Smacking children makes them behave aggressive!

Smacking children makes them more aggressive and badly behaved, a study has found. American researchers found the form of discipline severely affected children, regardless of how good a parent-child relationship was the rest of the time.

'There is a common belief that spanking that occurs in a positive parent-child relationship will not be harmful to children,' said Shawna Lee, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work.

'We were able to test that belief in this study (and found that) spanking predicted worse, not better, child behaviour over time, regardless of how warm mothers were with their children.'

She added that despite numerous studies such as indicating that spanking increases child aggression, parents still often use physical punishment to discipline children.