Child Abuse Trauma PunishmentA recent study conducted by Duke University researchers found that a parent being affectionate toward a child after hitting them doesn’t help anything — in fact, it hurts.
“If you believe that you can shake your children or slap them across the face and then smooth things over gradually by smothering them with love, you are mistaken,” says lead study author Jennifer E. Lansford of the Social Science Research Institute at Duke University. “Being very warm with a child whom you hit in this manner rarely makes things better. It can make a child more, not less, anxious.”
Researchers interviewed more than 1,000 women and their children between the ages of 8 and 10 in eight different countries. The results, published in the Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, showed maternal warmth doesn’t diminish the negative impact of high levels of physical punishment.
It’s not shocking, I guess. I was hit as a child. For many years I was convinced that my father wanted me to die. I was “bounced off the walls,” often resulting in broken pictures and furniture. It added to my fear: “Oh no, it’s going to go on longer because now I’m in trouble for that, too.”
Today I struggle with generalized anxiety disorder and depression. My first suicide attempt at the age of 12 was a direct result of the physical and emotional abuse. Being hit communicated that I was worthless. There are still days that I believe it.
“Generally, childhood anxiety actually gets worse when parents are very loving alongside using corporate punishment,” says Lansford, who suggested maybe it’s “simply too confusing and unnerving for a child to be hit hard and loved warmly all in the same home.”
The “confusion” I felt stemmed from wanting to believe my parents were safe because I was dependent upon them. At the same time, my father seemed disgusted with me and hit me. So I was easily convinced that I must be unworthy, flawed, deserving of being physically hurt. Family who witnessed this abuse seemed to affirm that I deserved it because no one ever intervened.
The “confusion” also came from being forced to forgive. After the shock and fear of being hit, I would be forced to hug my dad, sit on his lap, watch cartoons with him. I wasn’t allowed to give him the silent treatment — something that I often saw on TV shows. My father didn’t want for the silent treatment to end; he’d beat it out of you. When he was ready to put it behind him, I had better be ready to put it behind me, too.
I’m curious to know whether these mothers in the study actually apologized when they showed their child affection. My father never said he was sorry. Not for anything. Not talking about these violent events made them all the more haunting. From the way he would act sometimes, I even wondered if I had imagined getting beat. It’s crazy-making.
Looking back, I rarely understood why I was being punished. All I could sense was fear for my life, and I had no idea when it was going to end. It was terrorism.
Spanking has been linked post-traumatic stress disorder and short- and long-term behavior problems in children.
In a previous article regarding allegations that Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson spanked his 4-year-old son with a switch, I wrote about Peterson’s mother, Bonita Jackson. She defended her son’s actions to the Houston Chronicle:
“I don’t care what anybody says, most of us disciplined our kids a little more than we meant sometimes. But we were only trying to prepare them for the real world. When you whip those you love, it’s not about abuse, it’s about love. You want to make them understand that they did wrong.”
What hitting taught me was that a monster lived inside my father. I had to remember that or how would I avoid seeing the monster again? At the same time I had to forget it because I wasn’t allowed to treat him differently. I wasn’t capable of avoiding him. Don’t withdraw, react, shut down, mope — all these are things that would get me into trouble again. Parents who hit don’t like their children to “feel sorry” for themselves. I think that’s why we get hugged in the first place; they don’t want to deal with how our sorrow and fear is making them feel.
Just like there is no way to unhit a child, there’s no way to remove the terror and the cognitive dissonance it creates. Hugging after hitting doesn’t just communicate the antithetical messages “your home is unsafe/your home is your security,” it also communicates “I don’t hit other adults, but I can do whatever I want to you.” It communicates, “My striking you condemns you/my hugging you redeems you.”
“It’s far more effective and less risky to use nonphysical discipline,” Los Angeles parent educator Janet Lansbury told the Deseret News. “Discipline means ‘to teach,’ not ‘punishment.'”