Child health experts condemn the use of violence in any form, but some people still use corporal punishment, such as spanking, as a way to discipline their children. Any corporal punishment can leave emotional scars. Parental behaviors that cause pain, physical injury or emotional trauma — even when done in the name of discipline — could be child abuse.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends healthy forms of discipline, such as positive reinforcement of appropriate behaviors, limit setting, redirecting, and setting future expectations. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents not span, hit, slap, threaten, insult, humiliate, or shame children.
On the Mayo Clinic Q&A podcast, pediatrician and #AsktheMayoMom host Dr. Angela Mattke discusses positive ways to discipline your child with Dr. Chris Derauf, a Mayo Clinic pediatrician, and Dr. Arne Graff, a Mayo Clinic family medicine physician, who both specialize in child abuse at the Mayo Center for Safe and Healthy Children and Adolescents.
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