass school curriculum and policy reform and practice, including the implementation of relevant intervention strategies such as the ‘15 key steps to support misbehaving learners: A teacher's guide to effective intervention’ as recommended by this research.

Learners’ challenging behaviour is a growing concern in primary schools. Reports reveal that many learners in South African primary schools present with challenging behaviour – disrupting lessons, causing chaos, risking learners’ and teachers’ safety, and interrupting school functionality. A systematic review of literature spanning three decades was conducted to determine whether physical punishment on children leads to the onset of challenging behaviour in primary schools. The social cognitive theory emphasises how children learn and replicate behaviour, and punished children can quickly adopt punishing behaviours themselves. Thematic analysis of forty-five research sources on the impact of physical punishment on children’s behaviour identified several primary types of challenging behaviours physically punished children displayed in primary schools. The review established a clear link between physically punished children and the manifestation of challenging behaviour in school settings. These results imply that physical punishment of children can be painful, and the types of challenging behaviour displayed in primary school typically result from physical punishment. These results further imply that physical punishment on children can lead to the onset of challenging behaviour in primary schools. Education stakeholders should consider the behaviours presented in this review to improve and change how they view, support and manage misbehaving children. This should encompass school curriculum and policy reform and practice, including the implementation of relevant intervention strategies such as the ‘15 key steps to support misbehaving learners: A teacher’s guide to effective intervention’ as recommended by the findings of this research.

On March 11, 2020, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. The social isolation and economic stress resulting from pandemic have the potential to exacerbate child abuse and neglect. This study examines the association of parents’ perceived social isolation and recent employment loss to risk for child maltreatment (neglect, verbal aggression, and physical punishment) in the early weeks of the pandemic. Participants (N = 283) were adults living in the U.S. who were parents of at least one child 0–12 years of age. Participants completed an online survey approximately 2 weeks after the World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 was a pandemic. The survey asked about recent changes (i.e., in the past 2 weeks) to employment status, parenting behaviors, use of discipline, use of spanking, and depressive symptoms. Nearly 20% of parents had hit or spanked their child in the past two weeks alone. Parents’ perceived social isolation and recent employment loss were associated with self-report of physical and emotional neglect and verbal aggression against the child, even after controlling for parental depressive symptoms, income, and sociodemographic factors. Parents’ perceived social isolation was associated with parental report of changes in discipline, specifically, using discipline and spanking more often in the past 2 weeks. Associations were robust to analyses that included two variables that assessed days spent social distancing and days spent in “lockdown.” Study results point to the need for mental health supports to parents and children to ameliorate the strain created by COVID-19.

Background Physical punishment of children is an important public health concern. Yet, few studies have examined how physical punishment is related to other types of child maltreatment and violence across the lifespan. Therefore, the objective of the current study was to examine if harsh physical punishment (i.e., being pushed, grabbed, shoved, hit, and/or slapped without causing marks, bruises, or injury) is associated with an increased likelihood of more severe childhood maltreatment (i.e., physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, emotional neglect, and exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV)) in childhood and perpetration or victimization of IPV in adulthood. Methods Data were drawn from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions collected in 2004 to 2005 ( n  = 34,402, response rate = 86.7%), a representative United States adult sample. Results Harsh physical punishment was associated with increased odds of childhood maltreatment, including emotional abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional neglect, and exposure to IPV after adjusting for sociodemographic factors, family history of dysfunction, and other child maltreatment types (range 1.6 to 26.6). Harsh physical punishment was also related to increased odds of experiencing IPV in adulthood (range 1.4 to 1.7). Conclusions It is important for parents and professionals working with children to be aware that pushing, grabbing, shoving, hitting, or slapping children may increase the likelihood of emotional abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional neglect, and exposure to IPV in childhood and also experiencing IPV victimization and/or perpetration in later adulthood.

Background Research consistently demonstrates that physical punishment of children including “spanking” is harmful. Interest in effective prevention is growing rapidly. The aim of the current study is to examine spanking beliefs among adolescents and parents in relation to reports of spanking that the adolescents experienced before 11 years of age. Methods Data were drawn from Wave 1 of a study conducted in 2017–2018 that included adolescents (14–17 years old) and one of their parents/caregivers from Manitoba, Canada ( n  = 1000 pairs). The study objectives were to examine: 1) spanking beliefs of adolescents and their parents; 2) the correlation between parent and adolescent spanking beliefs; 3) whether parents perceive the words “spank” vs. “hit” differently using intraclass correlation; 4) the association between parents’ beliefs about spanking and parent- and adolescent-reported use of it; and 5) the relationship between sociodemographic variables and spanking. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Spearman’s correlation, intraclass correlation, and binary and multinomial logistic regression analyses. Results The prevalence of adolescent-reported and parents’-reported spanking were 46.0% and 39.6%, respectively. The proportions agreeing that spanking is a normal part of parenting were similar among adolescents (22.0%) and parents (18.5%), and were moderately correlated (intraclass correlation = 0.38, SE = 0.038). More than five times as many parents believed that “spanking” is necessary (19.5%) than believed that “hitting” is necessary (3.5%). Parents’ positive spanking beliefs were associated with increased likelihood of adolescent- and parent-reported spanking. Few significant associations were found between sociodemographic variables and parent-reported or adolescent-reported spanking. Conclusions Adolescents’ spanking beliefs are related to their parents’ spanking beliefs, suggesting that they are transmitted across generations. Public education and law reform are needed to decrease the normalization and perceived necessity of spanking in child-rearing. Efforts should include improving the understanding that spanking is a form of violence against children. With only a few significant differences noted between sociodemographic variables and parent- and adolescent- reported spanking and the prevalent use of spanking across all sociodemographic variable categories, it may be useful to develop universal approaches to awareness-raising and implementation of education strategies in Canada.

There is growing debate in the parenting literature as to whether using physical punishment to discipline children is an effective strategy or leads to the development of aggressive behaviors and other antisocial attributes. The aim of the current literature review is to examine the association between harsh physical discipline and the development of externalizing behaviors in children, as well as the suggested moderators of this relationship. Secondly, the findings regarding the effects of harsh physical discipline on children’s educational outcomes are reviewed. Articles were selected from relevant databases while maintaining an inclusion and exclusion criteria, with a total of 22 articles included in this review. Strong associations between parental corporal punishment and a range of child behaviors were indicated by the literature, and cultural normativeness was implicated as a moderator of these effects. Results regarding the role of parental warmth as a moderator did not provide a firm conclusion. Finally, the findings suggest that when a child is subjected to physical discipline in the home, their life at school may be adversely affected by impaired cognitive performance, peer isolation, and behavioral problems. The primary limitation of the studies reviewed is the use of self-report data and correlational analyses, ruling out the possibility of inferring causal relations. Nonetheless, the results indicate the necessity of encouraging parents and caregivers to avoid physical punishment as a disciplinary tactic while providing them with the tools to explore alternative practices.

The current evidence indicates that spanking is harmful to children’s health and development and should never be used by parents or other caregivers. However, the critical factors that inform effective spanking prevention strategies are still not well understood. The objective of the current study was to determine if a parent’s own adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) history was associated with increased likelihood of reporting their child being spanked at age 10 or younger. Data were drawn from the Well-Being and Experiences Study (the WE Study), a community survey of parents and adolescents from 2017–2018 (N = 1000) from Canada. The results indicated that a parent’s own history of physical abuse, emotional abuse, spanking, and household mental illness in childhood were associated with an increased likelihood that their child would have been spanked. These findings indicate that a parent’s ACEs history may be related to how their own child is parented and identify families who may be more likely to rely on spanking. Preventing physical punishment is necessary for healthy child development, reducing the risk of further violence, and upholding children’s rights to protection. Parent’s ACEs history may be an important factor to consider when developing and implementing child maltreatment prevention efforts.

Physical punishment is the most common form of violence against children worldwide and is associated with an increased risk of long-term adverse outcomes. Interventions targeting parents/caregivers are frequently implemented to prevent and reduce the use of physical punishment. This scoping review aimed to map the existing literature on evidence-informed parenting interventions targeting physical punishment. A scoping review following the World Health Organization (WHO) Review Guide, the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) 2020 Guide for scoping reviews, was conducted to address the objective of this review. An academic health sciences librarian systematically searched electronic databases (EBSCO, MEDLINE, EMBASE, SCOPUS) for peer-reviewed journal articles. Two reviewers independently screened titles and abstracts, followed by a full-text review according to inclusion and exclusion criteria following the Participants, Concept, and Context framework. Eighty-one studies were included for full-text eligibility. The results suggest that most interventions examined were conducted in North America, targeted mothers and fathers, and were delivered in person. The results from this scoping review describe the state of evidence-informed parenting interventions to prevent and reduce physical punishment. This review found opportunities for future research to implement effective parenting interventions on a larger societal scale and use mixed methods approaches to evaluate parenting interventions.

While parental violent disciplining of children is a global concern, children living in low- and middle-income countries like Bangladesh are particularly more vulnerable to harsh disciplinary practices at home. There is limited empirical evidence on the use of disciplinary practices in Bangladesh, impeding the development of prevention practices. This study investigated the extent of violent child disciplining and parental attitudes toward physical punishment and identified their predictor using data from the 2019 Bangladesh Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey. Violent discipline includes any form of physical punishment like spanking, slapping, or hitting any part of the body, as well as psychological aggression such as shouting, screaming, or name-calling. Study participants were 44,570 mothers/caregivers of children aged 2–14 years. Multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression models were fitted to identify the predictors of violent disciplinary practices and parents’ attitudes toward physical punishment. The results revealed a very high prevalence of violent disciplinary practices in Bangladesh. About 89% of the mothers/caregivers reported using at least one form of violent discipline; 39% were spanked, hit, or slapped on the bottom, 29% were hit or slapped on the face, head, or ears, and 5% were beaten up as hard as one could. Younger children, and children from urban areas, certain administrative divisions, poorer families, children with functional difficulties, less educated mothers/caregivers were more likely to experience violent discipline. About 35% of mothers/caregivers supported physical punishment, indicating a large discrepancy between attitude and the practice of violent discipline. Parents’ attitudes appeared as one of the strongest predictors of violent discipline. Prevention efforts should be made to promote positive parenting and minimize the gap between parental attitudes and the practice of physical punishment. Highlights This study documented a very high prevalence (89%) of violent physical punishment to children at home, while only 35% of mothers/caregivers supported physical punishment, indicating a big gap between attitude and practice about child discipline in Bangladesh. Mothers/caregivers’ attitudes toward physical punishment appeared as a major predictor of the usage of violent physical discipline. Changes in attitudes need to be promoted by improving knowledge about the negative consequences of violent physical punishment.

PurposeThis study aimed to investigate the association between parenting stress, maternal depressive symptoms, and use of physical punishment when the child is 10 years old.MethodsData from the Tokyo Early Adolescence Survey on early adolescents and primary caregivers (N = 4478) were used. Frequency of using physical punishment, level of depressive symptoms (Kessler Psychological Distress Scale 6), and maternal parenting stress experienced at 1, 3, 9, 18, and 36 months after birth were evaluated. Multiple linear and multinomial logistic regression analyses were conducted.ResultsMothers (1633) who provided information on parenting stress at all the five points were included for the analysis. After controlling for the child’s age, sex, birth weight, maternal age, and annual household income, presence of maternal parenting stress at every time point, except at three months after birth, was significantly associated with an increased risk of using physical punishment with the 10-year-old. After adjusting for levels of depressive symptoms, significant associations were found between use of physical punishment and maternal parenting stress at 1 month (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 1.71, 95% confidence interval [Cl] 1.12–2.61) and 36 months (adjusted OR 1.70, 95% CI 1.10–2.61) after birth.ConclusionMaternal parenting stress experienced at 1 and 36 months after birth predicted use of physical punishment, even after adjusting for maternal depressive symptoms. Maternal support should, therefore, be provided to mothers to cope with parenting stress even three years after birth to prevent the use of physical punishment in early adolescence.