Time to End the Debate over Spanking

Guest: Tracie Afifi, PhD, Associate Professor of Community Health Sciences and Leader of the Childhood Maltreatment Research Team, University of Manitoba To spank or not to spank? Using any kind of physical punishment on a child is illegal in more than 50 countries. But not here in the US. And surveys find the majority of Americans agree that a child sometimes needs “a good hard spanking.”  But researchers who study the effects of spanking on children say the debate should be over. In fact, University of Manitoba professor Tracie Afifi’s latest paper on the topic argues that being spanked as a child should be considered an “adverse childhood experience” – on par with being abused or neglected as a kid.