Bridging Disciplinary Boundaries (January 11 - 14, 2007)

Hitting children is a controversial though common parenting practice that prior research and several conceptual perspectives have linked with increased aggression and subsequent conduct problems in children. This paper examines the prevalence and severity of hitting during adolescence, and the extent to which this predicts antisocial behavior in the later life course, in young adulthood. Data for this paper are from the Rochester Youth Development Study (RYDS), a longitudinal investigation of the development of antisocial behavior in a community sample of 1,000 urban youth followed from age 13 to adulthood. Measures come from a combination of well-validated interview data and official records collected through age 22. Data on frequent hitting (sometimes or often) and severity of hitting (youth was ‘hit and hurt') as a discipline practice comes from questions in both youth and parent interviews asked at 6 month intervals between approximate ages 14 and 17. Cumulative measures that count the number of waves when regular hitting or hurtful hitting occurred were constructed. Outcomes include self-reported offending and drug use, and arrest record cumulated through ages 20-22. Analysis controls for gender, race/ethnicity, parent education, family stability, and poverty. Findings on the distribution of hitting are that the percentage of parents (generally mothers) reporting regularly hitting their children ranged from 17% to 6% across interviews: the proportion declines as children age. Youth reports also declined with age: between 10% to 3% report frequent hitting. Youth and parent reports are significantly associated. Only 6% of parents report regularly hitting children across three or more interviews: 3% of youth reporting cumulative hitting in three or more interviews. Little difference between genders in rate and severity of hitting was found in this sample. Parent or youth reports of hitting and hurting were infrequent, ranging from 2% to .5% depending on the informant and declining over time. Logistic regression was then employed to examine whether and to what extent hitting predicted antisocial behavior in young adulthood, net of control variables. Youth perceptions of regular hitting were associated with significantly elevated odds of adult arrest (OR 1.35, p <.01) and violent self-reported offending (OR 1.22, p<.05), whereas parent reports were not associated with outcomes. Although infrequent, youth reports of being hit and hurt were significantly predictive of all antisocial outcomes (e.g. OR for equation predicting violent offending was 2.18, p <.05). Unlike parent reports of frequent hitting, parent reports of hitting and hurting their children also predicted violent offending and drug use in adulthood. Implications of this study are that hitting has an enduring impact, predicting young adult offending, drug use and arrest. Adolescents' perceptions of being hit with frequency or severity are particularly predictive of problem outcomes. Social work implications for family prevention programs are for education about and support in use of alternative discipline strategies. Family treatment also needs to incorporate conflict management and reduction of harsh discipline to prevent escalation of antisocial behaviors.