Parenting Tips: Showing Affection After Punishing Your Child May Do More Harm Than Good

Punishing your child can sometimes be a struggle, so parents would make it a point to compensate the punishment. Research reveals that showing affection after punishing the child can do more harm than good.

Parents would usually get caught up in battle as to whether they were too hard on them, or they deserve a better punishment. Though most parents would end up placing their kids on a time-out or a good spank, they would eventually end up smothering the child with affection afterwards. 

According to the Parenting website, showing love and affection after spanking your child can potentially cause confusion. Being affectionate after child earned punishment increases their chances of the child's anxiety. Doing so does not make the child feel better, let alone make him/her forget the situation.

A research conducted by the Duke University wherein the researchers interviewed more than 1,000 children and mothers from eight counties. The study focused on the "extent of physical punishment" the child received and the way the punishment would cause anxiety and aggression.

The research revealed that despite the fact that a corporal punishment is followed up by affection and kind gestures for children ages 8 to 10; the child still suffers from anxiety. It was then mentioned that the more affection the parent gives out after the punishment, the child suffers from a higher level of anxiety. The study was published in "Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology."

"It's too confusing and unnerving for a child to be hit hard and loved warmly all in the same home," Dr Jennifer Lansford, lead researcher of the study said. "If you believe that you can shake your children or slap them across the face and then smooth things over gradually by smothering them with love, you are mistaken, being very warm with a child whom you hit in this manner rarely makes things better."