By: Wanjohi P. Mugambi
Discipline is guidance of children’s moral, emotional and physical development, enabling children to take responsibility for themselves when they are older. It involves making children aware of the boundaries of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable, and teaches them the values and actions which are acceptable in their family and society. Discipline can be positive, for example, praising the child for doing something good or for stopping doing something inappropriate. Or discipline can be negative, for example smacking a child for doing something wrong. Positive discipline normally involves helping children to understand why certain behaviour is unacceptable and other behaviour is acceptable. Negative discipline focuses on doing what you are told in order to avoid being hurt or punished. Another distinction is often made between ‘power assertive’ and ‘inductive’ discipline. Power assertive disciplinary methods involve following children’s inappropriate behaviour with a negative consequence (smacking, threats, withdrawal of privileges) without explanation or justification. Inductive methods involve limit setting and setting up logical consequences, with reasoning, and explanation.
Physical or corporal punishment is the use of force to cause pain, but not injury, for the purpose of correction or control. Although researchers attempt to distinguish between physical punishment and abuse, this is very hard to do and there is no general agreement about the dividing line between physical punishment and physical abuse. There is evidence that if physical punishment is a frequent mode of family discipline it can escalate into physical abuse. About two thirds of a sample of physically abused children came from families who relied on physical punishment as a mode of discipline in one study.15The main difference betweem abusive and non abusive parents is how often and how severely they physically punish their child. Doing research on family discipline is not straightforward. It is best to study behaviour in its natural context within the family, and this is complicated and difficult. To find out what is going on in families we have relied on reports from parents, professionals, or observers (and occasionally children in the small number of studies in which they have been asked). People’s own accounts are often inaccurate because memories of events during childhood may be unreliable and participants present only one view of what happened. Observers are also not in a good position to really know what goes on in families. If they try to observe in home settings they may influence what is going on there. If they rely on structured survey questions these can be excessively oversimplified and ignore potentially important information. If they rely on responses to hypothetical vignettes or stories about what might happen in families, these may not have much to do with how parents actually discipline their own children.
The biggest difficulty in research on family discipline is being certain about what is the cause of children’s behaviour. A lot of studies measure family discipline and practice and look at the relationship of discipline to children’s behaviour (for example, aggressive behaviour towards peers, or compliance with parents’ directions). The assumption is usually made that the parents’ behaviour causes the children’s behaviour. In most cases an equally plausible explanation is that the child’s behaviour (such as aggression towards siblings) actually causes parents to punish.
Recent studies on physical punishment have been able to measure behaviour over several periods of time, giving more confidence that changes in child behaviour are caused by the intervening family discipline processes. For example, children’s aggressive behaviour could be measured at one time, and the parents’ disciplinary practices measured over a subsequent time period (say over a year), and children’s aggressive behaviour assessed at the end of the year. If the increase in aggression is associated with how much the parents physically punished the child between the first and second assessment of aggression, researchers can be much more confident that the physical punishment actually caused the increase in aggression. There are now several studies which do use these methods.The longer version of this report explains in more detail the theoretical ideas which lie behind why particular methods of family discipline are effective and others are not. The following theories have a contribution to make:
1 A Sociocultural Theory: Children tend to internalize and control their thinking and actions, according to the sort of interactions they have experienced. When children experience pain and negativity from their caregivers they are likely to internalise these modes of interaction and use them to guide their own actions.
2 A Attachment Theory: Attachment describes the relationships children develop towards responsive caregivers. Excessive use of negative discipline, such as physical punishment, threatens secure attachment, risks that children will feel unloved, have difficulty with relationships, and have negative feelings (such as anger or hostility) towards their parents. Children who have secure attachments with their parents are more likely to develop a conscience and control their own behaviour.
3 A Behavioural Theory: This emphasizes the importance of consequence and models for behaviour. Parents using physical punishment provides children with aggressive models and encourages them to use aggression to control others. Consistently rewarding ‘good’ behaviour and ignoring or mildly punishing bad behaviour is the best way of achieving compliance.
4 A Ecological Theory: This suggests that the wider environment affects family discipline. For example, parents who are under stress, living in difficult circumstances, and not receiving social support are more likely to physically punish their children.
5 A Sociology of Childhood: Childhood is what we think it is or ought to be, and this influences the expectations we have for children. Children are now thought of as social actors who can understand and contribute meaningfully to their family and community. Their views should be listened to and respected.
Most parents are looking for short-term effects when they punish children, and whether the physical punishment ‘works’ immediately is often the key thing that they are concerned about. Research has looked at whether physical punishment works in making children do what they are told (compliance). In this report we will mention a few key studies – readers who want more detail of further studies can look at our longer report.
In one important study, Elizabeth Gershoff17 analysed 92 different studies on the effect of corporal punishment and looked at its effect on 11 different outcomes for children. The only desirable outcome that corporal punishment was linked to was compliance. Three out of five studies she looked at showed that corporal punishment did lead to compliance and two did not show this link. The studies suggesting that corporal punishment worked in the short-term included mainly children who had problem behaviour. Gershoff points out that most parents are interested not only in immediate compliance, but also in ongoing compliance and her other results show that this does not necessarily happen, and that there are other negative effects of corporal punishment.
Another researcher, Robert Larzelere,18 challenged Gershoff on how she selected the studies she reviewed – on the grounds, for example, that she included studies on severe physical punishment rather than restricting her review to mild or moderate punishment. Larzelere re-analysed the studies, and omitted the ones he did not think were appropriate, which reduced the number of studies reviewed to 16. The results showed that six of the studies (mostly involving children with major behaviour problems) found positive effects of physical punishment, such as less fighting and aggression, and in one case enhanced parental affection. Five of the studies found negative effects while the remaining three showed both positive and negative outcomes. Larzelere19 says that smacking is only appropriate under he following conditions: for 2 toto 6 year old children; not severe; the punisher is under control; accompanied by reasoning; carried out privately; and motivated by concern for the child. In our view this begs the question about where the dividing line between mild and severe punishment lies.
Larzelere’s view that physical punishment is appropriate in some conditions is a minority view amongst researchers, and it should not be taken as an appropriate guide for parental behaviour. There is very little support in the research for the view that physical punishment ‘works’ to achieve immediate compliance. The research findings are very mixed on this, and the conditions under which the proponents argue it is an effective method are very different from what happens in ordinary families.
There is also the additional problem that there is a built-in risk of escalation with the use of physical punishment, which means that it tends to get more severe with continued use, and this increases its dangers for children. Achieving immediate compliance also does not necessarily mean that children will obey the parental rules next time
Anila Bukhari