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| Journal of the New Zealand Medical Association,
14-December-2007, Vol 120 No 1267
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Punitive parenting practices of contemporary young
parents
Lianne J Woodward, David M Fergusson, Anna Chesney, L John
Horwood
Family violence (particularly violent behaviour towards
children) is a major public health issue in New Zealand. Compared to other
developed nations, New Zealand has the third highest rate of child deaths due to
maltreatment, with an average of 1.2 children per 100,000 dying at the hands of
an adult each year.1,2
In addition, large numbers of children are hospitalised
and/or referred to child protection services annually as a consequence of actual
or suspected physical abuse. For example, during 2003, 116 children were
hospitalised, and a further 33,000 (or 4% of all children in New Zealand) were
referred to Child Youth and Family
services.3
In the past year, concerns about these high rates of child
physical abuse have resulted in protracted debates about the rights of all
parents to physically punish their children. This debate has centred on the
rights of parents to use physical punishment versus the rights of children not
to experience such treatment.
In contrast, comparatively little attention has been given
to the extent to which New Zealand children are exposed to physical punishment
and/or abuse. For this paper, child physical punishment is defined as the use of
physical force by a parent to cause pain but not injury for the purpose of
correction or control such as smacking on the hand or
bottom.4 Further along the continuum, physical
abuse involves parental actions that are likely to cause injury to a child
irrespective of actual intent, for example actions resulting in minor bruises,
severe fractures, or death.5
Existing evidence suggests that physical punishment is
widely endorsed and used by New Zealand parents to discipline their children,
with various studies indicating that around 70% of children are exposed to
physical punishment and 6% to severe violence including uncontrolled hitting,
punching and choking that resulted in injury and/or lasting
bruises.6–10
Although this research has helpfully highlighted the
widespread use of physical punishment, it has primarily described New Zealand
parenting practices between 1960 and 1990. Also most of these studies were
heavily reliant on the use of retrospective measures of childhood physical
punishment/abuse which are prone to unreliability due to memory difficulties and
recall bias.
Such measures also provide limited information about the
exposure of very young children to physical punishment which is unfortunate
given the over-representation of infants and toddlers in national child injury
and abuse statistics.1
Finally, existing studies have focused primarily on general
population samples as opposed to high risk samples where child physical
punishment/abuse is more common.11,12
Developing a better understanding of the rates of physical punishment and abuse
amongst high risk parent groups is important to help inform current public
health policy, as well as to assist the development of more effective
intervention strategies for reducing rates of family violence particularly
amongst those at greatest risk.
This study describes the punitive parenting practices of a
cohort of 25-year-old parents with children aged 0 to 15 years. Given that
younger parents are at increased risk of physically punishing or abusing a
child,13 parent, child, and family factors
associated with the use of harsh and severe physical punishment in this
high-risk sample were also examined.
MethodsSample—Data were collected as
part of the 25-year follow-up assessment of the Christchurch Health and
Development Study (CHDS). The CHDS is a longitudinal study of a birth cohort of
young people born in the Christchurch urban region during mid-1977 and then
studied at regular intervals to age 25.14. At
age 25, all cohort members who had become biological parents or who were
parenting a non-biological child as a step or foster parent were asked to
participate in a separate parenting and family life interview. Both resident and
non-resident parents were included. A total of 174 parents participated in this
interview (75% of those eligible).
The present analysis is based on the sub-sample of 155
parents (110 women, 45 men) who were living full-time (resident) with at least
one dependent child. These parents were caring for an average of 1.8 children
(range: 1 to 6). One in 7 (14%) of these parents was parenting a non-biological
step or foster child. Less than a quarter were married (22%), half (50%) were
living with a partner, and 28% were sole parents (all female). The median net
(after tax) total household income for these young parents was $585/week (range:
$250–$2,450) and rates of welfare assistance were high (46%).
Measures—The parenting interview
examined a range of issues relating to parenting practices and family
circumstances. As part of this interview, parents completed for each child in
their care, the physical assault subscale of the Parent-Child Conflict
Tactics Scale (CTS-PC).15 This subscale
consisted of 12 items assessing the extent to which parents had behaved in a
physically punitive way towards each of their children in the last 12 months.
Items spanned corporal punishment (i.e. smacked on
bottom with bare hand; hit on bottom with belt, hairbrush, stick, or other hard
object) through to very severe forms of physical assault/abuse (i.e. hit child
over and over as hard as could; choked, burned, or scalded on purpose). One item
from the original CTS-PC was excluded because of the young age of most children:
“threatened with a knife or gun.” All items were rated on a 7-point
scale ranging from never (0) to more than 20 times (6). A parent was classified
as having used a particular form of physical punishment if they reported having
used it with any of their children. The CTS-PC represents one of the most widely
used measures of parent-child aggression and has been shown to be reliable and
valid.15,16.
To examine the factors that placed parents at increased
risk of child physical punishment/abuse, a wide range of antecedent and
concurrent measures were identified from the study database. These included
measures of:
Detailed analyses revealed that only four of
the many factors considered made significant net contributions to the prediction
of parental physical punishment/abuse. These factors are described below.
ResultsCharacteristics of younger
parents—Compared to their non-parenting same-age peers, early
parenting cohort members were significantly more likely to have been raised in
families characterised by higher levels of socioeconomic disadvantage (41% vs
25%), teenage motherhood (48% vs 22%), maternal educational underachievement
(70% vs 48%), and family instability (mean number of parental changes:
2.3±3.4 vs 0.9±2.0).
Young parents were also more likely to have left school
without qualifications, to have adolescent externalising (26% vs 12%) and
internalising difficulties (49% vs 32%), and as young adults, to identify
themselves as Māori (22% vs 11%), have lower personal/family incomes, and
higher levels of welfare dependence (46% vs15%).
These findings illustrate the highly selective processes
associated with early parenthood as well as the challenging circumstances in
which many young parents are raising their children, further raising concerns
about their vulnerability to parenting difficulties, including child physical
punishment/abuse.
Punitive parenting practices of younger
parents—Table 1 shows the proportion of parents who reported
using a range of punitive parenting behaviours when disciplining their children
during the past 12 months, including minor physical assault/punishment as well
as severe and very severe physical assault/abuse.
The use of physical punishment was high, with over
three-quarters having physically punished a child in the last year by smacking,
slapping, shaking, or hitting them on the bottom with an object. Severe forms of
physical violence were less common, with one in nine parents (11.6%) reporting
an act of severe physical punishment/assault (i.e. face slapping, hitting with
fist or object on body other than bottom, kicking, throwing) and just under 3%
reporting an act of extreme abuse (i.e. beating up, choking, burning).
Further examination of gender differences in the use of
physical punishment/abuse revealed that mothers and father were highly similar
in their levels of child physical punishment/abuse, with the exception of a
small tendency for slightly more mothers to report using physical punishment
than fathers during the last year (78% vs 62%, p=0.04).
Table 1. Parents’ reported use of
different methods of child physical punishment in the last 12
months
HO=Hard object.
Physical punishment by child
age—Table 2 examines the extent to which the severity of parental
physical punishment/abuse varied depending on the ages of children being
parented. Results show that the use of physical punishment by parents was more
common with children aged 2 years and over than with children aged under 2 years
(p<0.0001). Nevertheless, even amongst parents with dependent children under
2, over a third (36.7%) reported an act of minor assault/physical punishment
towards their child and 3.3% reported a severe assault (though none reported a
very severe assault on a child under 2).
Table 2. Parents’ reported use of
physical punishment by child age
Predictors of child physical
punishment—To examine the parent, child, and family factors
associated with the extent of parents’ use of physical punishment, a
composite measure of physical punishment/abuse was created by first recoding the
physical punishment items from the CTS-PC as absent/present and then summing
them to form an overall scale score. This produced a score which ranged from 0
for parents who reported never using physical punishment to a maximum of 9 for
one parent who reported using 9 of the 12 forms of physical punishment listed in
Table 1 in the previous 12 months. This score was then related to a wide range
of prospectively and concurrently assessed predictors (see Methods).
Multiple regression analysis identified four variables as
making significant net contributions to the extent of parents’ use of
physical punishment/abuse. These variables were: the socioeconomic
status of their family of origin (β=0.17; p=0.02); parental
overprotection in their own childhood (β=.19; p=0.01); the degree
of concurrently reported socioeconomic and family functioning stress
(β=0.19; p=0.01); and the total number of children in the family
(β=0.27; p<0.0001).
Greater use of physical punishment/abuse was associated with
having more children in the family, greater perceived family stresses and
functioning difficulties, and having been raised in families characterised by
lower socioeconomic status and overly restrictive and controlling parenting
practices.
Conversely, those reporting the lowest rates of physical
punishment/abuse were more likely to have only one child in the family, to
report lower levels of stress and difficulty in family functioning, and to have
been raised in higher socioeconomic status families characterised by less
restrictive and less protective parenting practices.
Jointly, these four factors explained only 21% of the
variance in physical punishment/abuse, suggesting a moderate level of prediction
of the rate of physical abuse in this sample.
DiscussionThe right of New Zealand parents to smack and physically
punish their children has recently attracted considerable public health and
media attention. This study aimed to describe the prevalence of child physical
punishment/abuse amongst a high risk group of young parents and to identify
factors associated with an increased risk of severe child physical
punishment/abuse. Study findings and their implications are discussed
below.
There was clear evidence to support the high risk status of
younger parents in terms of their preparedness for parenting. Compared to study
members who had yet to become parents, those becoming parents by age 25 tended
to have grown up in family circumstances characterised by socioeconomic
disadvantage and parental instability, were less academically able, had gained
fewer educational qualifications, and had higher rates of adolescent mental
health problems.
As young adults, they were earning less and had higher
levels of welfare assistance, depression, and anxiety disorders. These findings
are consistent with previous studies describing the adverse psychosocial
backgrounds and parenting circumstances of teenage and younger
parents.19–21. They also highlight the
vulnerability of younger parents to parenting
difficulties.13
Examination of the reported punitive parenting practices of
these young parents further confirmed these concerns. Physical punishment was
common with over three-quarters of parents reporting the use of this method of
discipline.
Of even greater concern were the high rates of severe
(11.6%) and very severe physical assault (2.6%). These rates are higher than
those based on earlier retrospective general population studies showing that the
rate of severe assault was around 6%.9,10
However, they are highly consistent with rates of severe physical assault
(11.7%) reported by high-risk parents not receiving early intervention
support.22
Although risks of minor through to very severe child
physical assault tended to increase with increasing age of the child, results
showed that a substantial proportion of younger parents were physically
punishing and severely assaulting infants and preschoolers. This is consistent
with international studies showing that smacking is very common amongst parents
of preschool children.23 Such findings warrant
considerable concern given the over-representation of very young children in
national child abuse statistics.
Finally, with the exception of a tendency for mothers to
more frequently report the use of minor assault/physical punishment (likely due
to differences in child care responsibilities), no gender differences were found
in risks of severe or very severe physical punishment/abuse.
With respect to the antecedent and concurrent life course
factors that placed younger parents at elevated risk of severe child physical
punishment/abuse, surprisingly few strong predictors were identified. This may
reflect the relatively homogenous nature of the study sample in terms of their
social background, personal characteristics, and current life circumstances.
This sample selection bias may also have reduced heterogeneity in parenting
outcome.
Nonetheless, analyses did show that those parents most
likely to use more severe forms of physical punishment were more likely to have
come from lower socioeconomic status family backgrounds; to have been raised in
families characterised by controlling, restrictive, and over protective
childrearing methods; and who as young parents experienced higher levels of
stress in relation to family functioning and socioeconomic circumstances. In
addition, the use of physical punishment/abuse increased with the number of
children being cared for within the family.
These findings suggest that an individual’s social
background, childhood parenting experiences, as well as current levels of family
stress and difficulty contribute to later effective parenting, particularly the
use or avoidance of child physical punishment.
Of particular interest was the finding that having been
raised in a family environment characterised by restrictive and controlling
parenting appeared to be more predictive of later punitive parenting than an
individual’s own history of physical punishment as a child. This suggests
that the overall style of parenting to which a young person is exposed may be
more important than specific parenting behaviours in predicting their later
risks of child physical punishment/abuse. However, since other studies have
demonstrated strong linkages between childhood exposure to physical
punishment/abuse and later approval of physical
punishment24 as well as risks of harsh
parenting,12,25,26 further follow-up of this
cohort at older ages with a larger and more representative sample will be
important to clarify this issue.
The present study has a number of limitations. Firstly, the
sample is a selected sample of young parents from relatively homogenous and
disadvantaged backgrounds. This may have limited our ability to identify risk
factors differentiating between parents at risk of more punitive parenting
behaviour from those who were not.
Secondly, the sample was living predominantly (75%) in
Christchurch. Thus, the extent to which these findings apply to other New
Zealand samples and centres remains uncertain.
Finally, although the CTS-PC has a number of advantages
including the use of specific behavioural criteria and the ability to assess
infrequent and difficult to observe behaviour (e.g. kicking, choking), social
desirability or the tendency for parents to minimise negative behaviours is a
problem,27, as it is with virtually all self
report measures of parenting. Thus, it is possible that the use of the CTS-PC
may have resulted in an under-estimation of the extent of physical punishment
and child abuse.
Nonetheless, within these limitations, study findings do
suggest that the use of child physical punishment is likely to be common amongst
young parents and that up to 12% of these parents may engage in harsh or abusive
treatment of their children.
These findings have a number of important implications for
current policy debates aimed at reducing levels of family violence in New
Zealand. Firstly, it is clear that smacking is widely employed by younger
parents to discipline their children, and that rates of severe assault are
highly consistent with those reported amongst other high risk groups such as
parents meeting psychosocial criteria for early intervention services. These
findings lend support to recent policy initiatives to legislate against the use
of physical punishment by parents. Whilst it is appreciated that not all parents
who physically punish their children are at risk of child abuse, some compromise
on the part of the many may be necessary to reduce risks for more vulnerable
families.
Secondly, given the high prevalence of physical punishment
and severe physical assault in this high risk sample, it is evident that efforts
to regulate physical punishment and its associated risks will need to extend
beyond legislation alone to an increased investment in parenting programmes
aimed at reducing the fraction of children exposed to harsh or abusive
treatment.
Mounting evidence exists to suggest that such programmes can
be effective22,28–30 For example, recent
findings from a randomised controlled trial of the Early Start Program showed
that (by 36 months) families who received early intervention support had
significantly lower rates of severe child physical assault (4.4% vs 11.7%); and
higher mean levels of positive, non-punitive parenting; than untreated control
families.22
Whilst legislating against the use of physical punishment
may represent an important first step in the prevention of family violence,
further research to evaluate existing and emerging parenting intervention
strategies (to determine what works best and for whom) will be essential to
fully address the problem of family violence in New Zealand.
Competing interests: None.
Author information: Lianne J Woodward,
Associate Professor and Principal Researcher, Department of Psychology,
University of Canterbury, Christchurch; David M Fergusson, Professor and
Executive Director, Christchurch Health and Development Study, Department of
Psychological Medicine, Christchurch School of Medicine & Health Sciences,
University of Otago, Christchurch; Anna Chesney, MSc student, Department of
Psychology, University of Canterbury, Christchurch; L John Horwood, Senior
Research Fellow, Christchurch Health and Development Study, Department of
Psychological Medicine, Christchurch School of Medicine & Health Sciences,
University of Canterbury, Christchurch
Acknowledgements: This research was funded
by grants from the University of Canterbury, Health Research Council of New
Zealand, National Child Health Research Foundation, Canterbury Medical Research
Foundation, and New Zealand Lottery Grants Board.
Correspondence:
Lianne Woodward, Canterbury Child Development Research Group, Department of
Psychology, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New
Zealand Fax: (03) 364 2418; email: lianne.woodward@canterbury.ac.nz
References:
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