Polls aren't scientific but...

Stuff are running an interesting poll;

Were you smacked as a kid? If so, how did it leave you feeling?


Occasional smack: and no big deal (825 votes, 69.3%)

Occasional smack: I still really resent it. (50 votes, 4.2%)

Smacked hard: but I never think about it. (252 votes, 21.2%)

Smacked hard: and the trauma still there. (64 votes, 5.4%)

Accepting these on-line polls are not scientific the finding, that 5.4% were smacked hard enough to be traumatised and say so, roughly reflects the level of physical abuse found by the Christchurch Health and Development study - 4 percent of children reported they had experienced physical abuse by 18. Excerpt;

The general methodology used was similar to that used in the study of CSA. At the age of 18, young people were asked to describe the extent to which their parents used physical punishment. In addition, they were also asked to rate their parents' discipline practices on a four-point scale which ranged from those who reported that their parents never used physical punishment to those who reported that their parents treated them in a harsh or abusive way. In common with the analysis of CSA, this methodology suggested that there was a spectrum of child discipline/physical abuse patterns that ranged from none to severe, with 3.9% of the cohort reporting that their parents either used physical punishment too frequently or had treated them in a harsh or abusive way. Parents of this small group of children had a profile of childhood discipline strategies that involved the repeated use of violent methods of punishment. At the other extreme, 10.8% of the cohort reported that their parents never used physical punishment, with the majority (77.7%) reporting that their parents occasionally used physical punishment.

Evaluation of the relationships between reports of physical punishment or abuse during childhood and psychosocial outcomes in early adulthood clearly showed that young people reporting harsh or abusive treatment had increased rates of conduct problems, substantial abuse, depression, anxiety and violent crime. Those describing parental punishment practices as severe or harsh had rates of these problems that were 1.5 to four times (median = 2.2) higher than rates found amongst children whose parents did not use physical punishment. There were, however, no clear differences between the adjustment of young people who reported that their parents never used physical punishment and those who reported that their parents infrequently used physical punishment.

However, further examination revealed that patterns of physical punishment and abuse were also related to a wide range of social and family factors. In general, young people reporting high exposure to physical punishment tended to come from socially disadvantaged family backgrounds that were characterised by multiple sources of adversity that spanned parental divorce or separation, high levels of parental conflict, parental illicit drug usage, parental alcohol problems, parental criminality, depressed living standards and high levels of exposure to stressful life events.

Statistical control for social and contextual factors associated with child physical punishment or abuse suggested that to a large extent the elevated risks of adjustment problems found in children exposed to harsh or abusive treatment reflected the social context within which the child was reared, rather than the traumatic effects of abusive treatment on later personal adjustment. Nonetheless, there were suggestions that children exposed to harsh or abusive treatment were at slightly increased risk of making suicide attempts and had higher rates of violent crime. These findings may suggest that one of the consequences of physical abuse in childhood may be to increase the likelihood that individuals will react in violent ways to those around them or show increased tendencies to violent behaviour towards themselves. There was no evidence to suggest that those exposed to occasional physical punishment by their parents were at any greater or any lesser risk of adjustment problems than those whose parents did not use physical punishment methods.




I have highlighted two passages. The first shows the severe abuse comes from the type of parents who already ignore certain laws and the second shows that occasional physical punishment makes no difference to outcomes.