Decades ago, APA passed a resolution recommending against corporal punishment in the schools. At the time, there were discussions about whether similar language should be drafted regarding physical punishment use by parents. Nothing transpired, and in the intervening years attempts have been pursued to advance such a resolution. The last effort was returned because of concerns regarding insufficient scientific evidence. Several years ago, however, Div. 37 and Div. 7 (Developmental Psychology), engaged in a task force that developed a task force report on physical punishment of children. This task force served as the basis for requesting APA’s Committee on Children, Youth and Families (CYF) to prepare a new resolution on the effects of parental physical punishment of children. Over the course of three years, CYF drafted and revised the resolution at least three times (with additional behind-the-scenes revisions), going through the various boards and committees for comments several times. Persistence paid off on Feb. 15, 2019, when the APA Council approved the resolution (see press release, with the full text of the resolution and nearly 200 supporting references available in the top left corner).
Persistence can now lead to one of the concrete recommendations of the resolution: public awareness. Immediately following the primary resolution on parents’ use of physical discipline, the document recommends APA engage in “public awareness, education, and accessible outreach activities to increase public knowledge about the effects of physical discipline on children and knowledge regarding alternative forms of discipline and their effectiveness and outcomes for children and parents.” It’s now time to engage in that public awareness campaign: preparing an actual toolkit for folks to jumpstart conversations on this topic at the local level. This is a nonpartisan discussion where we can advocate for families by drawing from what we know from science.
I have circulated an email asking for interested members to join the Zoom conversation on areas needed for this practical toolkit (held March 12). The plan is to outline steps on how to engage in conversations at various settings (e.g., local PTAs, college classroom, churches, the press, business guilds). The toolkit would utilize an FAQ approach of commonly raised issues in discussions regarding parental physical discipline, translate the science into accessible facts for the public, and encourage discussion of options that can promote positive parenting. We will be splitting into manageably sized subgroups and then reporting back to compile this into a workable toolkit for members to be able to pull relevant sections for a given setting.
If you missed the Zoom meeting announcement, please email me, and I will connect you to the subgroup that best fits your interest. Persistence has paid off—it is time to prepare the next step!