Larvatus Prodeo

Or something.

Corporal punishment (CP) is defined as “an act carried out with the intention of causing a child to experience pain, but not injury, for the purposes of correction and control”.

Spanking and slapping are a “socially legitimate form of interpersonal violence” used to discipline children in the United States and many other countries. Spanking can, it seems, include the use of an object such as a stick, but is subjectively distinguished from a violent assault.

A US study by Straus and Paschall on the effects on cognitive ability of whacking kids came up with one really positive message:

In the younger children, the thing that made the biggest difference to IQ scores was whether or not mothers provided cognitive stimulation. This was more important than anything else, including corporal punishment.

The bad news was:

The figures revealed that 93 per cent of mothers had spanked 2- to 4-year-olds once or more per week, whereas only 58 per cent had turned to physical discipline with the older [age 5 to 9] kids. Nearly half of toddlers’ moms had spanked their children three or more times per week, Straus and Paschall found.

Four years later, younger children who had never felt their mother’s palm had gained an average of 5.5 IQ points compared with kids who had suffered corporal punishment, while older unspanked children had gained 2 IQ points, on average.

Continue reading ‘Smacking and spanking kids to improve their moral development’