Gene's Research Tip of the Week
 What does spanking do? It can surprise, scare and hurt. Sometimes it does all three, other times only one of the three, and if used a lot, spanking may become totally ineffective. Parents often think it worked, if the child stops the activity, but many young infants and toddlers will go back to the activity quickly. Infants and toddlers aren't ready for understanding why someone hits them. Many parents think hitting should be enough for the child to "learn" not to repeat the activity, but that isn't how the infant brain always works. The infant brain can learn to be afraid and untrusting, and one response is to cry and to become aggressive by hitting back, or using fast, angry movements. This may be the reason more of the infants that were hit in the first year of life "learned" to be angry and aggressive as older kids. Read More
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