Studies show that spanking can affect a child’s brain development

Recently published in the journal Child Development, this study builds on existing studies showing that activity is activated in certain areas of the brain of children who experience abuse in response to threat clues.

The group found that spanked children showed greater neural responses in multiple areas of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), including areas that were part of the prominence network. These areas of the brain can respond to environmental cues that tend to be consequential, such as threats, and influence situational decision-making and processing.

“We know that children whose families use corporal punishment are more likely to develop anxiety, depression, behavioral problems, and other mental health problems, but many people are spanking. I don’t think of it as a form of violence, “said Katie A. McLaughlin. John L. Loeb is an associate professor of social sciences, a director of the Stress & Development Lab in the Faculty of Psychology, and a senior researcher. “In this study, we wanted to see if there was a spanking effect at the neurobiological level in terms of how the brain was developing.”

According to the authors of the study, corporal punishment is associated with the development of mental health problems, anxiety, depression, behavioral problems, and substance use disorders. Also, according to a recent study, a US study reported that about half of parents spanked their children in the past year and one-third in the past week. However, the relationship between spanking and brain activity has not been studied so far.

McLaughlin and her colleagues, including Jorge Quartas, the first author of the study and a postdoctoral candidate at Harvard School of Education, and David Weissman, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Stress Development in the Faculty of Psychology, have been working since the age of three. A large study of children up to the age of 11. They focused on 147 spanked children around the age of 10 to 11 years, with the exception of children who experienced more serious forms of violence.

Each child lay down on an MRI machine and saw a computer screen showing various images of actors with “horrible” and “neutral” faces. The scanner captured the brain activity of the child in response to each type of face and analyzed those images to determine if the face caused different patterns of brain activity in the spanked and non-spanked children. ..

“On average, throughout the sample, scary faces elicited greater activation than neutral faces in many areas of the brain … and spanked children never in multiple areas of PFC. Spanking showed terrifyingly greater activation compared to a neutral face than a child who did not. “

In contrast, “there were no areas of the brain between the abused and spanked children that had different activations to the dreaded face compared to the neutral face.”

The findings are consistent with similar studies conducted on children who have experienced severe violence: “Corporal punishment may not be conceptualized as a form of violence, but in children’s brains. When it comes to reaction, it suggests that it’s not much different from abuse, “McLaughlin said. “It’s more than a type.”

The researchers said the study was the first step towards a further interdisciplinary analysis of the potential effects of spanking on a child’s brain development and living experience.

“These findings were in line with other perspectives’ predictions about the potential consequences of corporal punishment,” said Quartas, who was studied in areas such as developmental psychology and social work. .. “By identifying specific neural pathways that explain the consequences of corporal punishment in the brain, we can further suggest that this type of punishment may be harmful to children, and more to explore it. There is a means of. “

However, they said their findings did not apply to the individual lives of each child.

“Corporal punishment does not affect all children in the same way, and it is important to consider that children may be resilient if exposed to potential adversity,” Quartas said. Stated. “But the important message is that corporal punishment is a risk that can increase potential problems in child development, and parents and policy makers should strive to reduce their prevalence according to the precautionary principle. about it.”

Ultimately, McLaughlin hopes that this discovery will encourage families not to use this strategy and open the eyes of people to the potential negative effects of corporal punishment in previously unthinkable ways. “He added.

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