Threatening man behind sad little girl.

In previous articles it was discussed the correlation between dysfunctional behavior and child abuse, its psychological effects on the brain, the negative effects of spanking and the ethical nature of corporal punishment. This piece shall be a summation of such writings.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are extremely prevalent. Sexual and physical abuse is far too rampant and nearly all mothers report striking their infant within the child’s first year of life, often with sticks or belts.

Treatment of a child during early development is one of, if not the single greatest determining factor to dysfunction later in life. Highly traumatized individuals attempt self-medication by abusing drugs, alcohol or cigarettes.

ACEs have a graded association with chronic depression and antidepressant medication. Because such medication is psychotropic, it can often lead to violent tendencies, continuing the cycle of dysfunction. Furthermore, an increase in traumatic childhood experiences corresponded with a greatly increased rate of suicide. Individuals with seven or more ACEs are thirty-two times more likely to attempt suicide than people who experienced no trauma in their childhood.

Biologically, it makes sense why traumatized children are likely to develop dysfunction later in life. Because 90 percent of the brain develops within the first four years of life, negligence and child abuse have such disastrous tolls on the brain.

Individuals who experienced childhood distress had physically different brains than those who had stress-free childhoods. ACEs cause the prefrontal cortex to shrink while the amygdala enlarges and becomes hyperactive. As a result, the ability to rationally think diminishes while the instinct to fight is abnormally strong.

Dr. Elizabeth Gershoff’s comprehensive meta-analysis of over 88 studies concluded, unquestionably, that spanking leads to aggression, antisocial behavior, physical injury, mental health problems, and even a substantial decreases in IQ.

Despite these horrific effects of childhood trauma, the most popular technique to discipline children is through physical violence: spanking. It is a widely used weapon in parents’ arsenal of punishment. Despite nearly universal data that condemns the practice of spanking, nearly all parents still hit their children.

Parents should treat their children better than servers that bring out their food, better than the police officer that pulls them over for speeding, better than their boss when asking for a raise, better than their pastor – better than anyone else in their lives.

Parents must – if they care for the sanctity of their child’s mind and body – immediately cease spanking before further irrevocable damage occurs. This is not an issue to set aside, nor one to take lightly. There is so much wrong in the world it can seem overwhelming and perhaps impossible to repair.

A single individual may not have much political or social power but a group of dedicated individuals can change the world. Anyone who wishes to improve society must first examine the family. Violence against children must stop now. It must stop today and it must stop forever.

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It is not pleasant to have a strongly held opinion invalidated. Like a Band-Aid, ripped off, it exposes the foul sore of falsehood underneath. Despite tranquil satisfaction in the familiar, one should always strive toward truth. It was Socrates who once said, “follow the argument, wherever it may lead,” though it may not lead somewhere comfortable.

Surely the first abolitionist was ostracized from his community, scorned at every opportunity and plotted against by foes previously called friends. Should William-Lloyd Garrison have ceased printing “The Liberator”? Nonsense. Truth is the pursuit of pursuits! Veracity comes at a cost – tradition may be shown obsolete, routine practices found immoral.

Progress through history has never been tame – only the radical challenges the status quo.

Though spanking one’s children is a practice embedded in culture like mortar and brick, an open mind and a willingness to pursue virtue is necessary to ameliorate mankind and jettison dissolution.

Children’s developing brains soak up their environment like sponges and adapt to change. Science has repeatedly proven that violent behavior, physical pain and trauma affect development so drastically that dysfunction is not only common but almost expected. Yet, nearly all of society around the world employ violent behavior, physical pain and harm the brains of their children in the name of discipline.

In ancient times, the wife was property of her husband, an item to be beaten, raped, divorced or murdered without reproach or legal repercussions. During the 15th century, the Roman Catholic Church endorsed spousal abuse and argued that beating showed concern for a wife’s soul. Presently, domestic abuse is nearly universally repudiated and disavowed by all.

If a modern study that revealed two-thirds of husbands strike their spouses at least once per day for things like “supper being too cold,” or “the beer being too warm,” media coverage would be never-ending, political leaders would publicly reject this behavior and such would be the conversation on every tongue. Although science is – and has been – nearly universally conclusive for almost 30 years about the toxicity of corporal punishment and its effects on the brain, the news goes unreported and politicians fall silent.

Domestic violence, albeit an archaic, disgusting practice that lacks all vindication, is comparatively morally insignificant to the wicked violence against babies, toddlers, and young children. Before a husband and wife get married, they have the opportunity to get to know each other. Some couples even date for years before deciding to marry.

A wife can leave a relationship whenever she desires. A baby, on the other hand, comes into the world involuntarily, without the ability to select or choose their parents. Children cannot leave their home – they have no independence and cannot support themselves. Hitting a wife is despicable, hitting a teenager is vicious, hitting a toddler is ruthless, but striking an infant – for any reason whatsoever – is complete and utter barbarism.

The average height of an adult woman is 5’5” tall, translating to more than triple the size of a baby. In one moment, parents speak love to their child, but in the next, they strike them. In what moral, peace-loving world could such cruelty be tolerated?

Current laws in the U.S. permit spanking and legal provisions against violence and abuse are not interpreted as prohibiting all corporal punishment. Slavery was legal at one point – the law does not constitute morality.

The common argument in favor of corporal punishment, “I was spanked and I turned out fine” is fundamentally flawed. Not all smokers die from smoking-induced illness, but that certainly does not deem it a safe and healthy practice.

In order to substantially prevent dysfunction, peaceful parenting is an amazing start; however, it doesn’t solve everything. A nonviolent marriage is certainly better than an abusive one, but it doesn’t mean it won’t end in divorce. The ACE study analyzes not only physical abuse but also mental and emotional trauma. A proper parent-child relationship needs to be peaceful, but it also it needs love and emotional support.

No mother or father is given a parenting guide upon the birth of their child; however, they should attempt to educate themselves. People save money for vacation; take out loans to buy lawn mowers and to remodel their house. If massive amounts of money are spent on something as trivial as lawn equipment, the money could certainly be spent on parenting books, counseling or any other resources necessary in the peaceful upbringing of a child. Of how much more importance is the development – and future life – of a child than a cruise to Hawaii?

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Many studies have found that spanking is tremendously common. Over 90 percent of American families report using spanking as means of discipline at least once. Sixty-eight percent of American parents believe spanking is not only suitable, but essential to child rearing. Shockingly, over 90 percent of American parents strike their toddlers at least three times a week – two-thirds at least once a day.

Research shows that corporal punishment is wielded both on children exceedingly young and teenagers. One in four parents begin to spank when their child is only six months old, 62 percent begin when the child is twelve months. Such discipline of young children is correlated with the continued spanking of adolescents, with more than 52 percent of 13 and 14 year-olds being hit an average of eight times per year.

Though many parents believe violent discipline is not used in anger but often “in love,” data shows otherwise. Multiples sources indicate parents are more likely to spank when they are irritable, depressed, fatigued, stressed or angry, which challenges the notion that most parents hit in a calm, peaceful manner. In 44 percent of those surveyed, spanking was used roughly 50 percent of the time because parents had “lost it.”

According to a self-reporting study, 54 percent of mothers admit that spanking was the wrong punishment in at least half the times they used it. Approximately 85 percent of parents expressed moderate to high anger, remorse and agitation while punishing children. Parents who experienced frequent physical punishment as children perceive it as acceptable and frequently spank their children, which adds to the cycle of abuse. Although spanking is justified in the eyes of more than 90 percent of parents, 85 percent say they would rather not if they had an acceptable alternative.

Research shows that such violence against children has many profound negative effects later in life. Multiple studies show that physical punishment – including hitting, spanking or causing physical pain – can lead to aggression, antisocial behavior, physical injury and even health problems for children. When spanking fails, parents tend to increase intensity rather than change strategies. Physical punishment may not always be immediately effective, so parents escalate it.

Dr. Elizabeth Gershoff published a meta-analysis of over 88 studies conducted over 62 years and determined the effects of spanking on child behaviors. Apart from immediate, short-term compliance, she found spanking also had numerous negative results on other behaviors.

“Children who are spanked as one-year-olds are more likely to behave aggressively and perform worse on cognitive tests as toddlers than children who are spared the punishment, research from Duke University shows. Almost all the studies point to the negative effects of spanking. It makes kids more aggressive, more likely to be delinquent and to have mental health problems. [Because children tend to mimic parental behaviors, it’s possible spanking] creates a model for using aggression,” Gershoff commented. “Less is known why spanking could inhibit cognitive development. One possibility is that parents who spank are less likely to use reasoning with their children, something that’s good for development.”

A comprehensive study by researchers at the University of New Hampshire concluded spanking by parents, especially on younger children, can induce permanent, significant mental damage and lower IQ later in the child’s life.

The researchers also found lower average IQ in nations in which spanking was more prevalent. Children who were hit had up to a five-point reduction in IQ compared the IQ’s of kids who weren’t spanked – and the more children were spanked, the lower their IQ.

A study, which defined spanking as hitting a child, usually on the buttocks, at least three times a week, showed that corporal punishment significantly slows the development of mental ability, particularly in children two to six years old. Spanking and cognitive development are dose-dependent – the more children are hit, the more their mind suffers.

Ninety-three percent of mothers hit their two to four year olds an average 3.6 times per week or 187 times per year. Thirteen percent of parents hit their children at least seven times per week.

It is not surprising that frequent use of spanking can lead to highly aggressive behavior in children who receive it. Analyses conclude that when children three years old are spanked, they have an increased risk of child aggression only two years later. Even for controlling for baseline antisocial behavior, the more three-to-six-year-olds were hit, the worse their behavior was a few years later.

Children of parents who use physical punishment are significantly more likely to engage in aggressive behaviors like bullying and fighting. Even minimal amounts of spanking are precursors to antisocial behaviors like cheating, lying and bullying. Children in a punitive environment at age two to three years scored 39 percent higher on a scale of aggressive behavior than children in non-punitive homes. Children from eight-to-nine-years of age scored 83 percent higher.

Spanking not only causes dysfunction and impaired cognitive ability, but because of increased aggression and disobedience, it also fails to regulate behavior long-term.

“You cannot punish out these behaviors that you do not want. There is no need for corporal punishment based on the research. We are not giving up an effective technique. We are saying this is a horrible thing that does not work,” Alan Kazdin, Yale University psychology professor and director of the Yale Parenting Center and Child Conduct Clinic, articulated.

Because spanking is so culturally accepted, it may be difficult to question its efficacy or imagine other alternatives. Traditions lasting generations are hard to break; however, it is crucial to recognize that this barbaric tool must be discarded. My next article will discuss the ethical nature of corporal punishment and propose ideas that will lead to a world less prone to violence and dysfunction.

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The human brain can be divided into many sections. The amygdala is responsible for processing and memory of emotional reactions, in addition to the “fight or flight” instinct. The hippocampus controls spatial navigation and long-term memory. Corpus callosum facilitates communication between the two hemispheres. The prefrontal cortex, also known as the moral center, is the center for planning complex cognitive behaviors, personality expression, moderating social behavior, delaying gratification and decision-making.

Over the past few decades, there has been significant research about the psychology and neurobiology of violence. During the first four years of life, 90 percent of the brain develops through the experience of that child. The mind and its functions are created in the first few years of life through the child’s experiences with the world – especially with its mother.

“Neglect is awful for the brain. Without a reliable source of attention, affection, and stimulation, the wiring of the brain goes awry,” said Charles Nelson, professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, of the horrors of childhood neglect and abuse.

The result is almost unquestionable long-term mental and emotional scarring.

Romanian children living in orphanages during the 1980s provide insight into the catastrophic effects of mistreatment. Nelson, along with other researchers, began studying such children after its brutal government was overthrown in 1989. At that time, there were more than 100,000 children in orphanages.

“They’d reach their arms out as though they’re saying to you, ‘Please pick me up.’ So you’d pick them up and they’d hug you. But then they’d push you away and want to get down. Then the minute they got down, they’d want to be picked up again. It’s a very disorganized way of interacting with somebody,” Nelson recalled.

The scientists realized that this was not caused by malnutrition but by a different kind of deprivation: that of nurture. Nim Tottenham, associate professor of psychology at the University of California in Los Angeles, conducted a study on orphans and brain activity. When typical children are shown images of their mothers, the response in the amygdala – the emotion center – is much greater than when they see a stranger. When the orphans were shown images of their adopted mothers, the amygdala signal did not discriminate a child’s mother from strangers.

Negligence outside of the womb can be just as catastrophic as inside. The brain of a baby is dependent on the mother’s brain to produce the correct neurotransmitters and hormones. When the appropriate nutrients are not delivered, the baby’s brain physically suffers. Global experiments show how depressed or angry mothers produce insecurely attached infants who often grow up to be violent adults. Hundreds of these worldwide studies show the effects of childhood trauma.

Cortisol – a hormone secreted by the adrenal glands – is a chemical that helps the body cope with stress. Studies have shown that when mothers are depressed or angry, both the mother’s and the child’s cortisol levels are elevated. Especially in cases of abuse, infants and children have abnormal secretions of cortisol, which impairs the natural way the body handles stress.

Neurobiologists have provided massive evidence that the neural fear system of an infant is located in the prefrontal cortex, the moral center, and the amygdala, the fight or flight system.

Specifically, the role of the amygdala is to remember a threat and generalize so it can be recalled in the future. Observations of the amygdalae of insecurely attached children show hyperactivity and increased size relative to kids without insecure attachment. These altered amygdalae cause increased adrenaline, cortisol and unnatural fight or flight mechanisms.

Additionally, those with insecure attachment have a much smaller prefrontal cortex, meaning less control over fear, anger and emotions like empathy, shame, compassion or guilt. This physical problem in the brain explains irrationality and violence, lashing out and disruptive behavior. The fight or flight mechanism is strong, while the restraint mechanism is weak.

When children experience maternal abandonment, abuse, neglect or dysfunction they release cortisol – which impairs the prefrontal cortex while stimulating their amygdala. In these traumatic scenarios, the amygdala imprints or burns the threatening mother in the child’s mind.

Brain scans reveal that “an enduring pattern, associated with destructive, defensive rage, is imprinted into an immature, inefficient orbitofrontal [cortical] system [and amygdala] during trauma in early childhood.”

Stress and abuse-related hyperarousal in the amygdala and other parts of the brain are always stimulated, and, thus, the child may frequently experience ADHD, anxiety, impulsivity and sleep problems.

There exists a strong graded relationship between exposure to abuse or household dysfunction during childhood and the leading causes of death in adults. Increased exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) showed a relationship to the presence of adult diseases including ischemic heart disease, liver disease, chronic lung disease, skeletal fractures and multiple forms of cancer.

The CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study found that even after accounting for age, race, sex, childhood stressors, adult health behaviors and adult household income, individuals who had been physically abused as children were 47 percent more likely to develop cancer than those who had not been assaulted. One possible explanation is that because children under chronic stress produce unnatural levels of cortisol, the hormone imbalance interferes with the immune system’s ability to detect and eliminate cancer cells.

One further crucial area of the brain, the insula, becomes damaged during early stress. The insula is a deep area of the cortex that contains most of the “mirror neurons” that make people capable of empathy.

Psychologist Dr. Bruce Perry published many studies that show abnormal brain development following neglect and abuse in early childhood. He found such abuse leads to significantly smaller brains, decreased activity in the prefrontal cortex – including the insula, hippocampal damage and amygdaloid over-excitement that produces “electrical storms” similar to those experienced by patients with temporal lobe epilepsy – seizures that induce violence and hallucinations.

Studies show that abused and neglected children have poorly integrated cerebral hemispheres. This poor integration and underdevelopment of the prefrontal cortex is the cause of symptoms such as difficulty regulating emotion, lack of cause-and-effect thinking, inability of the child to articulate emotion, an inherent sense of memory, inability to accurately recognize emotion in others and a lack of conscience.

“People with childhood histories of trauma, abuse, and neglect make up almost the entire criminal justice population in the United States,” concluded Bessel van der Kolk, a well-known expert on dissociated states of mind.

James Gilligan, a prison psychiatrist revealed abuse as a commonality between violent criminals.

“As children, these men were shot, axed, scalded, beaten, strangled, tortured, drugged, starved, suffocated, set on fire, thrown out of windows, raped, or prostituted by mothers who were their “pimps”… Some people think armed robbers commit their crimes in order to get money. But when you sit down and talk with people who repeatedly commit such crimes, what you hear is, ‘I never got so much respect before in my life as I did when I first pointed a gun at somebody,” commented Gilligan.

It is important to not only note the association between ACEs and child abuse but also the biological reasons why. Knowing the relationship and its cause leads to an understanding of how to avoid dysfunctional behavior later in life. My next article will criticize parenting techniques and propose methods that promote peace and nonviolence.

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