Spanking: Way of Upbringing or Child Abuse?

Physical punishment still remains quite popular in modern families. Meetville.com (dating app to find the right person) collected these results in a course of a poll, conducted between 9/1/14 and 11/21/14.

In response to the question: “Is physical punishment on child unacceptable for you?” 48% of people expressed opinion that corporal punishment is an effective way of upbringing.

Though experts disagree with this statement. Sandra Graham-Bermann, Ph.D., a psychology professor and principal investigator for the Child Violence and Trauma Laboratory at the University of Michigan, points out that: “Physical punishment can work momentarily to stop problematic behavior because children are afraid of being hit, but it doesn’t work in the long term and can make children more aggressive.” She also believes that kids who suffer from corporal punishments tend to resolve conflicts with their peers in a violent way.

Out of 54,196 respondents 64% were from the USA, 3% – from Canada, 11% – from Britain, 7% – from Australia and 15% – from other countries.

Alex Cusper, Meetville service analyst, believes that the main idea of upbringing is to teach, show positive example and foster healthy habits. Physical discipline has proved to be ineffective as it only teaches kids that violence is an acceptable way of solving problems and conflicts.

Meetville, a leading mobile dating service, regularly conducts research among its users. Millions of people from the U.S., Canada, Britain and Australia answer hundreds of questions every month. You can find the results of the poll here. If you are interested in research on a particular topic, please contact us. Any reprint of the material should be followed by clickable links to the survey.