Household economic hardship as a moderator of the associations between maternal spanking and child externalizing...

Spanking is associated with detrimental outcomes for young children. Research shows that spanking is more commonly used in low-income households.

To examine whether economic hardship, measured by household income-to-poverty ratio at the time of the child's birth, moderated the longitudinal associations between maternal spanking and child externalizing behavior problems during the first nine years of childhood.

Mother-child pairs (N = 4,149) from a cohort study of urban families in 20 US cities.

Cross-lagged path models examined associations between maternal spanking and externalizing behavior when children were between the ages of 1 and 9. Multigroup analyses examined whether income-to-poverty ratio moderated these associations.

Bivariate analyses showed that income-to-poverty ratio was associated with child externalizing behavior problems at each time point; income-to-poverty ratio was associated with maternal spanking at age 3 only. Longitudinal path model results indicated that, for low- and middle-income groups, maternal spanking at each age had significant associations with child externalizing behavior at each subsequent age. For the high-income group, maternal spanking at age 1 and age 3 had significant associations with child externalizing behavior at each subsequent age; however, spanking at age 5 was not associated with child externalizing behavior at age 9.

Spanking is disadvantageous for children at all income levels, with more persistent effects in low- and middle-income families. For higher-income families, the associations of maternal spanking with child externalizing behavior problems may be attenuated as child age increases. Regardless of income level, parents should be advised against spanking.