The Science and Statistics Behind Spanking Suggests that

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310 AKRON LAW REVIEW [42:243
problems. 366 But when they separated physical abuse from physical
discipline, spanking yielded virtually no negative outcomes. 367
By contrast, they found that children who were never spanked
tended to have social and behavioral problems, and were not more
competent than their peers. 368 This is consistent with the many studies
indicating that spanking is just as effective as mental punishments, if not
more so. 369
Whereas Dr. Baumrind found that spanking is not inherently
harmful, she did find that verbal discipline might be. 370 Children that
were punished through scolding, belittling, or general disapproval tended
to be less competent and have more behavior problems than children
who were spanked. 371 Even when Dr. Baumrind separated verbal abuse
from verbal punishment, the results were still detrimental. 372
However, discipline methods that included spanking were
associated with positive behavior and did not correlate with behavior
366. See, e.g., Baumrind, Causally Relevant Research, supra note 21, at 7 (“Prior to excluding
families in the Red zone where parents can be said to hit violently,” they found a detrimental
association).
367. See, e.g., Baumrind, Discipline “Effects,” supra note 354 (discovering that “once these
very high risk families were removed and plausible third variables covaried out correlations were
close to zero.”).
368. See, e.g., supra note 337 and accompanying text.
369. See, e.g., supra note 17 and accompanying text.
370. See, e.g., Baumrind, Causally Relevant Research, supra note 21, at 9 (“Finally we
asked—is physical punishment associated with more detrimental child outcomes than verbal
punishment? The answer is clearly no . . . . [T]he negative outcomes associated with normative
verbal punishment were at least as pronounced as those of normative physical punishment.”)
(footnote omitted).
371. Compare id. at 5 (“A measure of frequency of an alternative disciplinary tactic, verbal
punishment, was created using three items: a) Parent yells or shouts, b) Parent belittles the child by
the use of sarcasm, and c) Parent engages in nattering (pointless and disapproving chatter).”)
(emphasis in original); with id. at 9 (“Total verbal punishment was negatively associated with
competence, and positively associated with problem behavior at each age and for most outcomes,
typically to a greater degree than the associations between these child outcomes and total physical
punishment.”) (footnote omitted).
372. See, e.g., id. at 15 n.6 (“Unlike the effects of removing parents in the Red Zone for
physical punishment, doing the same for verbal punishment did not greatly attenuate its detrimental
effects.”); Spock, Bratty Child, supra note 25, at 31 (“Sometimes parents who are afraid to be firm
fail to recognize their own timidity because they commonly use an irritable tone in directing or
correcting their children. But crossness is not a sign of determination—quite the opposite. It
signals to the child that the parent is frustrated because he or she has so often failed to get the child
to obey in the past and is already anticipating failure in the present episode. The defeatist element
in the tone of voice encourages the child to try to win out again, and the gritty element provokes
him to fight back. A parent . . . who has confidence he or she will be obeyed has no reason, no
need, to use a scolding tone.”).