Abstract

SAUCEDA-GARCIA, Juan Manuel; OLIVO-GUTIERREZ, Nancy A; GUTIERREZ, Jesús  and  MALDONADO-DURAN, J. Martín. Corporal punishment by parents: Comparative study. Bol. Med. Hosp. Infant. Mex. [online]. 2006, vol.63, n.6, pp.382-388. ISSN 1665-1146.

Introduction. Many parents believe it is legitimate to punish their children to correct improper behavior, and they do it without taking into account its negative psychological consequences. The hypothesis of this clinical study was that children with disruptive behavioral disorders were punished more and their parents held more aggressive beliefs regarding child rearing than children that didn't exhibit disruptive disorders, that served as the comparative group. Material and methods. This is an open, comparative and transverse study of 2 groups of children, 100 with disruptive behavioral disorders and 100 from a public school that were reported as non disruptive. Parents responded the Conners' Parents Rating Scale-long version and the Beliefs and Punishment Scales. Results. More parents in the clinical sample thought that "The stricter the parents are, the better the children turn out", x² 29.89, P =0. Three types of punishment were also more common in the clinical sample, P =0. Conclusion. There is an association between disciplinary beliefs and practices in parents and conduct problems in their children. A strategy is proposed to modify parental beliefs and disciplinary practices in order to avoid abusive parenting.

Keywords : Parenting; disciplinary beliefs; corrective punishment; maltreatment.

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