Flogging can reduce children intelligence....

Some time in Febuary 2014, at Okun-Ajah, Lekki Lagos, 39-year-old Emmanuel Edet was told that his 12-year-old son, Samuel, whom he had asked to learn carpentry, had not been showing up at the workshop, as reported by his boss. Edet thought the best way to correct his son was to beat him and teach him a lesson.

But sadly, Edet’s approach cost him his son’s life. Edet got home around 10pm and ‘descended’ on his son, brought out his belt and flogged him black and blue. His mother wasn’t even lenient. It was gathered that the six-month pregnant woman had locked the gate to prevent the boy from running away while the husband ‘designed’ their son with the belt.


Edet so flogged his son to the extent that the boy fell down, hit his head against the floor and died! The Edets no doubt, would live to regret that action.

Edet’s case is just one of many where parents, who resort to beating their children in a bid to correct them, end up inflicting injury or even killing them.

But inflicting injuries is just one of the terrible things the child would suffer. Findings have shown that beyond the possible injury, spanking affects children’s intelligence and thinking ability.

A research by a British Professor, Murray Straus, and studies by other experts suggest that parents may wish to adopt methods other than spanking to manage their child’s behaviour because of the many negative effects on the child.

Every parent wishes to have an obedient, disciplined and intelligent kid. It may seem natural, especially in this clime, to spank the kid in order to correct him/her. But it also leads to other things that the parent never bargained for. These include fear, violence, damaging of bond between the parent and the child, distrust, poor self-esteem, injury to body parts including genitals, etc. Beyond these, such a child may become numb to pain as she/he has got used to the beatings.

Even though many adults would argue that spanking made them better and responsible persons, studies suggest that while this may sometimes be the case, the negative effect on the child may not be worth the risk.

A study by Straus and his colleagues at the University of New Hampshire, United Kingdom, showed that smacking interferes with the process of learning and in fact lowers a child’s Intellectual Quotient; making children who are spanked have lower IQ than children who are not spanked. In other words, the more a child is smacked, the lower the IQ is four years later.

Apart from the IQ interference, it has also been found to limit their creativity, mental ability, ability to think, difficulty in solving problem, more likely to steal, fight, engage in antisocial behaviour and physical aggression towards their friends and classmates in school.

Straus also found that parents who don’t spank their children spend more time reasoning and talking with their children, which help in developing their children’s intellectual ability and teaching them to think critically, while boosting their self worth.

In the study, Straus and his colleagues measured spanking and IQ level in 806 children aged two to four and 704 children aged five to nine. Four years later, children aged two to four who were spanked had IQ scores averagely five points lower than children who were not spanked in the same age group. Similarly, children aged five to nine who were spanked had IQ scores 2.8 points lower than children who were not spanked in the same age group.

Straus noted that spanking is one of the roots of relationship violence and mental health problems and that kids who are spanked are more likely to hit and fight with other children.

Other studies have also shown that children who are hit or verbally abused are more likely to suffer depression or have uncontrollable anger when they become adults, lashing out in rage at their spouses, children, co-workers, and others around them.

However, smacking may not be an effective approach, as many parents found that once they start, they had to keep smacking more and more and even hit the child harder in order to get his or her attention, which makes the child angry, resentful and less willing to do what the parents ask.

The Author of Connection Parenting, Pam Leo, a scholar in human development, wondered what guidelines such children would have for behaviour when no one is there to punish them if the only reason children have for not doing something wrong is the fear of being punished.

A psychologist with Columbia University’s National Centre for Children in Poverty, Dr. Elizabeth Gershoff, noted that smacking is not always effective and does not eliminate negative behaviours, but that smacked children are more susceptible to delinquent behaviours, 80 per cent more likely to suffer from depression, abuse drugs, and alcohols, develop anxiety disorders and even think of suicide. She added that it could make them confrontational adults who may also smack their own children.

It is worthy to note that some countries have prohibited all forms of corporal punishment, such as caning or flogging. In 1979, Sweden was the first to make it illegal to strike a child as a form of discipline. In fact, some parents went to jail for smacking their children thereafter.

While some countries banned smacking at home and in the school, some only banned it in one of the two places. Research also showed that countries like Norway where smacking is illegal, have the lowest delinquency rates in the world, while the method most commonly used by Swedish parents is verbal conflict resolution, where parents and children express their anger through discussion.

According to lagrangerx.com, ways to discipline children without spanking include using ‘do’ instead of ‘don’t do’, which is directing them with positive rather than negative requests, being flexible, teaching them morality, being a good example and children whose needs are met would more likely respond to a gentle request by a parent without force.

A cleric, Pastor Isaac Akanmu, said even though the Bible advised that little children should be chastised, they should not be beaten for every wrong act all the time, adding that beating and verbal correction should go hand in hand.

Also, an Islamic cleric, Mr. Ibrahim Taofeek, said spanking as a means of correction is allowed in Islam but that there should be balance between encouragement and warning in raising a child.

However, a consultant psychiatrist, Dr. Adeoye Oyewole, said flogging or beating children as a corrective measure kills their initiative because being adventurous is important in self discovery. He said spanking does not allow children to express themselves. “For our intellectual powers to be developed, we need to be able to express ourselves and learn from the experience of that expression, and punishment stifles that,” he added.

Oyewole recommended the use of negative reinforcement concept, whereby children are allowed to learn from the consequences of their experience or actions as a modifier of behaviour.

“Let a child realise that if he fails to do his work, he will not be rewarded when others are, which helps such a child to learn from experience and work hard, but if he or she is beaten, the drive and initiative that should help the child to improve next time is already shut down,” he added.

He pointed out that what most parents do when they claim to be punishing their children is simply transferring aggression, which is not geared towards wholesome correction, but merely translating their frustration into spanking.

“If a child is not doing well and a colleague’s son is doing well, the frustration of that makes people to spank their child not because it is targeted at modifying their behaviour for better,” he added.

He warned that children are more vulnerable in their younger years and when children are repressed to a level they could no longer hold, they either overreact as compensation, which could be violent, or withdraw into depression.

“For those who cannot mount up the violent reaction, they can lose their identity, sense of self, and it can actually lead to mental ailment in the future.

“The best way to correct children is to let them learn from the consequences of their actions or undoing, in a way that they can explain things to themselves and improve quite naturally, rather than punishing them because many people rebel because we have not gradually let them take responsibility for their actions.

“Sometimes, when we punish children, it is as a result of our own pride, and when they see through that, it makes them more rebellious,” Oyewole advised.

Punchng.com