ESTADÍSTICAS LABORALES (3.2)

There is research that looks at how parents contribute to their children becoming delinquents and drug abusers, as well as research that shows that certain parental practices carry with them a variety of risks for ori-enting children to becoming violent and to decreasing their chances of reaching their full potential.

Parenting, Substance Abuse, and Delinquency

The research that has been done to fi nd what causes or contributes to children becoming abusers of alcohol and other drugs indicates that there are several family or parent and child facets operating, including a very different pattern of parenting. As is probably obvious, a parent’s dependency on alcohol and other drugs, and a family history of such dependency, have been found to be major contributors to children abusing substances. So have parental psychological and social dys-function and high levels of family confl ict. In addition, having infants and children with special needs is a contributor, as is a family holding antisocial attitudes and being socially isolated.¹⁶

In addition, non-nurturing and ineffective parenting has been found to contribute to children using alcohol and other drugs at earlier ages and to escalating the use to more potent and destructive substances.

Here the research has shown that parents who are not very warm and accepting and who would fall on the hostile/rejecting end of the previ-ously mentioned Feeling Dimension of parenting, are the most likely to have substance-abusing children. This is even more likely if they are poor, inconsistent, and/or coercive rule-enforcers.

It is probably also not surprising that this pattern of parenting has been found in the backgrounds of many children who also become

delinquents and gang members. So, just as we have seen that there are patterns of parenting that predispose children to healthy existences, there are other patterns that point children in unhealthy and harmful directions. It is critical that all parents keep in mind that they have it within their power to either increase or decrease the chances of their children leading happy, healthy, and successful lives.

Spanking, Other Forms of

Corporal Punishment, and Verbal Aggression

In reviewing the research on parenting thus far, we have found that overall patterns of parenting seem to be the most crucial in infl uencing how children behave and turn out. There has also been research on specifi c parenting practices that points to their being infl uential in and of themselves, regardless of whether they are part of an overall pattern of parenting attitudes and practices. These include various types of corporal punishment and verbally aggressive practices. The research shows that such practices can and do have serious consequences.¹⁷

Corporal punishment practices are intended to cause physical pain or discomfort. They range from pinching, slapping, punching, and kicking children, to spanking, hitting, and beating children with or without objects such as swithches, brushes, belts, and cords. Each of these practices can be mild or severe, depending on their force or dura-tion. When they leave bruises and other notable physical injuries, they are considered in the United States to be illegal and instances of child physical abuse. Verbally aggressive practices directed at children in-clude such practices as putting children down, insulting them, swear-ing at them, and sayswear-ing and doswear-ing thswear-ings to spite them. Here again, when they are severe and continuous, they are considered a form of legally reportable child maltreatment, emotional abuse.

Verbal Aggression. An analysis of data from a nationally representa-tive sample of 3,346 American parents with a child under age 18 living at home found that 63% of the parents reported one or more instances of verbal aggression directed at their children.¹⁸ This research further showed that the more frequent the use of verbal aggression, the higher the chances of the children

• Becoming physically aggressive with others,

• Experiencing a variety of interpersonal problems, and

• Becoming juvenile delinquents.¹⁹

This study also indicated that children who were exposed to both ver-bal aggression and severe corporal punishment exhibited the highest rates of aggression, delinquency, and interpersonal problems.

Corporal Punishment. In terms of corporal punishment itself, a major national survey focused on the use of milder forms of corporal punishment (“ordinary corporal punishment”), including 1. spanking on the bottom with a bare hand; 2. slapping on the hand, arm, or leg;

3. pinching; 4. shaking (on children age 3 or older); 5. hitting on the bottom with a belt, brush, stick, or other hard object; and 6. slapping on the face, head, or ears. The survey was conducted in 1995 and the results were reported in a 1999 article in the professional journal Clini-cal Child and Family Psychology Review.²⁰ The results showed that the greater the use of corporal punishment by parents, the higher the chances were of their children

• Becoming depressed,

• Having suicidal thoughts,

• Striking siblings and peers,

• Performing poorly in school,

• Becoming delinquents and committing crimes,

• Having career problems, and

• Abusing their own children and spouses, when they become adults.

In 2002, a study of 62 years of research on the effects of corporal punishment was published. It found even more extensive evidence of many of these unsettling outcomes. This study, by Dr. Elizabeth Thompson Gershoff of Columbia University, appeared in the profes-sional journal Psychology Bulletin and was entitled “Corporal Punish-ment by Parents and Associated Child Behaviors and Experiences: A Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review.”²¹

Dr. Gershoff’s study-of-studies found that parental use of corporal punishment was related to child behaviors and experiences such as:

• Greater aggression

• Poorer internalization of moral values

• Higher rates of delinquency and antisocial behavior

• Poorer quality of parent–child relationships

• Poorer child mental health

• Being a victim of child abuse

• Abusing own child and spouse²²

Her study also found that the use of corporal punishment was as-sociated with the short-term effect of a child more quickly complying with parental directions. It is likely that it is just this immediate effect that seduces so many parents into continuing to use corporal punish-ment, at least until their children become big enough to fi ght back.

It is important for all of us to realize that every act of corporal pun-ishment, including spanking, constitutes violence directed toward children, because violence is an act carried out with the intention, or perceived intention, of causing physical pain or injury to another person. This has been true for centuries, and for centuries it has been ignored up to the point that corporal punishment produces physical signs and injuries.

This failure to recognize that all forms of corporal punishment and all instances of its use are acts of violence has been supported throughout history by various self-serving reasons, including reli-gious and adult supremacy reasons. It has also been supported by the fact that the use of corporal punishment does often immediately stop children from engaging in behaviors that can be extremely upsetting to parents and other adults. But times have changed and knowledge has advanced.

We now know that many instances of physical child abuse, includ-ing some that result in child deaths, begin through the application of mild forms of corporal punishment but escalate into the more extreme forms when children do not immediately comply. And all of the re-search just reviewed shows that the more frequent and harsh uses of corporal punishment have destructive, long-term consequences for children and for our entire society.²³

Indeed, we have moved away from allowing the use of corporal punishment in husband-and-wife adult relationships, where until re-cently it was acceptable that men could exercize their superior physical strength with wives who failed to do what they dictated. We now call this “assault” or “spousal abuse” and there are laws protecting adults from such violence. Shouldn’t we extend to the youngest, smallest, and most vulnerable members of our society, our children, the same protection that is now reserved for adults?

Yes, we have child abuse laws, but they allow for the use of physi-cal punishment up to the point where it does not exceed “ordinary, normal corporal punishment.”²⁴We don’t allow that sort of exception when violence is directed toward adults. So we have a double standard

that disrespects the dignity of our children and allows them to be legal recipients of treatment that is forbidden between adults.

We have enough violence all around us. Let’s stop teaching it to our children in the privacy of our homes and within the most important relationship they will ever have. Let’s also join with the honor roll of nations that have already abolished all uses of corporal punishment with children:

Austria (1998) Germany (2000) Latvia (1998) Bulgaria (2000) Greece (2006) Norway (1987) Croatia (1999) Hungary (2005) Portugal (2004) Cyprus (1994) Iceland (2003) Romania (2004) Denmark (1997) Israel (2000) Sweden (1979) Finland (1983) Italy (1996) Ukraine (2004)²⁵ Now it is time to turn to the guidelines where the research fi ndings about what is productive in raising children are transformed in such ways as to provide you with approaches, skills, and ideas to assist you in doing the best for your children and for yourself as you carry out the job of parenting.

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