Idealogian

Cause and Effect

Spanking May Lead to Behavioral Problems Later

Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have discovered that children who are spanked before the age of 2 are more likely to have behavioral problems years later when they enter grade school.

"Spanking children under the age of 2 puts those children into a higher risk group for behavioral problems later," says Eric P. Slade, assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and co-author of a study appearing in this month's issue of Pediatrics.

. . .

Spanking may be ... stigmatizing, and frequent spanking before the age of 2 may stem from factors like high parent stress.

"Parents who are stressed out or angry are more likely to expose their children to that anger," says Slade.

The white mothers who spanked their toddlers also had lower annual incomes, less education and were more likely to suffer from depression.

Unless the article is leaving out some important facts of the study, I see no reason to make spanking part of the whole equation. Simply put, parents with lower incomes and suffering from depression are more likely to be stressed out or angry, and "parents who are stressed out or angry are more likely to expose their children to that anger" (in many ways, not just through spanking). Thus, it's not the spanking that "puts those children into a higher risk group for behavioral problems later;" it's the bad parenting.

In other words, it seems more likely to me that spanking isn't so much the cause of the problem as it is a symptom of a common problem.