Release of New Corporal Punishment Policy Statement

Today, the American Academy of Pediatricians (AAP) issued a statement that parents should not spank their children, warning against the harmful effects of corporal punishment in the home. Below is a response in support of this policy from The Foundling’s President and CEO.

 

Parents have been disciplining their children by spanking them for generations and it might be tempting for some adults, who were spanked themselves as children, to give short shrift to the recent policy statement of the American Academy Pediatrics. But there is now considerable scientific evidence about the long-term impacts this practice can have on children – cognitively, behaviorally and emotionally. The New York Foundling is on the front lines of dealing with the effects of physical abuse and other trauma on children and often work with parents to educate them on appropriate methods of disciplining their children. Dissemination of this information among physicians by the AAP will improve the likelihood that more parents receive this type of information and counseling and that no child falls through the cracks.

 

Read more in a New York Times article published today by Christina Caron: Spanking Is Ineffective and Harmful to Children, Pediatricians’ Group Says.