Exploring Factors Associated With Self-Reported Parental Spanking and Hitting Out of Anger: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Analyses Using National Panel Data

Abstract

More than one in three US parents use corporal punishment to discipline their children. The objective of this study is to add to a greater understanding of factors associated with self-reported corporal punishment, based on two survey items: one that asked about use of spanking and one that asked about hitting out of anger. The second objective was to examine the longitudinal relationship between parents' self-reported use of spanking at age 35 and their self-reports of hitting out of anger 5 years later. To accomplish these objectives, national US Monitoring the Future Panel Study data were used as follows. Objective 1: data collected in 1993–2020 from parents age 35 with child(ren) ages 2–12 at home. Objective 2: data collected in 1998–2020 from parents age 40 with child(ren) ages 7–17 at home. We conducted multinomial logistic regression to accomplish the objectives. Most factors significantly associated with increased odds of reporting spanking at age 35 differed from the factors associated with increased odds of reporting hitting out of anger at age 35. Reporting spanking at age 35 was associated with greater odds of reporting hitting out of anger at age 40 (aOR = 2.10, 95% CI: 1.71, 2.58). Depressive symptoms (aOR = 1.24, 95% CI: 1.09, 1.40) and disordered alcohol use (aOR = 1.55, 95% CI: 1.14, 2.11) were associated with greater odds of reporting hitting out of anger. Future research should continue to examine whether different types of corporal punishment have different determinants, whether and in what ways corporal punishment may escalate over time, and whether measurement error may impact this research.