81% of parents say that spanking their children is sometimes appropriate. 35% of children experienced some form of corporal punishment at least once per year.
Despite the consensus from medical organizations like the Canadian Paediatric Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics that spanking is not OK (the AAP released a policy in 2018 reiterating that corporal punishment increases poor behaviour and is bad for child development), it's still happening.
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.
But as a general guideline, I would suggest that most corporal punishment be finished prior to the first grade (six years old). It should taper off from there and stop when the child is between the ages of ten and twelve.
According to a 2015 study, boys are more likely than girls to be physically punished in schools, and this disparity has persisted for decades. In 1992, boys accounted for 81 percent of all incidents of physical discipline in schools.
Physical abuse of a child is when a parent or caregiver causes any non-accidental physical injury to a child. This includes striking, kicking, burning, biting, hair pulling, strangling, throwing, shoving, whipping, or any other action that injures a child.
Boys Paddled More Than Girls
Boys are subjected to corporal punishment at much higher rates than girls: nationwide, boys make up 78.3 percent of those paddled, while girls make up 21.7 percent. Boys are paddled more than girls in all states that use corporal punishment.
But be careful: Lifting or grabbing a child by the arms can result in a common injury called “nursemaid's elbow,” also known as “pulled elbow.” It occurs when a bone in a child's lower arm becomes partially dislocated at the elbow joint, causing sudden pain around the elbow.
It's very possible that your child has trichotillomania (trich, for short), a disorder whose symptom is the pulling out of your own hair. In young children, hair pulling will often come and go.
Severe historical execution methods include the breaking wheel, hanged, drawn and quartered, mazzatello, boiling to death, death by burning, execution by drowning, death by starvation, immurement, flaying, disembowelment, crucifixion, impalement, crushing, execution by elephant, keelhauling, stoning, dismemberment, ...
But even with roughly uniform levels of fitness, the males' average power during a punching motion was 162% greater than females', with the least-powerful man still stronger than the most powerful woman.
There is no child that doesn't have a reason to blame their parents later in life. Let's not allow "spanking" to be that reason, though. This is not a lesson learned; it is trauma.
Children remember being spanked, and as adults these memories are very strong and lead to feelings of significant anger and betrayal. It can make it hard for them to form strong emotional attachments as adults.
Flaying: Skinned Alive
This next torture method almost takes the top spot because of its sadistic modus operandi. Flaying—or skinning—was perhaps the most painful of all ancient world execution methods because of its slow process. The victim was first stripped, and their hands and feet bound to stop any movement.
Consequences. Corporal punishment triggers harmful psychological and physiological responses. Children not only experience pain, sadness, fear, anger, shame and guilt, but feeling threatened also leads to physiological stress and the activation of neural pathways that support dealing with danger.
TTM may also be linked to attention issues, and people with ADHD may use hair-pulling to help them focus, often without realizing it. Finally, poor impulse control may contribute to hair-pulling, which many with ADHD struggle with.
Playing with hair.
According to Cobb, women will generally pull a strand from the back or side of their head when flirting. "When they're readjusting with the front, like a bang, that's more nervousness," she explains.
Trichotillomania is the compulsive hair pulling condition. Infant onset trichotillomania, often referred to as Baby Trich, begins before the baby is able to effectively use language. Hair twisting is a fairly common behaviour in babyhood, which can be connected with hand, hair or thumb-sucking.