Physical Punishment and Mental Disorders

Physical punishment is very controversial. There have been some studies done that tries to link physical punishment of young children to mental disorders when they become adults. These studies are even controversial. There are few children that were punished physically (spanked or hit) that grew up to have any type of mental disorder.

Physical Punishment and Mental Disorders

The first thing that one has to determine is, "What is physical punishment?" In an article called "Physical Punishment and Mental Disorders: Results from a Nationally Representative US Sample," Afifi, Mota, Dasiewicz, MacMillan, and Sareen (2012) states that physical punishment is pushing, grabbing, shoving, slapping, and hitting in the absence of more severe child maltreatment. The authors are saying that this type of treatment causes mental disorders in children when they become adults. Some of the children grow up with depression or become substance abusers. In more severe cases the child would grow up to have personality disorders and intellectual disabilities.

One issue with this study is that adults were asked to remember if there was physical abuse to them as a child. If this were to be a true study the people doing the study should have been following a child from birth up into adulthood to truly determine if physical punishment is linked to mental disorders. The study done was only for adults in the United States and not worldwide like most studies. Of the interviewed personnel, the study did not give their race, nationality, gender, or social status. This study could have just focused on the lower class, males, and minorities.

The logical fallacies found in this article are hyperbole and scare tactics. The hyperbole in the article is the physical punishment. The way physical punishment is defined in this article, a person cannot even spank his or her child. There is no hitting whatsoever. Physically punishing ones child in any kind of way will lead to some sort of mental disorder. This is the scare tactic that the authors are using. This way they can get people to stop spanking or abusing children.

Conclusion

Personally, I do not agree that physical punishment of a child causes mental disorders in that child when he or she becomes adults. The scare tactics in this article just does not work. In this article, there are many unanswered questions. There needs to be more proof and the studies need to be over a long stretch of time.

Reference

Afifi, T. O., Mota, N. P., & Dasiewicz, P. (2012, July). Physical punishment and mental disorders: Results from a nationally representative US sample. Pediatrics, (1-4), . Retrieved from http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2012/06/27/peds.2011-2947