ArticleChild abuse & neglect2019
Spanking and young children's socioemotional development in low- and middle-income countries.
Article in Child abuse & neglect, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Physical punishment and lifelong outcomes in low‑ and middle‑income countries: a systematic review and multilevel meta-analysis.Nature human behaviour · 2025Pooled it
- Exploring Factors Associated With Self-Reported Parental Spanking and Hitting Out of Anger: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Analyses Using National Panel Data.Family process · 2026Article
- Links between Discipline Practices and Early Childhood Behavior Problems: Universal or Culture-Specific?Child psychiatry and human development · 2026Article
- Orphan discipline and child neglect: An analysis from 48 countries.Child abuse & neglect · 2025Article
- Parenting beliefs and psychological distress → stimulation and punishment → young children's behavior: A descriptive study in Colombia.PloS one · 2025Article
- The next 1000 days: building on early investments for the health and development of young children.Lancet (London, England) · 2024Review
- Perceived Acceptability of Child Maltreatment as a Moderator of the Association Between Experiences of Child Maltreatment and Post-Traumatic Symptoms: A Cross-Cultural Study.Journal of interpersonal violence · 2024Article
- Caregiver preferences for physically harsh discipline of children in rural Uganda.Journal of family violence · 2024Article
- Corporal Punishment and Child Development in Low- and- Middle-Income Countries: Progress, Challenges, and Directions.Child psychiatry and human development · 2023Review
- Associations between 11 parental discipline behaviours and child outcomes across 60 countries.BMJ open · 2023Article
- Physical discipline as a normative childhood experience in Singapore.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2023Article
- How are experiences and acceptability of child maltreatment related to resilience and posttraumatic growth: a cross cultural study.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2023Article
- Physical punishment and child, adolescent, and adult outcomes in low- and middle-income countries: protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.Systematic reviews · 2022Article
- Gender Inequality in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Associations with Parental Physical Abuse and Moderation by Child Gender.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- The role of sociodemographic and psychosocial variables in early childhood development: A secondary data analysis of the 2014 and 2019 Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys in the Dominican Republic.PLOS global public health · 2022Article
- Resident and Non-resident Father Involvement, Coparenting, and the Development of Children's Self-Regulation Among Families Facing Economic Hardship.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Association of iron supplementation and deworming with early childhood development: analysis of Demographic and Health Surveys in ten low- and middle-income countries.European journal of nutrition · 2021Article
- P300 Event-Related Potentials Mediate the Relationship Between Child Physical Abuse and Externalizing Behavior.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Physical punishment as a predictor of early cognitive development: Evidence from econometric approaches.Developmental psychology · 2020Article
- Parenting and discipline in post-conflict Sierra Leone.Child abuse & neglect · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Spanking is one of the most common forms of child discipline used by parents around the world. Research on children in high-income countries has shown that parental spanking is associated with adverse child outcomes, yet less is known about how spanking is related to child well-being in low- and middle-income countries. This study uses data from 215,885 children in 62 countries from the fourth and fifth rounds of UNICEF's Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) to examine the relationship between spanking and child well-being. In this large international sample which includes data from nearly one-third of the world's countries, 43% of children were spanked, or resided in a household where another child was spanked, in the past month. Results from multilevel models show that reports of spanking of children in the household were associated with lower scores on a 3-item socioemotional development index among 3- and 4-year-old children. Country-level results from the multilevel model showed 59 countries (95%) had a negative relationship between spanking and socioemotional development and 3 countries (5%) had a null relationship. Spanking was not associated with higher socioemotional development for children in any country. While the cross-sectional association between spanking and socioemotional development is small, findings suggest that spanking may be harmful for children on a more global scale than was previously known.
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