A considerable body of knowledge has emerged over recent decades revealing the developmental outcomes associated with the physical punishment of children. However, researchers have only just begun to investigate what children think about physical punishment. The present study explored children’s assessments of parents’ motives for using physical punishment, as well as its fairness, justness and outcomes. The findings indicate that while children think physical punishment can be effective, they do not think it is the best way to teach children or that it is necessary in order for them to learn. They also think it has negative emotional consequences for children and parents and that it is morally wrong. Surprisingly, there were few indications that children’s thinking about these dimensions changes with age. These findings have implications for parent education and raise interesting questions for future research. / February 2007

A considerable body of knowledge has emerged over recent decades revealing the developmental outcomes associated with the physical punishment of children. However, researchers have only just begun to investigate what children think about physical punishment. The present study explored children’s assessments of parents’ motives for using physical punishment, as well as its fairness, justness and outcomes. The findings indicate that while children think physical punishment can be effective, they do not think it is the best way to teach children or that it is necessary in order for them to learn. They also think it has negative emotional consequences for children and parents and that it is morally wrong. Surprisingly, there were few indications that children’s thinking about these dimensions changes with age. These findings have implications for parent education and raise interesting questions for future research.

A considerable body of knowledge has emerged over recent decades revealing the developmental outcomes associated with the physical punishment of children. However, researchers have only just begun to investigate what children think about physical punishment. The present study explored children’s assessments of parents’ motives for using physical punishment, as well as its fairness, justness and outcomes. The findings indicate that while children think physical punishment can be effective, they do not think it is the best way to teach children or that it is necessary in order for them to learn. They also think it has negative emotional consequences for children and parents and that it is morally wrong. Surprisingly, there were few indications that children’s thinking about these dimensions changes with age. These findings have implications for parent education and raise interesting questions for future research.

Parents’ use of smacking with children has been the subject of much private and public debate within the UK in recent years. Within this qualitative study, narrative methods have been used to explore relationships between societal change and individuals’ own biographical narratives of growing up and becoming parents and for some, becoming health visitors. At the heart of this study ‘small’ stories of individual experience are set within the context of what Tilly (1984) referred to as ‘big structures and large processes’. This thesis weaves ideas about social and cultural narratives with the personal or autobiographical narrative and explores their interconnectedness, places of convergence and divergence and significance for self-identity.Initially print media texts that spanned the past twenty years were analysed to discover the dominant 'storylines' about parents’ use of smacking. Secondly, narrative interviews were carried out with parents, grandparents and health visitors (most of whom were also parents or grandparents). The approach to analysis was sequential and narratives were considered in terms of their form and their content, across all of the narrative data and then within six selected narrative exemplars.The stories recounted by participants are of personal 'transition' and the formation of new identities within a society that could be described as being in a 'state of flux' as the children's rights agenda is interpreted and played out in different ways. Identification of personal turning points during the life course and the use of Frank’s (1995) narrative types has allowed further understanding of the ways in which these stories are culturally constructed. Participants’ biographical narratives of chaos, quest and restitution, focusing upon experience of parental use of smacking, illustrate ways in which different experience of transition, triggers, turning points and evolution, work in a transformational way to reconstruct moral identity of parents and foster relationships of reciprocity amongst children and parents. Understandings of relationship between adults and children have implications for the cultural politics of childhood which are significant for the present and on into the future. It is this very notion of reciprocity amongst children and parents that is likely to foster as cultural knowledge, equal protection against assault.

Child maltreatment is a significant public health issue. Reducing prevalence of coercive parenting is one means to reducing risk of maltreatment and negative developmental outcomes for children. Parental use of physical punishment has been associated with adverse consequences in childhood and adulthood. Parent education programs, such as the Positive Parenting Program (Triple P), that promote alternatives to using physical punishment with children may reduce coercive parenting. In this study, parental use of physical punishment, non-physical forms of punishment, and non-punitive parenting responses were compared before and after parents attended Level 2 Triple P parent education seminars. International Parenting Survey-Canada (IPS-C) data were used to examine Belsky’s (1984) theoretical proposition that parental factors are the strongest predictor of parenting behaviour followed by contextual and child factors. Independent samples t-tests, Wilcoxon Signed Rank Tests, and a series of regression models were used to examine the study’s hypotheses. A total of 27 parents attended the Triple P sessions. Parental use of physical punishment decreased on only one of the four physical punishment items (shaking) post- intervention. Although there were no significant differences in overall use of non-physical forms of punishment and non-punitive parenting strategies pre and post-intervention, there were significant increases in frequency of use of individual scale items pre- to post-intervention. IPS-C sample of 2,340 Canadian parents was used to examine Belsky’s postulate. Results were mixed and provided partial support for the postulate. Child behaviour problems, participation in parent education programs, parent employment status, and parent age predicted coercive parenting. Findings highlight the need to further examine these hypotheses. / October 2016

This study examined whether cultural factors could predict parents' attitudes toward the use of harsh physical punishment on their children in Akwa Ibom state in Nigeria. Presuming that most people disapprove of child abuse, different cultural groups may define the parental behaviors that constitute abuse differently, and such variances may result in a disparity of identification of parents from some cultures as more abusive than others. Four different independent cultural variables were measured: (a) conflict tactics, (b) nurturance, (c) drinking, and (d) valuing children. Form P, Part E of Dimension of Disciplinary Inventory (DDI) was used to measure parents' perception of physical punishment. Part C of Form P of DDI was used to measure Conflict tactics. Nurturance scale was used to measure the warmth patents display toward their children. Valuing Scale was used to measure the amount of value parents place on their children, while Heavy Drinking Scale measured parents' frequency of drinking. Random sampling approach was used to select 269 parents' who were administered the questionnaires. A multiple linear regression analysis was applied to examine the contributions of the independent variables with the dependent variable of parents' attitudes toward physical punishment of children The results of the multiple regression analysis showed that all 4 cultural variables predicted parental attitudes toward physical punishment. Results will provide greater understanding of the Nigerian attitudes toward physical punishment of children, and thus offer a foundation for future public education with the goal of reducing the use of physical punishment at the individual and community levels.

Fifteen women and five men participated in a study aimed at devising strategies to reduce the use of physical punishment in New Zealand. The potential problems with the use of physical punishment, the extent of its use in New Zealand, and the likelihood of intergenerational transmission are discussed to justify the aim of the study. The participants were all parents who had been smacked themselves, but who had decided not to smack their own children. Their ages ranged from 28 to 57, and only three had less than some tertiary education. They were from various ethnic backgrounds; fourteen had an occupation other than parenting, and nine were single parents. The participants had broken the intergenerational cycle of physical punishment: they had been smacked themselves but did not smack their own children. All participated in an individual, semi-structured interview, in which their childhood physical punishment, their decision not to smack, the maintenance of that decision, and their use of alternative disciplinary techniques were discussed. Four participated in a focus group, in which the strategies suggested in the interviews were discussed and refined to produce a final list of recommendations. The parents made a conscious decision against smacking, which involved a particular experience that prompted them to consider their disciplinary practices. Negative views of smacking (ineffective, modelling violence, and potential to escalate) were also helpful in making the decision. While maintaining their decision was usually easy, alternative techniques were sometimes hard to use, though effective in the long term. Some had to deal with the effects of deviating from a childrearing norm, particularly in regard to other family members. While many were satisfied that their own children were free from physical punishment, some had actively tried to convince other parents not to use it as well. They recommended strategies aimed at achieving the goals of parent education, raising awareness, reducing strain, and increasing support for parents. They also suggested practical steps that individual parents who were interested in breaking the cycle of physical punishment could take. The limitations and strengths of the study are discussed, as well as the implications for further research. The study demonstrates that parenting without physical punishment is effective, desirable, and achievable, even by parents who were smacked themselves. It presents a number of possible strategies and intermediate goals, for interventions at a national, community, or individual level, which aim to reduce the use of physical punishment.

Fysisk bestraffning och psykologisk kontroll som utförs av föräldrar är exempel på problematiska föräldrabeteenden som kan orsaka depressiva symptom hos ungdomar. Studiens syfte är att undersöka om det finns skillnader i depressiva symptom mellan ungdomar som har utsatts för fysisk bestraffning och ungdomar som har utsatts för psykologisk kontroll över tid. Studien använder sig utav sekundärdata från ett forskningsprojekt, bestående av enkätsvar som har samlats in från ungdomar mellan 13-15 år i en mellanstor svensk stad. Studien visade inga skillnader i depressiva symptom hos ungdomarna när symptomen av fysisk bestraffning och psykologisk kontroll jämfördes över tid. Dock var sambanden mellan fysisk bestraffning och depressiva symptom svagare än mellan psykologisk kontroll och depressiva symptom. / Corporal punishment and psychological control exercised by parents are examples of problematic parental behaviors that can cause depressive symptoms in adolescents. The study aims to investigate whether there are differences in depressive symptoms among adolescents who have experienced physical punishment and adolescents who have experienced psychological control over time. The study used secondary data from a research project, consisting of survey responses collected from adolescents in the ages between 13-15 years old in a medium-sized Swedish city. The study showed no differences in depressive symptoms in adolescents over time when the symptoms of physical punishment and psychological control were compared. However, the relationships between physical punishment and depressive symptoms was weaker than between psychological control and depressive symptoms.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:40:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Kelly Ferreira.pdf: 436700 bytes, checksum: b0f93c4c9c8d229bd2550fc20ad5c0cb (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-01-31 / Violence can be considered as any action that is injurious to the life and health of an individual. Children and adolescents, due to their greater vulnerability and dependence, are frequently victims of abusive acts. Among the educational practices that parents most commonly use, we find corporal punishment. There have been no epidemiological studies identified in Brazil about domestic violence against handicapped children and adolescents, but it seems reasonable to suppose that the numbers in this vulnerable group are also high. The objectives of this study are: (1) to determine the frequency of physical punishment in physically and sensorially handicapped children and adolescents in a low-income urban community in the metropolitan region of São Paulo; (2) to describe the type of punishment suffered by these children and adolescents in the domestic environment, according to the type of handicap; and (3) to compare the physical punishment of children and adolescents having physical, sensorial and no handicaps. Methods: transversal study with a populational sample in a low-income neighborhood in the city of Embu, São Paulo. The sample included 811 children and adolescents aged from 0 to 17 years. The instruments used were the CORE questionnaire to evaluate domestic violence and the Questionnaire of the Brazilian Association of Research Enterprises (BARE) to determine economic classes. Being that the data in this study are part of the Brazilian Study of Domestic Violence (Estudo Brasileiro de Violência Doméstica (BrazilSAFE), the definitions of severe and non-severe physical punishment are based therein. Results: In this sample, 47 children/adolescents (5,8%) presented some type of physical and/or sensorial handicap according to information given by the mothers. Of the total sample number, high indices of non-severe punishment (67.6%) and severe punishment (19.6%) were identified, as was found in the handicapped sub-sample: (61.7%) of non-severe physical punishment and severe punishment (10.6%) during the last twelve months. In non-severe punishment slapping of the buttocks was prominent, while in severe punishment, slapping the buttocks with objects, such as a pole, a broom, a wooden stick or a belt were more prominent. We also verified that sensorially handicapped children and adolescents have a greater chance of suffering non-severe physical punishment than do those that are physically handicapped (OR: 5,0; IC 1,2-20,4. p 0,03). Conclusion: Due to the high rate of punishments encountered, it would extremely important that systems be implemented to prevent the violence practiced against handicapped children and adolescents. Entities to protect the child and adolescents as well as support services for the family, with special attention to those who are sensorially handicapped, or, if you will, those who are less visible, can contribute to a better assistance prevetting the aggravation of the problems and the sprouting of new cases. / A violência pode ser considerada toda ação danosa à vida e à saúde do indivíduo. Crianças e adolescentes, por sua maior vulnerabilidade e dependência, costumam ser vítimas freqüentes de atos abusivos. Entre as práticas educativas mais comuns utilizadas pelos pais está incluída a punição corporal. Não foram identificados estudos epidemiológicos realizados no Brasil sobre violência doméstica contra crianças e adolescentes com deficiências, mas parece razoável supor que as taxas neste grupo vulnerável também sejam altas. Os objetivos deste estudo foram: (1) determinar a freqüência de punição física de crianças e adolescentes com deficiências físicas e sensoriais em comunidade urbana de baixa renda na região metropolitana de São Paulo; (2) descrever o tipo de punição sofrida por estas crianças e adolescentes no ambiente doméstico, segundo o tipo de deficiência; e (3) comparar a punição física de crianças e adolescentes com deficiências físicas, sensoriais e sem deficiências. Método: estudo de corte transversal realizado com amostra populacional de um bairro de baixa renda do município de Embu, São Paulo. A amostra foi composta por 811 crianças e adolescentes com idade entre zero e 17 anos de idade. Os instrumentos utilizados foram o CORE questionnaire para avaliar violência doméstica e o Questionário de Associação Brasileira de Empresas de Pesquisa (ABEP) para a determinação de classes econômicas. Como os dados deste estudo fazem parte do Estudo Brasileiro de Violência Doméstica (BrazilSAFE), as definições de punição física grave e não grave foram baseadas neste. Resultados: Nesta amostra, 47 crianças/adolescentes (5,8%) apresentavam algum tipo de deficiência física e/ou sensorial segundo informação das mães. Identificaram-se altos índices de punição física não grave (67,6%) e grave (19,6%) na amostra total, assim como na subamostra de deficientes: 61,7% de punição física não grave e 10,6% de punição física grave nos últimos doze meses. Na punição física não grave as palmadas nas nádegas apresentaram-se em evidência, já na punição física grave, bater nas nádegas com objetos como vara, vassoura, pedaço de pau ou cinto se destacou. Verificou-se ainda que as crianças e adolescentes com deficiência sensorial apresentaram maior chance de sofrer punição física não grave que os deficientes físicos (OR: 5,0; IC 1,2-20,4. p 0,03). Conclusão: Devido às altas taxas de punições encontradas, seria de extrema importância a implementação de sistemas de prevenção da violência praticada contra as crianças e adolescentes com deficiência. Entidades de proteção à criança/adolescente e serviços de apoio a famílias, com atenção especial àqueles que possuem deficiência sensorial, ou seja, menos visíveis, podem vir a contribuir para melhor assistência evitando o agravamento dos problemas e o surgimento de novos casos.

The purpose of this study is to explore Muslims’ parenting styles and determine how factors such as religion, education, income, physical and verbal punishment experienced as a child, and the perception of Islamic childrearing influence their parenting styles. The research focuses on the main tenets of parenting in the Islamic tradition such as fatherhood, motherhood, children’s and parent’s rights and responsibilities, discipline methods, and physical punishment. The study also informs the role of marriage in Islam and the adopted concepts and theories of Western sociological literature. Findings show that authoritative parenting was the most predominant parenting style among study participants. The study also revealed that those who frequently read the Qur’an tended to be less authoritarian. Parents that experienced physical punishment as a child and who think Islam allows spanking were more likely to sponsor an authoritarian parenting style. The study findings provide insights into the complex roles of religion and parenting in Muslim groups.