The latest shot in the spanking wars has been fired by the US anti-spanking group End Physical Punishment of Children, through a review of existing research on the subject. The national lobby group suggested the idea of the meta-analysis to Elizabeth Gershoff of the University of Michigan (but did not fund the study) and she found that corporal punishment is not a good way to improve a child’s behaviour.

Some 85 per cent of the studies -- and they go back, amazingly, more than 100 years -- showed that when children were spanked there was “less moral internalisation of norms for appropriate behaviour and long-term compliance”. Her findings come with the stamp of approval of the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics. The professional consensus seems to be that any form of “hitting” teaches kids that “violence is OK” and leads them to be aggressive later on. Dr… click here to read whole article and make comments