Politics
Physical punishment of children: ineffective and harmful
Key Points
Physical, or corporal, punishment—euphemistically known as smacking, spanking, and slapping—involves hitting or otherwise hurting children to modify their behaviour.1 Most countries do not consider it assault and permit its use in homes and schools.2 Unicef estimates that over 1 billion of the world’s 2.4 billion children are disciplined this way each year, making it the commonest form of violence against children.34In 2025 a World Health Organization report cited “overwhelming scientific...
Physical, or corporal, punishment—euphemistically known as smacking, spanking, and slapping—involves hitting or otherwise hurting children to modify their behaviour.1 Most countries do not consider it assault and permit its use in homes and schools.2 Unicef estimates that over 1 billion of the world’s 2.4 billion children are disciplined this way each year, making it the commonest form of violence against children.34In 2025 a World Health Organization report cited “overwhelming scientific evidence” that physical punishment is linked entirely with harms and no benefits to children, describing it as a public health concern requiring policy and educational interventions to end its use.5 This body of research from lower and higher income settings shows four main findings.First, physical punishment is ineffective at improving children’s behaviour in the short or long term.678 Instead, children who are physically punished tend to become more aggressive and have more behaviour problems than others.567 A recent analysis of...