The First Real-Time Study Of Parents Spanking Their Kids

It's not P.C. to admit you spank your child. But nearly 40 moms have gone a step further, recording themselves hitting and slapping their kids as part of a new study on how parents and children interact.

They didn't know they were going to be in a study about spanking per se. Researchers have to be careful when presenting their proposed area of study to potential participants — too much information can lead people to alter their normal behavior, which would skew results. So when George Holden, a professor of psychology at Southern Methodist University who has published five books on parenting and child development, went to day-care centers in Dallas to recruit parents, he divulged only that he wanted to collect data about naturally occurring parent-child interaction.

In fact, Holden didn't even know he'd be studying spanking. He originally set out to study yelling, via voluntary audio recordings of parents conducting life at home — the pedestrian stuff of parenting like meal prep, bath time and lights out.

Not all parents who volunteered were accepted. Researchers eliminated those who reported during a screening interview that they never yelled at home. "There weren't many," notes Holden, who presented the research this month in Dallas at the Global Summit on Ending Corporal Punishment and Promoting Positive Discipline.

Here's the twist: in the course of analyzing the data collected from 37 families — 36 mothers and one father, all of whom recorded up to 36 hours of audio in six days of study — researchers heard the sharp cracks and dull thuds of spanking, followed in some cases by minutes of crying. They'd inadvertently captured evidence of corporal punishment, as well as the tense moments before and the resolution after, leading researchers to believe they'd amassed the first-ever cache of real-time spanking data.

MORE: Dads' Dark Side: New Fathers with Depression Spank Their Babies More

The recordings feature a mother spanking her 3-year-old son 11 times for fighting with his sister, prompting a fit of crying and coughing. Another mom hits her 5-year-old when he won't clean up his room. One mom slaps her child when he doesn't cooperate with the bedtime routine.

I don't know about you, but if I'm going to be recording my interactions with my kids, I'd be on my best behavior. (Note to researchers: don't include me in any parenting studies.)

Yet it's likely that the mothers in the study didn't consider spanking to be problematic behavior. In the 1990s, Holden conducted research that showed 70% of college-educated women spank their children; other studies have found that up to 90% of all parents use corporal punishment.

Children who are spanked occasionally are not thought to be significantly impacted later on, but those who are spanked regularly are more likely to have behavior problems that may escalate into antisocial behavior. They may also be at greater risk for anxiety disorders or depression and ultimately may be more likely to engage in domestic violence and child abuse as adults.


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