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(CNN)The American Academy of Pediatrics has hardened its stance against spanking children as a form of parental discipline.

In a new policy statement, published in the journal Pediatrics on Monday, the pediatricians’ group recommends that adults caring for children use “healthy forms of discipline” — such as positive reinforcement of appropriate behaviors, setting limits and setting expectations — and not use spanking, hitting, slapping, threatening, insulting, humiliating or shaming.

The policy statement updates guidance published in 1998 that recommended “parents be encouraged and assisted in developing methods other than spanking in response to undesired behavior.”

“In the 20 years since that policy was first published, there’s been a great deal of additional research, and we’re now much stronger in saying that parents should never hit their child and never use verbal insults that would humiliate or shame the child,” said Dr. Robert Sege, first author of the policy statement and a pediatrician at the Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center in Boston.

“This is much stronger than the previous advice,” he said. “The new policy encourages pediatricians to discuss the data about different kinds of discipline with parents so, of course, they can make their own decisions in how they chose to raise their children.”

The policy statement describes corporal punishment as “non injurious, open-handed hitting with the intention of modifying child behavior” and indicates that spanking is considered a form of such physical punishment.

The statement goes on to describe how several studies have found associations between spanking and aggressive child behavior, depressive symptoms in adolescence and less gray matter in children’s brains, among other outcomes.

How to discipline without spanking

The statement encourages pediatricians to counsel the parents of their patients when they may want guidance about the use of spanking. Sege said there are other forms of discipline that parents can employ, no matter their child’s age.
 

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