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Spanking is a very risky parenting strategy that may have a negative impact on the child's behaviors, perceptions, and parent-child relationships, according to research. Furthermore, people who were spanked as children are more likely to become victims of aggression as adults. As a result, spanking children to discipline them for inappropriate behavior is unacceptable and should be prohibited.

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Don't we have enough violence in our society today? 

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Don't we have enough violence in our society today? 

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Perhaps the first step we can take to reduce it is to refrain from being violent toward our children. Let us all reconsider spanking. Be a 90s parent, not a 50s parent. It is simply not acceptable for adults to cause bodily harm to children. Let us decide to look for alternative methods of discipline. We will not only improve our child-rearing techniques, but we will also communicate more humane and enlightened values to our children as a result.

Spanking as a form of discipline is clearly unacceptable to me. It is a violent act that fails to communicate ideals. It usually aggravates the situation rather than having the intended beneficial effects. It gives children no explanation for what they did wrong and no constructive solution to the problem. It teaches children what they should not do, but not what they should do. Spanking, at best, produces only temporary behavioral changes.

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Stop Spanking - End Violence Against Children

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Stop Spanking - End Violence Against Children

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A growing body of research shows that spanking and other forms of physical discipline can endanger children, but many parents aren't getting the message.

Many studies have shown that physical punishment, such as spanking, hitting, and other painful methods, can lead to increased aggression, antisocial behavior, physical injury, and mental health problems in children.

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I understand how you feel. I feel the same way 

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I understand how you feel. I feel the same way 

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Spanking is effective because it conveys the message that you must behave and be good at all costs to avoid getting hurt. Additionally, it asserts that using physical regression to achieve your goals is permissible. On the other hand, I object to this approach to discipline. Not only is the child's physical health impacted by that type of parenting, but also their mental health.

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Parents who hit their kids may believe that a swat "just gets their attention" or imposes old-fashioned discipline, but spanking in fact makes behavior worse than it was before and can cause long-term harm, pediatricians said Monday.

The American Academy of Pediatrics strengthened its advice against corporal punishment in update guidelines, saying it makes kids more aggressive and raises the risk of mental health issues.

"Experiencing corporal punishment makes it more, not less, likely that children will be defiant and aggressive in the future," the group says in its new guidelines to pediatricians.

"There's no benefit to spanking," said Dr. Robert Sege of Tufts Medical Center in Boston, who helped write the guidelines.

"We know that children grow and develop better with positive role modeling and by setting healthy limits. We can do better."

Verbal abuse and humiliation is also counterproductive, the pediatrics group said.

"Parents, other caregivers, and adults interacting with children and adolescents should not use corporal punishment (including hitting and spanking), either in anger or as a punishment for or consequence of misbehavior, nor should they use any disciplinary strategy, including verbal abuse, that causes shame or humiliation," the group says in the updated guidelines.

"Within a few minutes, children are often back to their original behavior. It certainly doesn't teach children self-regulation," Sege told NBC News.

"Techniques such as time out and other effective forms of punishment, the goal is to teach the child to regulate herself, so that she will have the ability to control and manage her own behavior. And that's what it really is all about."

Americans still strongly believe in beating, spanking or paddling children, both at home and in school.

"According to a 2004 survey, approximately two-thirds of parents of young children reported using some sort of physical punishment," the pediatrics group said.

"These parents reported that by fifth grade, 80 percent of children had been physically punished, and 85 percent of teenagers reported exposure to physical punishment, with 51 percent having been hit with a belt or similar object."

And in 2013, a Harris Interactive poll found that 70 percent of parents agreed with the statement that "good, hard spanking is sometimes necessary to discipline a child," although that's down from 84 percent of parents in 1986.

But things are changing, Sege said.

"If you limit your surveys to people who have a child aged 5 years and younger in their homes, who are a new generation of parents, most of them don't like to spank their children and often don't spank their children," he said. "We think there's a generational shift where today's parents are much less likely to spank their children than their parents were."

One group studied parents in their home and found most parents did give kids a verbal warning before physically striking out. But they did not wait long. "Corporal punishment then occurred at a mean of 30 seconds later, suggesting that parents may have been 'responding either impulsively or emotionally rather than instrumentally and intentionally,'" the pediatrics group said.

It did little good.

"The effects of corporal punishment were transient: within 10 minutes, most children (73 percent) had resumed the same behavior for which they had been punished."

Not only does hitting kids do little good; it can worsen their long-term behavior.

"Children who experience repeated use of corporal punishment tend to develop more aggressive behaviors, increased aggression in school, and an increased risk of mental health disorders and cognitive problems," Sege said in a statement.

That held even when parents were otherwise warm and loving.

Parents who hit their children often have serious problems of their own. "Parents who suffer from depression tended to use corporal punishment more frequently. In addition, family economic challenges, mental health problems, intimate partner violence and substance abuse all are associated with increased reliance on corporal punishment," Sege said.

"One small report suggested that parents who themselves have a history of trauma are more likely to use corporal punishment than other parents."

So what can parents do instead?

"First, establish a positive, supporting and loving relationship with your child. Without this foundation, your child has no reason, other than fear, to demonstrate good behavior," the AAP advises.

"Second, use positive reinforcement to increase the behavior you want from your child."

Time outs work very well for younger children, the group said. "Discipline older children by temporarily removing favorite privileges, such as sports activities or playing with friends. If you have questions about disciplining your children, talk with your pediatrician," it advises.

Pediatricians will almost always recommend discipline that does not include hitting children, or forcing them to eat spices, washing their mouths out with soap or other abusive punishments. Only 6 percent of the 787 US pediatricians surveyed in 2016 approved of spanking, and only 2.5 percent actually expected it to do any good.

The American Psychological Association says positive reinforcement is more effective than spanking.

"Positive reinforcement for alternative behaviors is extremely effective," it says.

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Here's what spanking does to your kids. None of it is good, pediatricians say.

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Parents who hit their kids may believe that a swat "just gets their attention" or imposes old-fashioned discipline, but spanking in fact makes behavior worse than it was before and can cause long-term harm, pediatricians said Monday.

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Recognize and acknowledge your child’s reaction

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Recognize and acknowledge your child’s reaction

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While some adults appear to have survived the emotional and physical trauma of being hit by a loved one, many carry feelings of hatred, emotional distance, sullenness, and violence into adulthood.

Spanking as a method of behavior control appears doomed from the start. It inflicts far more emotional wounds than physical wounds. It degrades the child's dignity, alienates the parents, and may even encourage retaliation. If a child believes that physical pain "pays" for misbehavior, the child may believe that they have a new license to misbehave. Because children do not feel guilty, subsequent conscience development is delayed. It is understood that guilt for one's mistakes is the most important factor that must be present in order to form an effective conscience that will serve to prevent future errors.

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Ariel is thinking about the punishments of years past, and how parenting philosophies have changed since she was a kid.

Here in the Today's Parent office we think about childrearing and discipline strategies a lot - definitely more than your average workplace. My co-workers share their experiences and trade advice, mom-to-mom, which is really helpful: Right now I'm working on a story about the different parenting philosophies between toddler time-outs and time-ins. (What's a time-in, you ask? Look for the story in our July issue!)

So when I visited my own parents over the long weekend, I was totally amused to stumble across a photo of my little sister being subjected to one of my mother's go-to discipline strategies: The corner. When my sister or I misbehaved (usually for being "fresh") we were sent to the corner for what felt like an hour - but was probably less than five or 10 minutes. We were told to stand with our nose pushed as far into the wall crevice as possible! And it was always the same corner - the one between the guest bedroom and our coat closet.

Nowadays, I don't think any expert would recommend this strategy. (Sorry Mom!) But I know it DID, in fact, work. I remember feeling really ashamed of my behaviour - my embarrassment felt like it was burning through the back of my head - because the time-out spot was in full view of the kitchen table, where the rest of the family sat. (I think most of my time-outs happened around dinnertime, after I refused to eat whatever my dad had served.) And, as this photo proves, sometimes my mom even took a funny photo of us, mid-punishment! Total humiliation.

In my parents' defense, they never spanked us or grounded us. We never had a curfew, and I don't think they ever took away TV or cartoons. (Maybe they took away dessert once or twice?) So they weren't entirely old-fashioned when it came to punishments; in fact I think they were fairly open-minded. They pretty much let my sister and I learn from our own mistakes.

I also remember that sending me to my room never worked, because I loved being alone in my room! It wasn't a punishment at all. Even if I'd been told not to play with any of my toys, I would sit on the floor and look at my Barbies arranged on the floor, while happily making up stories in my head. (Yup, I was a weird kid.) So the corner was way more effective for me. In contrast, my mom says that when she was a kid, being sent to her room was absolutely devastating - she hated being away from the group.

I'm learning that while discipline strategies may have changed - from the '50s, when my mom was growing up, to the '80s, when I was growing up, to present-day - one thing about parenting has stayed the same: What works for one kid or family might not work for another.

What old-fashioned discipline strategies do you remember from your childhood? (And did your mom ever photograph you in the middle of a time-out!?)

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Old-fashioned discipline - Today's Parent

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Ariel is thinking about the punishments of years past, and how parenting philosophies have changed since she was a kid. Here in the Today's Parent office we think about childrearing and discipline strategies a lot - definitely more than your average workplace.