1. Creates aggression. Children who are spanked engage in more hitting and fighting than those who are not physically
punished by their parents. 

2. Lowers self-esteem. Spanking sends a message to kids that says, "You are a bad person who deserves pain and you are not valuable enough to protect from being hurt," which is incorporated into their self-concept. 

3. Creates negative affect (bad feelings). Physical punishment results in feelings of fear, anxiety, humiliation, and
depression. In extreme cases it can lead to such personality disorders as sociopathy and multiple personalities. Children
become very confused emotionally when the person they expect to love and care for them periodically flip-flops and
deliberately hurts them. 

4. Alienates the child from the parents. People naturally try to avoid a source of physical punishment, resent the
perpetrator, and generally do not like or feel good about the person who is responsible for it. Likewise children may come to associate the punisher with the punishment and end up being fearful of and try to avoid the parent. 

5. Creates suppression effects. Kids who receive a lot of physical punishment are less spontaneous, more reserved, and
afraid to try new things out of fear that it will result in more punishment. 

6. Contributes to antisocial behavior. Spanking teaches children that the motive for desired behaviors is concern for the
consequences to one’s self, that is, to avoid pain, rather than be concerned for the effects of one’s behavior on others. 

7. Creates masochistic tendencies. Through the conditioning process, children who are hurt by those who love them will come to associate pain with love. 

8. Hinders learning and achievement. Children who have had a lot of physical punishment do poorly in school, perform
more poorly on tests of development, graduate from college at a lower rate, and earn less money. 

9. Models undesirable behaviors. Children of parents who use hitting as their primary means of controlling behavior learn that "might makes right" and are less likely to acquire and use nonviolent conflict resolution skills. 

10. The undesirable behavior is not eliminated. The unwanted behavior is only temporarily suppressed in the presence of the punisher. Through discrimination learning a child quickly learns that she can get away with engaging in the wrong behavior whenever the punisher is not present to act as an enforcer. 

11. Makes children more likely to engage in the forbidden behaviors. Children brought up with physical punishment
have higher levels of reactance, which is the desire to engage in those behaviors which are prohibited, than those who are disciplined nonphysically. 

12. Raises the punishment threshold. Children can eventually adapt to a given level of punishment and it will lose its
intended effect. This forces the punisher to constantly increase the intensity of punishment in order for it to have any effect. The increased level of physical punishment then makes them become jaded to being struck by others and more likely to accept abusive relationships as normal. 

13. Causes physical injuries. Pediatricians are alarmed at the number of injuries they see like radial arm fractures and shaken child syndrome, which result from parent's who physically strike or shake their children. 

Are you surprised by this list? I was when I first read about the unintended impact of punishment on behavior. I have found that very few people have any idea of the full impact of their actions when they spank their children. I want parents to be aware of these findings because I want them to be fully aware of what they are doing to their kids. I want them to make informed choices. If they choose to discipline with corporal punishment, they might as well know that they are playing Russian roulette. Since human behavior is probabilistic in nature, some spanked kids may not exhibit any of these undesirable behaviors, but then again, wouldn’t it be foolish to take the risk?