You should probably ignore these studies as a matter of course. While the study itself is not obviously bad, it does not appear to be very useful, and the interpretations of the popular press are sinfully bad.
While popular articles on discipline never bother to mention it, there is no such thing as a standard time out (just to pick an example). There is a standard form of a time out, where you use some formula (one minute per year is common), and have basic rules (do not talk to child while in time out, etc.), but these are all very general and ignore the context of the event. A large part of what will matter in discipline is everything that surrounds a discipline event: is the child angry? Hyper? Hungry? Are you angry? Do you state what was wrong? State expectations? Use a calm voice? Scary parent voice? Yelling? What happens afterwards—do you give support in re-entering into appropriate behavior?
This is a short list of some variables that experiments don’t usually control for. In the case of the linked study, we are looking at a small sample (102 parents, 5 reports each) of parents who are self reporting, so basically, we are getting very little information that we can use, even if we didn’t care about… well, the interactions between the parent and the child. Which, really, is almost all we should care about.
I cannot back this statement with studies, but through personal experience working with children, living with children, and seeing others doing the same, you are going to get the best results when you engage with the child and treat interactions as meaningful (that is, whatever you are doing, keep it rational, and try hard to translate this to the child’s level). When you find something that works, even if it is just a small improvement, make it routine, and keep to it. If a researcher tells you it doesn’t work, they had better have something better than “it only worked 16% of the time in our sample”. Something that works in one out of six families is certainly not something you should work to avoid.
You should probably ignore these studies as a matter of course. While the study itself is not obviously bad, it does not appear to be very useful, and the interpretations of the popular press are sinfully bad.
While popular articles on discipline never bother to mention it, there is no such thing as a standard time out (just to pick an example). There is a standard form of a time out, where you use some formula (one minute per year is common), and have basic rules (do not talk to child while in time out, etc.), but these are all very general and ignore the context of the event. A large part of what will matter in discipline is everything that surrounds a discipline event: is the child angry? Hyper? Hungry? Are you angry? Do you state what was wrong? State expectations? Use a calm voice? Scary parent voice? Yelling? What happens afterwards—do you give support in re-entering into appropriate behavior?
This is a short list of some variables that experiments don’t usually control for. In the case of the linked study, we are looking at a small sample (102 parents, 5 reports each) of parents who are self reporting, so basically, we are getting very little information that we can use, even if we didn’t care about… well, the interactions between the parent and the child. Which, really, is almost all we should care about.
I cannot back this statement with studies, but through personal experience working with children, living with children, and seeing others doing the same, you are going to get the best results when you engage with the child and treat interactions as meaningful (that is, whatever you are doing, keep it rational, and try hard to translate this to the child’s level). When you find something that works, even if it is just a small improvement, make it routine, and keep to it. If a researcher tells you it doesn’t work, they had better have something better than “it only worked 16% of the time in our sample”. Something that works in one out of six families is certainly not something you should work to avoid.