Physical discipline has long been considered unacceptable, but many parents today raise their voice when a child is out of line. New research, however, shows that harsh verbal punishment, such as shouting, cursing or using insults, is just as harmful to adolescents as physical discipline.
The study, published online in the journal Child Development, comes from researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, who found that adolescents whose parents used harsh verbal punishment suffered from depression and were more likely to engage in vandalism or aggressive behavior.
To conduct the study, the researchers followed 967 adolescents and their parents from 10 public middle schools in eastern Pennsylvania over the course of 2 years. Of the participants, 51% were male, and 40% were African American, while 54% were European Americans.
Both students and parents completed surveys during the study period on topics regarding their mental health, child-raising practices and the quality of the relationship between parent and child.
The researchers found that, compared to other studies focusing on physical discipline during the same period of time, the negative effects of verbal punishment were similar.
Effectively, parents' harsh words directed at their 13-year-olds resulted in an increase in adolescent "conduct problems and depressive symptoms between ages 13 and 14."
Dr. Ming-Te Wang, lead author from the University of Pittsburgh, says:
"There was nothing extreme or broken about these homes. These were not 'high-risk' families. We can assume there are a lot of families like this - there's an okay relationship between parents and kids, and the parents care about their kids and don't want them to engage in problem behaviors."
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