(WSVN) - A new study has shown that spanking a child can lead to them suffering from mental illness and behavioral issues.
Action News Jax reports that the study, done by Universities of Texas and Michigan, found that the more a child gets spanked, the more likely they were to defy their parents. The study also found that children who receive spankings are more likely to be anti-social, aggressive and suffer from mental health and cognitive difficulties.
The study, which defined spanking as an open hand on the backside, was published in the Journal of Family Psychology, and it looked at data from five decades of research representing about 160,000.
“We found that spanking was associated with unintended detrimental outcomes and was not associated with more immediate or long-term compliance, which are parents’ intended outcomes when they discipline their children,” said University of Texas professor Elizabeth Gershoff.
According to the University of Texas, who cites a 2014 UNICEF report, as many as 80 percent of parents around the world spank their children.
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