Does smacking children do any harm?

How common it is

The Australian Child Maltreatment Study surveyed 8,503 Australians aged 16 and over, chosen at random to represent the country. It asked about corporal punishment: being hit for discipline, enough to hurt but not to injure.

• 62.5 per cent of Australians were physically punished as children.
• Among 16 to 24 year olds, 58.4 per cent were. The practice is declining, slowly.
• 53.7 per cent of the parents surveyed had used it themselves.
• About one in four Australians (26.4 per cent) still believe it's necessary to raise a child.

So this isn't about a small group of harsh families. It describes most Australian adults.

What the research finds

Two large reviews carry most of the weight.

In 2016, Elizabeth Gershoff and Andrew Grogan-Kaylor pooled five decades of studies covering 160,927 children, and looked only at ordinary spanking: an open-handed smack on the bottom or limbs, not beatings. Spanking was linked to 13 of the 17 outcomes they tested, and every link pointed the harmful way: more aggression, more antisocial behaviour, more mental health problems, and a worse relationship with parents. None of the outcomes improved. Adults who were spanked more often as children were more likely to show antisocial behaviour and mental health problems.

In 2021, Anja Heilmann and colleagues reviewed 69 studies that followed children over time. That design matters: it shows whether smacking comes before the problems, not only alongside them. Physical punishment consistently predicted increases in behaviour problems over time. It didn't predict better behaviour or any other good outcome.

"But the families that smack are different"

This is the fair objection. Children who get smacked are more likely to live with stress, money trouble or other kinds of harm, so maybe those things, not the smacking, cause the damage.

Researchers have tested it several ways:

• Following children over time. In the studies Heilmann reviewed, smacking predicted behaviour problems growing worse over time. That fits smacking making things worse, not just being a reaction to children who were already difficult.
• More smacking, worse outcomes. Heilmann's review found outcomes grew worse the more often children were hit, the pattern you'd expect if smacking itself does harm.
• Ordinary smacking only. Gershoff's review left out harsh punishment and still found the same links.

No single study proves cause, and no ethics board would let researchers assign children to be hit. But every kind of evidence points the same way, and none points towards benefit.

What the law says in Australia

Every Australian state and territory still lets parents use "reasonable" physical punishment. The defence comes from common law in Victoria and the ACT, and from criminal codes elsewhere. New South Wales goes furthest: force to a child's head or neck, or force that causes harm lasting more than a short time, is not reasonable. That limits the defence. It doesn't remove it.

Seventy countries have banned all physical punishment of children, including Sweden (the first, in 1979), New Zealand, Scotland and Wales. In 2025 a South Australian royal commission recommended a ban, and the Queensland Law Reform Commission has reviewed the state's defence. At the time of writing, no Australian parliament has passed one.

What works instead

The same research that finds harm from smacking also finds what helps. Parenting approaches with good evidence behind them share a few habits:

• Notice the good. Praise specific behaviour you want to see more of.
• Set clear, calm limits and follow through with a consequence that fits, such as losing a privilege or a short break.
• Name the feeling behind the behaviour. Children who learn to name anger or fear act on it less.
• Look after yourself. Most smacking happens when a parent is tired, stressed or angry. A pause before reacting does more than any rule.

Free, evidence-based parenting guides and courses are available through the Australian Government-funded Raising Children Network, and many states offer free parenting programs.

If you were smacked as a child, you're in the majority, and the research isn't a judgement of your parents. It's a reason to choose differently, now that we know more.