A new study has warned that spanking or smacking your children could negatively affect their brain development. The research out of Harvard University, which was published in the journal Child Development on Friday, reinforced earlier findings that children who experience physical abuse show heightened activity in specific regions in of the brain as a response to threat cues. In layman’s terms, this could eventually make them less intelligent, researchers believe.
- The salience network was particularly affected. Kids who are spanked showed a greater response in several areas of the prefrontal cortex, and that includes something known as the salience network. This area of the brain is generally responsible for a person’s response to a dangerous or potentially harmful situation as well as the decision-making skills that go into said response.
- Spanking kids is an all-around negative. “We know that children whose families use corporal punishment are more likely to develop anxiety, depression, behavior problems, and other mental health problems, but many people don’t think about spanking as a form of violence,” said senior researcher and John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences, and director of the Stress & Development Lab in the Department of Psychology Katie A. McLaughlin. “In this study, we wanted to examine whether there was an impact of spanking at a neurobiological level, in terms of how the brain is developing.” What they discovered was shocking if not all that surprising.
- Kids who are spanked are more likely to develop myriad issues. In addition to mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and behavioral issues, the study’s authors believe that these kids are also more likely to develop substance abuse problems. Still, that doesn’t explain how it affects the spanking affects their actual brain development.
- The study was pretty extensive. The the study included 147 children around the ages of 10 and 11 who’d been spanked, though none of them had experienced any more severe violence. The participants laid in an MRI machine while watching a screen showing various images of actors making both “fearful” and “neutral” faces. The machine then captured their brain activity and analyzed it.
- The result was pretty clear. “On average, across the entire sample, fearful faces elicited greater activation than neutral faces in many regions throughout the brain … and children who were spanked demonstrated greater activation in multiple regions of PFC to fearful relative to neutral faces than children who were never spanked,” the scientists concluded. However, “There were no regions of the brain where activation to fearful relative to neutral faces differed between children who were abused and children who were spanked.” In other words, even minor “spanking” to discipline can have a major effect. Learn other ways to discipline your children that don’t include physical force. They’ll be much better for it.
