Corporal punishment achieves nothing good

New research from the University of Michigan says children who are given corporal punishment emerge as anti-social, defiant and aggressive people. And the University of Texas at Austin that co-produced a study analysing 50 years of research on corporal punishment involving over 160,000 children, totally agrees. The research concluded that children who are regularly hit are more likely to defy their parents, experience increased anti-social behaviour, aggression, mental health problems and cognitive difficulties.

Researchers identified some long-term effects among adults who were hit as children. Among the findings: The more they were hit, the more likely they were to exhibit anti-social behaviour and to experience mental health issues.

In a nutshell, corporal punishment achieves nothing good; never has, and never will, but causes incalculable damage to a child. It is evil, cruel, inhuman, wrong, and needs to be abolished in all settings.

Sir Frank Peters
On e-mail