Physical Punishment: Our Position

What is physical punishment?

Physical punishment (or “corporal punishment”) is any punishment in which physical force is used with the intention of causing some degree of pain or discomfort, however light.

Most physical punishment involves hitting (“smacking”, “spanking”, “slapping”) children with the hand or with an implement such as a stick, belt, whip, shoe, wooden spoon etc. Physical punishment also includes pinching, pulling hair, boxing ears, scratching, kicking, shaking or throwing children, forcing them to stay in uncomfortable positions, burning, scalding or forced ingestion (washing their mouths out with soap and water or forcing them to swallow hot spices).

Physical punishment does not include physical actions and interventions taken by parents, guardians and others to protect children from harm (such as pulling a child out of harm’s way when crossing a busy road). Such interventions are a normal part of parenting and caring for children. Physical actions to protect children from harm are quite distinct from physical punishment which is the deliberate and punitive use of force to cause some degree of pain, discomfort or humiliation.

Physical punishment does not include the use of physical intervention to restrain or control dangerous behaviour by those working with children who are in institutions or in conflict with the law. When adults working with such children are confronted by dangerous behaviour, they can use reasonable restraint to control such behaviour (such as two teachers physically restraining a student who is angrily trying to hit another student). Any such interventions should use the minimum amount of force necessary for the shortest period of time. Such interventions should not involve the deliberate infliction of pain as a form of control.

Context and impact on children

In many parts of the world, physical punishment remains a common practice used by parents, guardians, teachers and others who believe that a “good parent” and a “good teacher” is one who “disciplines” children by spanking or beating them. In spanking or beating children, these parents, guardians, teachers and others believe they are taking proper action to maintain control over children and to deter misbehaviour.

In 2002, a comprehensive analysis was conducted of 88 studies of the development outcomes for children exposed to common forms of physical punishment. The analysis demonstrated that, almost without exception, the use of physical punishment to manage children’s behaviour predicts negative outcomes. While physical punishment can produce short-term compliance, this can come at a high long-term cost.

The risks associated with the use of physical punishment are risk of injury, damage to the parent-child relationship, decreased internalisation of moral values, and increased social and health problems later in life.

1. Risk of injury

When parents or other caregivers administer physical punishment, there is a risk they will inflict physical injury. For example, a parent may have a disciplinary motive and intends to slap the child but, being overcome by stress, anger and frustration, instead punches the child. Or a caregiver may believe that physical punishment is effective so that when a child does not respond, the caregiver increases the intensity and so injures the child.

In extreme cases, children have been hospitalized or died after being subjected to physical punishment.

2. Damage to the parent-child relationship

When parents inflict pain on the child, this can lead to fear, anxiety, insecurity and anger in the child. A problematic relationship is established: the caregiver does not just love and protect the child but also hurts the child. How is the child to make sense of this?

Even at two years of age, children who are physically punished are more likely to distance themselves from their parents than those who are not physically punished. Over time, parent-child communication may be impaired to such an extent that by adolescence, a young person who has been exposed to physical punishment may be less likely to turn to her parents for advice or help.

3. Decreased motivation in children to internalise moral values

When children are subjected to physical punishment, they may change their behaviour (especially in the short term) because of the pain of the experience, but opportunities for them to learn and build internal values may be lost. Children who experience physical punishment are less likely to internalise moral values that children who are not physically punished.

Physical punishment is associated with lower levels of resistance to temptation, lower levels of altruistic behaviour and lower levels of empathy and moral judgment. Physical punishment may focus the child’s attention on the consequences of his behaviour for himself, rather than on how the behaviour affects others. The damage to the parent-child relationship associated with physical punishment may also decrease the child’s motivation to internalise the parents’ values.

Physical punishment has also been associated with increased anti-social behaviour in children and young people (e.g. bullying, lying, lack of remorse). Delinquency and anti-social behaviour increase over the long term in children who are physically punished. Parents who use physical punishment to teach their children not to hit or bully others are actually more likely to increase their children’s aggression and anti-social behaviour over the long term.

There is a saying, “Children see, children do”. Children learn by what parents do, as well as by what they say. If parents use physical punishment, it sends a powerful message to their children that using force is an acceptable way of solving problems.

4. Problems in adulthood

Childhood experience of physical punishment is related to negative outcomes in adulthood, including:

• Higher levels of aggression;

• Criminal and anti-social behaviour;

• Poorer adult health (e.g. depression and alcoholism); and

• Abuse of one’s own spouse and child.

Those who have been physically punished as a child in a particular way (e.g. hit with a belt) are likely to regard that form of punishment as “normal”. The result is that personal definitions of “normal discipline” are carried into parenting practice so that the cycle of physical punishment continues.

What children recommend to adults

At the end of a research project on the punishment of children in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, the researchers summarised the children’s recommendations as follows:

“We are dependent on you to love and teach us. Please don’t confuse us and hurt us in the name of discipline; Treat us with respect and courtesy, if you want us to respect and obey you; Be good role models, so that we can learn from what you do as well as what you say; Manage your anger, don’t use us as easy targets for venting your frustration about your problems; Remember how much punishment hurt you as children, and try to find ways of dealing with your pain by teaching us it is wrong to hurt other people, whatever the reason; Sometimes we have good ideas, because we know about the realities of our lives, please make it easy for us to tell you; Discipline us softly, taking time to explain what you want us to do, and listen to what we say.” (Beazley, H. and others, 2006)

What is the legal situation regarding physical punishment?

In international law, physical punishment is a breach of the human rights of those subjected to it. It is a breach of the guiding principle of international human rights law: the dignity of the individual.

Under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratifying nations must prohibit and eliminate all physical punishment (and all other cruel or degrading forms of punishment of children). Australia is a ratifying country, along with most other countries in the world.

While there is still widespread acceptance of physical punishment in many countries, 109 countries have prohibited the physical punishment of children in schools and 150 as a punishment of courts. Twenty-five countries have prohibited physical punishment in all forms and in all settings. The countries are Austria, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Latvia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Regarding Australia, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has expressed concern that physical punishment remains lawful:

In the home (under labels such as “reasonable chastisement”); and
In both government and private schools in South Australia and the Northern Territory and in many private schools elsewhere.

Under Australian state and territory criminal laws, severe physical punishment could result in police prosecuting the offender for assault.

Save the Children’s position on physical punishment

We believe that every child has the right to grow and develop in a safe and non-violent environment.

Save the Children Australia:

Is opposed to the use of physical punishment on children in any setting – home, school, other institution, workplace or anywhere else.
Calls on governments to review their laws to ensure that all forms of physical punishment – however mild – are prohibited.
Calls for an end to the social acceptance of physical punishment and we say that physical punishment should be recognised as a form of violence to children.
Also opposes the use of “mental” punishments that humiliate or demean children (such as the use of abuse or put-downs).
Supports the concept of positive discipline. The healthy development of children depends on parents, guardians, teachers and other adults providing necessary support, guidance and direction, in line with children’s evolving capacities. This assists their growth towards responsible lives in society.
Supports parenting programs that teach parents about the normal stages of child development, positive discipline techniques, respectful conflict management methods and ways to manage anger.
Supports training in positive discipline techniques for teachers, child care workers, youth workers, sports coaches and others working with children in institutional settings, and also for children.
Supports child participation in families, schools, youth organisations, sports and cultural clubs, religious and cultural organisations and in their communities because effective child participation increases children’s protection from violence of all kinds.

References and Further Reading

Beazley, H, Bessell, S, Ennew, J and Waterson, R, What Children Say: Results of Comparative Research on the Physical and Emotional Punishment of Children in Southeast Asia and the Pacific in 2005. Save the Children Sweden, 2006.

Coalition on Physical Punishment of Children and Youth, Joint Statement on Physical Punishment of Children and Youth. Ottawa, 2003, viewed 23 April 2010.

Durrant, JE, Physical Punishment and Children’s Health, Newsletter of Infant Mental Health Promotion, 2006, viewed 23 April 2010.

Gershoff, ET, 2002, ‘Corporal punishment by parents and associated child behaviours and experiences: A meta-analytic and theoretical review’. Psychological Bulletin, 128 (4), 539-579.

Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children, Ending Legalised Violence against Children: Global Report 2009, Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children and Save the Children Sweden, viewed 23 April 2010.

Modig, C, Never Violence – Thirty Years on from Sweden’s Abolition of Corporal Punishment, Government Offices of Sweden and Save the Children Sweden, 2009, viewed 23 April 2010.

Owen, S, Save the Children’s Worldwide Day of Action against Violence, Save the Children Sweden, 2008.

Saunders, S & Goddard C, Physical Punishment in Childhood: The Rights of the Child, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

The Australian Psychological Society, Punishment and Behaviour Change, The Australian Psychological Society Ltd, 1995, viewed 23 April 2010.

UNESCO, Eliminating Corporal Punishment: The Way Forward to Constructive Child Discipline, UNESCO Publishing, 2005.

United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment No. 8, The Right of the Child to Protection from Corporal Punishment and other Cruel or Degrading Forms of Punishment, August 2006, UN Doc. CRC/C/GC/8.

United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, Concluding Observations: Australia, 20 October 2005, paras. 35 and 36 on “Corporal Punishment”, UN Doc. CRC/C/15/Add.268.

United Nations Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 20, 1992, on Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, UN Doc. HRI/GEN/1/Rev.4, p. 108.