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Studies suggest that spanking occurs in . It鈥檚 a staggering statistic, especially considering that there is abundant evidence that children who experience physical punishment, such as spanking, are at much greater risk of suffering long-term consequences, according to School of Social Work Professor Catherine Taylor. 鈥淭hey experience many of the same poor outcomes as children who are physically abused,鈥� Taylor said.

Taylor, a specialist in child-abuse prevention who came to Boston College in 2020 after fifteen years at Tulane University, has researched physical punishment鈥檚 deleterious effects. In one , she found that the odds of a child being aggressive at age 5 increased by 50 percent if he or she had been spanked more than twice a month at age 3. she coauthored found that teenagers who had experienced physical punishment as children were significantly more likely to commit dating violence.

Now Taylor is testing strategies to prevent spanking and break the cycle of violence. Her most recent project centers on interventions with parents. She recruited more than 800 mothers in New Orleans to take part in short educational programs designed to give parents alternatives to spanking. One program, called Triple P-Level 2, introduces the principles of positive parenting, such as praising and reinforcing good behavior and setting up rules and expectations that are aligned with a child鈥檚 age and stage of development. The other program, Play Nicely, presents parents with different methods for responding to an aggressive child.

鈥淚鈥檓 examining these two programs to see if they can change parenting attitudes and behaviors,鈥� Taylor said of the initiative, which is funded by the . 鈥淚f so, then implementing these brief, low-cost programs on a wide scale could help reduce rates of child physical abuse.鈥�

Taylor is optimistic that the use of spanking can be reduced. 鈥淧hysical punishment persists because it鈥檚 normal for parents to do what they learned from their parents,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ut as the science and new recommendations get out, it鈥檚 gradually declining.鈥� Indeed, the prevalence of spanking has been trending downward in the U.S. in recent decades, and according to , nearly three-quarters of American pediatricians do not approve of the practice. Meanwhile, sixty countries鈥攏early one-third鈥攏ow ban the use of physical punishment for children, up from just four countries in 1992, per the .

The key is to let parents know that there are effective alternatives, and Taylor believes the interventions she鈥檚 testing will do just that. 鈥淲e want to get the message out to parents in the most effective way possible,鈥� she said, 鈥渟o that, for the next generation of children, physical punishment becomes a thing of the past.鈥澛�