The share of U.S. mothers who spank their young children or endorse physical discipline has declined significantly over the past two and a half decades, according to an analysis of four national surveys.
The findings, out Monday in the journal Pediatrics, came from an analysis of data from 1988 to 2011. Researcher found that 21 percent of median-income mothers of kindergarten-aged children endorsed physical discipline at the end of that period — down from 46 percent at the start.
"There's been a substantial decrease in the share of parents who are reporting having spanked their child in the last week," says Rebecca Ryan, a psychologist at Georgetown University who led the analysis. "And there's a been substantial decrease in the share of parents who say they would spank or hit their child in response to misbehavior."
In a surprise, the drop in spanking occurred regardless of family income. "We're the first to report that across all income levels there's been this big reduction," Ryan says.
For example, about 40 percent of the most affluent parents reported they would use physical punishment in 1988. In 2011, that dropped to 12 percent. Among the poorest mothers, about half of parents endorsed physical punishment in 1988, compared to 30 percent in 2011.
[For more of this story, written by Rob Stein, go to http://www.npr.org/sections/he...in-poorer-households]
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