Here's the money quote from the lead author of that study, summarizing the findings for USA Today:
Although it is well established that physical and sexual abuse, emotional neglect, and other severe forms of maltreatment in childhood are associated with mental illness, this is one of the first studies to show a link between non-abusive physical punishment and several different types of mental disorders, says epidemiologist Tracie Afifi, lead author of the study in today's Pediatrics.
"There is a significant link between the two," says Afifi, an assistant professor of epidemiology in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba, Canada. "Individuals who are physically punished have an increased likelihood of having mental health disorders." Approximately 2% to 7% of mental disorders in the study were linked to physical punishment, she says.
While characterizing pushing, grabbing, shoving, slapping or hitting as anything other than abuse is a slippery slope upon which I am not willing to step, I appreciate the decision to limit the study to the effects of the ordinary, everyday occurrences of corporal punishment that a shocking number of people find acceptable and are commonplace throughout the world.
Armed with even more evidence that spanking is bad for children and teens, here's a gentle reminder that peacefulness and restraint is available to all of us when we learn to identify those moments when we are about to do or say something that we might later regret. Below is an updated version of my original 2010 post for parents on using the about-to moments in our lives to teach by example and parent peacefully.
]]>Have you ever noticed a funny feeling in your body the split-second before doing something that you later regret? Maybe the funny feeling is a tightening in your chest, or a flush of heat rushing to your face, or a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. These funny feelings can take place in what one of our leading American meditation teachers Joseph Goldstein calls the about-to moment, in other words that moment when you are 'about-to' do or say something.
The about-to moment - that split-second before you speak or act - is a chance to ask ourselves: "Why choose to act in this way?" "How does it make me feel?" and "Will what I'm about to do or say lead me and my family closer to, or further away from, genuine happiness?" We can train ourselves to identify the about-to moments in our lives, and notice when a funny feeling accompanies them. By paying attention to the physical sensations that sometimes accompany an about-to moment, we have an opportunity to pause and reflect before speaking or acting.
The about-to moment has special relevance to parenting because it is also the place and the time where we choose (whether consciously or not) what we are teaching our children by example. It is a chance to shift direction if we recognize that our automatic reaction to a stressful situation is not consistent with our image of the parent we hope to be, or the adults we hope our children will become. Character development is an ongoing process that happens all life long through repeated actions both large and small. One place it happens is during the countless about-to moments in our lives.
In 2010, several prestigious universities published a study about the effect of spanking on three-year-old children. They reported that three-year-old children who had been spanked by their mothers more than twice in the month prior to the time they were assessed by researchers had an increased risk for higher levels of child aggression at age five than children who had not been spanked. Even though this finding is consistent with a well-established body of academic literature on the topic, and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents refrain from spanking entirely, the reporting of this study has been somewhat controversial. In the comment section of several Internet blogs about the research some have taken offense. Perhaps because many parents continue to spank their kids, even those as young as three. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics more than 90 percent of families report having used spanking as a form of discipline, even given their recommendation:
Because of the negative consequences of spanking and because it has been demonstrated to be no more effective than other approaches for managing undesired behavior in children, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents be encouraged and assisted in developing methods other than spanking in response to undesired behavior.
The about-to moment when a parent chooses to spank a child is an opportunity for the parent to ask what he or she is trying to accomplish. Spanking is, at the very least, a stressful life experience for both parent and child, and it is well known that stressful life events can have a profound impact on brain development, especially in young children. In their book Born for Love: Why Empathy is Essential, Dr. Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz explain that when early childhood experiences are nurturing and empathetic, a child's nervous system will wire up one way; but if early childhood experiences are stressful, harsh and frightening, the same child's brain wires up in a different way that can make learning and later relationships more challenging. I doubt that any parent, upon reflection, hopes that his or her actions will make it more difficult for kids to learn and get along with others at school or home.
The about-to moment when a parent chooses to spank a child is also an opportunity to reflect on the quality that we are reinforcing within ourselves and modeling for our children. Is striking out in response to behavior that we disagree with (or disapprove of) a quality that we want to strengthen in ourselves? Is it one we want to model for our child? Will teaching children that it's okay to hit other people help them become their best selves? Will it help them have an easier time on the playground? Will it lead them toward genuine happiness?
The choices that we make in our about-to moments determine who we are and who we will become. They also let our children and teenagers know loud and clear what's important to us. Making the choice to exercise restraint, empathy, compassion and even-handedness time and time again is how these qualities become habitual in both parent and child. When our children and teenagers see us being kind to others, we're not only modeling it for them, we're practicing kindness ourselves; when they watch us exercise patience while waiting in the grocery line or when stuck in traffic, we're both modeling patience to our kids and practicing it ourselves; when we find nonviolent ways to address inappropriate behavior, we're both modeling nonviolence and practicing it ourselves.
To borrow from Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Character is higher than intellect." It is the choices we make in the about-to moments - choices we make over and over again all day every day - that determine our character and set an example for our children to follow.
The root of the word mindfulness (called sati in Pali, the language of the original mindfulness texts) is memory or recollection. In classical Buddhist training, mindfulness is used as a tool to investigate inner and outer life experiences. Buddhist scholar Andrew Olendszki describes the classical view of mindfulness:
"[M]indfulness derives from a root meaning memory or recollection and refers to the cultivation of a certain presence of mind that remembers to attend with persistent clarity to the objects of present experience. Like meditation in general, it involves placing attention deliberately upon an object and sustaining it over time, but unlike one-pointedness and absorption [meditation], mindfulness tends to open to a broader range of phenomena rather than restricting the focus to a singular object. Like a floodlight rather than a spotlight, mindfulness illuminates a more fluid phenomenological field of ever-changing experience rather than isolating a particular object for intensive scrutiny. This alternative mode of observation is necessary because mindfulness practice is more about investigating a process than about examining an object." (Olendzka, 2009)
With this classical view in mind, the secular mindfulness approach we teach is not a narrow one that offers techniques for every "difficult" situation, but rather a process-oriented approach through which educators learn a way of being with youth that strengthens and supports how they communicate and teach. By investigating inner-and-outer life experiences with mindfulness, educators and their students refine attention while developing social skills and greater social/emotional awareness that strengthens the attachment relationships between children, teens and their teachers. It's not uncommon for educators and youth to describe mindfulness as transformative. This inner-transformation hinges upon how well we communicate key universal concepts to newcomers. Articulating key universal concepts simply and accessibly is the first step. The second, equally important step is to create opportunities for youth and educators to experience a visceral understanding of those key concepts and provide a framework within which they can contextualize them.
The framework Inner Kids uses is the ABCs of Attention, Balance & Compassion through which we simply articulate more than twenty-five key universal concepts. These key universal concepts are derivative of wisdom traditions, modern science, psychology, and educational pedagogy and are common to one or more of these fields. As a mindfulness-based program we pay close attention to universal concepts drawn from Buddhist training that can be taught in a secular way. These key concepts are not only universal but also comprehensive. They've already been translated into well-established secular adult programs (most notably Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction or MBSR, developed by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn) and the secular programs for adults have been the subject of extensive peer-reviewed, scientific research studies for decades.
The process of investigation known as mindfulness is experiential learning at its best and can be taught to youth through a series of games and activities that provide students (and their teachers) opportunities to understand key universal concepts. By singing songs, playing games and participating in mindful awareness activities a framework will emerge naturally within which students can better understand and contextualize life experiences that feel "more or less mindful" to them. We couch this framework within the language of seven strategies (or life-skills) that help students manage life's ups and downs. These strategies are stopping, focusing, choosing, quieting, seeing, caring and connecting, and each of them relates to one or more of the ABCs of Attention, Balance & Compassion. We introduce our strategies in a circle, with focusing in the center because it is at the heart of classical introspective training and a prerequisite to utilizing the other six strategies effectively. Here's how the seven strategies emerge through the investigation of inner and outer experience with mindfulness.
It becomes easier for students to stop when they have a heightened awareness of sense impressions (I'm feeling anxious, I'm feeling upset, I'm feeling out of control) that cues them to pause and reflect before speaking or acting. As students slow down, breathe and focus, their minds tend to quiet and a space opens up in their moment-to-moment experience that allows them to see what's happening in and around them more clearly and make wiser choices. Through this process students become more attuned to their inner and outer worlds, and as a result they notice how everything and everyone is connected and changing. As they begin to recognize these connections and patterns, other qualities like caring and connecting naturally emerge.
Given that educators have a heavy workload, it's important that mindfulness doesn't become yet another "add-on" to an already overloaded classroom routine. Mindfulness-based activities can be easily 'dropped-in' to what educators are already doing and are well-suited to circle time, a morning meeting and/or classroom transitions. Mindfulness-based songs, stories, and activities needn't be dreary, sedentary and quiet. They can be fun and stimulating as they introduce the strategies and key universal concepts that support the ABCs of Attention, Balance & Compassion and give students and educators an opportunity to practice them together.
Before sharing mindfulness with your students you'll want to learn about it yourself. A good place to begin is with Congressman Tim Ryan's new book A Mindful Nation. Born and raised in Ohio, and representing constituents deep in the middle of America, Congressman Ryan is an unusual guy. Those of us who advocate for research to investigate the effect of mindfulness-based social and emotional learning programs in public education have found a friend in Congressman Ryan and owe him a debt of gratitude. In his book he explores the science that supports mindfulness and offers dynamic, real-world examples of secular mindfulness in schools, the military, and the workplace. You can learn more in Daniel Burke's Huffington Post blog post or, if you live near Santa Monica, California, you can hear Congressman Ryan speak this Monday night at the Broad Theater. Monday night's public talk will benefit the meditation center InsightLA, one of several organizations that offer mindfulness training in Los Angeles. Another local center of note is the Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC) at UCLA, where my co-presenter at this year's California Association of Independent Schools Southern Regional Conference, Diana Winston, is Director of Mindfulness Education. For those who don't live near Los Angeles, MARC offers online beginning mindfulness courses as well.
I grew up in a comfortable upper-middle class suburb of Los Angeles for the first few years of my life. I was surrounded by comfort and abundance, and wanted for nothing. When I was eight years old, my parents separated and my brother and I moved with my mother to a tiny town in Virginia founded by the Integral Yoga Institute. This town, Yogaville, is a living, breathing community based on the teachings of Swami Satchidananda, a renowned Hindu spiritual master who famously opened Woodstock with words of peace and love.
Yogaville was the antithesis of my privileged life in Los Angeles. We lived in a one-room trailer with no heat or drinkable water - we had to cross the street to use the community center's bathroom facilities to shower or brush our teeth. I volunteered to sleep on the floor so my younger brother could share my mother's bed. I was enrolled in the Vidyalayam (from Tamil, meaning "Temple of Learning"), a one-room schoolhouse with no grades, no grade levels and required daily meditation. I was given the name Tyagan, meaning "unconditional love". This was all foreign to me, to say the least, but I quickly learned to find the value in my new way of life.
I had no distractions and read voraciously. I immersed myself in Eastern and Western philosophy as I sprinted through the better parts of fifth and sixth grade. By the end of my time at the Vidyalayam, I was well versed in the works of Descartes, Pascal, Patangali, the Bhagavad Gita and the Ramayana. Swami Satchidananda became a mentor to me and to my great honor, acquainted me with His Holiness, the current Dalai Lama.
I eventually became something of a friend to the Dalai Lama, who visited Yogaville regularly when he came to the U.S. on a lecture tour or charitable venture. He would come to the Vidyalayam to speak to the students, always beaming with boundless and indescribable energy. I was delighted that he remembered my name from year to year. He told me after one of his talks that he thought I could do great things in my life if I remained true to myself and to the values I was absorbing at school. I told him how much I had learned about his country and the plight of his people, and how I wanted to help. He laughed and said that I had helped already by keeping my mind open and learning about Tibet. He told me to always keep studying and maintain an open mind about issues and cultures, and I hope that I have, in a small way, lived up to his expectations for me. I know that my going to law school is something of which he would be very proud.
We don't know a lot. We don't know much more than we know. And it's a relief to let go of our attachment to views, our attachment to opinions, especially about things we don't know. A new mantra began to form in my mind: "Who knows?" This not-knowing is not a quality of bewilderment; it's not a quality of confusion. It actually is like a breath of fresh air, an openness of mind. Not knowing is simply holding an open mind regarding these very interesting questions to which we might not yet have answers.