ARTICLE

Maternal Disciplinary Practices

in an At-Risk Population
Rebecca R. S. Socolar, MD, MPH; Jane Winsor, BA; Wanda M. Hunter, MPH;
Diane Catellier, MS; Jonathan B. Kotch, MD, MPH

Objectives: To describe maternal discipline of chil-
dren in at-risk families and to determine factors associ-
ated with disciplinary practices.
Design: Cross-sectional survey.
Setting: At-risk families in North Carolina followed up
in a longitudinal study of child maltreatment.
Participants: Maternal caregivers of 7- to 9-year-old chil-
dren with factors at birth that placed them at risk.
Measurements and Results: A total of 186 maternal
caregivers were interviewed. A measure, based on cod-
ing parental responses, was used to assess disciplinary
practices for 5 different misbehaviors. Limit setting was
the most commonly used disciplinary practice for 4 of 5
misbehaviors, with 63% of mothers reporting that this
method generally worked best. Spanking was more likely
used as a secondary response for each misbehavior, when
the primary one had not succeeded. Conversely, teach-
ing or verbal assertion was always less likely as a sec-
ondary response. Teaching or verbal assertion was used
more commonly for lying than for any other misbehav-
ior, limit setting for disobeying, spanking for stealing, and
spanking with an object for being disrespectful. Regres-
sion modeling for the 4 most common disciplinary prac-
tices showed (P,.05) that black race, lack of Aid to Fami-
lies With Dependent Children receipt, more-educated
mothers, and female sex of child were associated with
higher use of teaching or verbal assertion; a biological
father in the home was associated with less use of limit
setting; and black race and report for child maltreat-
ment were associated with more use of mild spanking.
Conclusions: In this sample, limit setting was the most
common disciplinary technique. Disciplinary practices
used varied depending on the type of misbehavior and
other contextual factors, including child, parent, and fam-
ily characteristics.
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 1999;153:927-934

donotwork.Althoughstresshasbeenshown
Editor’s Note: I wonder what the results would be if this study to be related to parenting practices includ-
were repeated focusing on fathers. Would “disrespect” be the stimu- ing discipline,10,11 the disciplinary practices
lus to elicit the most severe response? from population-based samples of at-risk
Catherine D. DeAngelis, MD families have not been well described.
Physical abuse often starts as disci-
pline that gets out of hand,12,13 so it is plau-

From the Departments
of Pediatrics (Dr Socolar),
Maternal and Child Health
(Ms Winsor and Dr Kotch),
Social Medicine (Ms Hunter),
and Biostatistics (Ms Catellier),
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill.
D
ISCIPLINARY PRACTICES can
be important to outcomes
such as child self-esteem,1
consciencedevelopment,1,2
aggression,1,3,4 behavior
problems, delinquency 3,6,7 and subsequent
5,6
adult criminal behaviors,3 depression, and
alcoholism.8 There are notable gaps in our
understanding of issues related to discipline.
Thefrequenciesofdisciplinarypracticesaside
from corporal punishment are not well
known, particularly for nonclinical popu-
lations of families and children. Measures
ofdisciplinehavebeeninadequatetodescribe
thebreadthanddepthoftheconstruct.9 Little
is known about what parents choose as sec-
ondary discipline strategies, when the first
sible that physically abusive parents might
have characteristic discipline styles, but this
has not been studied extensively. Existing
studies suggest that physically abusive fami-
lies are more likely to use harsh corporal
punishment,14 coercion,15 and a negative de-
meanor.16 Neglectful parents tend to be un-
responsive and more negative to their chil-
dren.16,17 Since some maltreatment occurs
when initial attempts at discipline cross a
line into psychological or physical abuse, we
This article is also available on our
Web site: www.ama-assn.org/peds.

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 SUBJECTS AND METHODS
SAMPLE
Subjects included 186 maternal caregivers (hereafter
referred to as mothers) of children aged 7 to 9 years par-
ticipating in a longitudinal study of child maltreatment.
This sample was drawn from a cohort of 788 mother-
infant pairs enrolled in a prospective study39 of child
abuse and neglect in 1985-1987. The initial study,
“Stress, Social Support, and Abuse and Neglect in High
Risk Infants,”39 included mother-infant dyads recruited
from North Carolina hospitals in the immediate postpar-
tum period. Eighty-five percent of the infants in that
study were selected to be “at risk” for adverse social and
medical outcomes. “At-risk” criteria included low birth
weight (,2500 g), young maternal age (,18 years), and
other major medical or social problems diagnosed at
birth (including no prenatal care, significant birth
defects, and congenital conditions or serious neonatal
illness). The remaining 15% of the subjects in the cohort
met none of the “at-risk” criteria. The mother-infant
pairs in both groups were recruited from 37 geographi-
cally diverse counties in North Carolina. The majority of
the mothers in these dyads were black and lived in low-
income households.
By 1991, review of the Central Registry on Child
Abuse and Neglect, a database maintained by the North
Carolina Division of Social Services, revealed that one
third of the 788 infants in the initial study had been
reported to county child protective service agencies as
maltreated. That year, a sample of the cohort was
selected for inclusion in a new longitudinal, multisite
study of the antecedents and outcomes of child abuse
and neglect, the Longitudinal Studies Consortium on
Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN).40 Funding limi-
tations compelled the LONGSCAN/North Carolina site
to include in its sample only a portion of the subjects
enrolled in the original stress and social support study.
These subjects were selected in order from separate,
computer-generated randomized lists of reported and
nonreported subjects. For each reported child selected, 2
nonreported children matched for sex, race, age, and
poverty level were selected as controls. The final
LONGSCAN sample includes 243 subjects, 83 of whom
had been reported for maltreatment between 6 months
of age and their first LONGSCAN interview.
As part of the LONGSCAN protocol, the North Caro-
lina site collected data annually on all subjects. In-depth,
face-to-face interviews were completed at age 5, 6, and 8
years. This article is based on data collected for age 8 in-
terviews. Owing to attrition (refusals, lack of cooperation,
and inability to locate), 186 of the 243 mothers were in-
terviewed. Statistical comparisons between the original
LONGSCAN sample and the age 8 subsample show no sig-
nificant differences in sociodemographic, risk, or maltreat-
ment variables.
were interested in whether these at-risk parents typically
resorted to more severe strategies for their secondary dis-
cipline techniques.
Factors that affect disciplinary practices and their
outcomes include child, parent, family, community, and
situational characteristics.9 The relationship of some of
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MEASURES
Disciplinary Practices
Discipline has been defined in various ways.41-44 A distinc-
tion has been made between reactive discipline, done after
the misbehavior, and proactive discipline, done to promote
good behavior.9 To narrow the scope of the study and use a
definition that was readily operationalized, we defined dis-
cipline as the action a parent takes in response to a misbe-
havior. Thus, we focused only on reactive discipline.
Maternal disciplinary practices were assessed with a new
measure designed to prompt respondents for primary and sec-
ondary responses usually used for each of 5 specific child be-
havior problems: disobedience, hitting a younger or smaller
child, disrespect, lying, and stealing. Our approach was de-
signed to orient respondents toward thinking about their dis-
cipline techniques as specific strategies implemented to ad-
dressspecificproblemswithinthecontextofthepast6months.
We used this approach because we were interested in deter-
mining whether mothers use different strategies for different
behavior problems and because we believed it would be easier
for mothers to remember and candidly report their disciplin-
ary practices when the context focused on their child’s mis-
behavior. We were also interested in determining the prac-
tices mothers are likely to use as secondary strategies when
the first are unsuccessful. Finally, we asked what discipline
method works best for the index child most of the time. Re-
sponses were coded by interviewers to 1 of 13 disciplinary cat-
egories that were adapted in part from the work of Trickett
andSusman14 andWebster-StrattonandSpitzer45:(1)nothing—
avoids dealing with the problem; (2) ignoring—a planned
strategy, as opposed to “nothing”; (3) tell someone else, or get
someone else to discipline; (4) empathy; (5) teaching or verbal
assertion (teaching/verbal assertion)—reasoning, giving ex-
planations, giving alternatives, reminding the child of rules
or expectations; (6) limit setting or logical consequences—time-
out, withdrawal of privileges or threat of withdrawal of privi-
leges, removing child from situation, making a child return
a stolen object, making a child apologize, taking away allow-
ance; (7) verbal or symbolic aggression; (8) guilt induction or
embarrassment; (9) mild physical force—spanking with hand;
(10) moderate physical force—hitting or spanking with an ob-
ject, slapping, grabbing, jerking, shaking, throwing an object
at child; (11) severe social isolation; (12) terrorizing; and (13)
severe physical force or restraint. Interrater reliability was as-
sessed by comparison of original codes with a 10% random
sample coded blindly by the consortium coordinator (who
supervises training and monitors data quality).
Child Factors
Data on child age and sex were obtained. Manageability was
measured by asking mothers, “How easy or difficult would
you say it is to manage her/his behavior? Would you say s/he
is (1) easy, (2) average, (3) difficult?” (This variable was di-
chotomized into easy vs average or difficult for analysis.)
these factors with corporal punishment has been well de-
scribed, but for the most part the relationship between
contextual factors and other types of disciplinary prac-
tices has not been well studied.
In her extensive review of the relationship
between gender and disciplinary practices, Steinmetz2
 Mother Factors
The mother’s race, age, and education (highest grade com-
pleted in school, in years) were assessed. Her history of
physical victimization had been assessed previously (1991-
1994) in the longitudinal study (“When you were a child
or teenager . . . were you ever physically hurt by a parent
or someone else—like hit, slapped, beaten, shaken, burned,
or anything like that? (spanking did not count); . . . were
you ever punished or disciplined by someone in such a way
that you were bruised or physically injured?”). Maternal
depression was assessed using the depression subscale of
the Brief Symptom Inventory.46 The partner status (bio-
logical father, other partner, or no partner) and relation-
ship of the mother to the child (biological mother or other
caregiver) were assessed with a family chart that ascer-
tained who lived in the home and relationships to the child.
Attendance at religious or spiritual services was assessed
for the past year (by means of a 6-point Likert scale with
responses ranging from “never” to “more than once a
week”).
Family Factors
Child maltreatment status was determined through a re-
view of the North Carolina Central Registry of Child Abuse
and Neglect to determine if there was any report (substan-
tiated or unsubstantiated) of abuse or neglect of the index
child. Income as percentage of poverty level was deter-
mined by asking about the total income from all sources
after taxes and deductions (measured in $5000 incre-
ments), and the number of people in the household de-
pendent on this income, and calculating the percentage of
the federal poverty level for 1995. Receipt of Aid to Fami-
lies With Dependent Children (AFDC) was determined in
a question about sources of income for the household. So-
cial support was measured with the Social Provisions Scale.47
Neighborhood support was assessed by summing the 4-point
Likert responses to 3 questions (whether the neighbor-
hood was one in which people help each other, watch out
for each other’s children, and can be depended on). The
number of siblings in the household also was determined,
including full, half, and step siblings).
STATISTICAL ANALYSES
Frequencies were determined for each item of the discipline
measure. Reliability of the measure was assessed with k sta-
tistics. Frequencies also were determined for the child, mater-
nal, and family factors, including summative scales for ma-
ternal depression, social support, and neighborhood support.
There were 5 given misbehaviors. Because stealing was
reported infrequently, it was not included in regression mod-
eling, leaving 4 possible misbehaviors: disobedience, fight-
ing, disrespect, and lying. A respondent was included in
regression modeling if she reported that she had actually
dealt with at least 3 of these 4 possible misbehaviors.
found that discipline depended on the sex of the child.
Similarly, Straus and Donnelly4 showed that boys were
hit more often, and more often subjected to verbal
aggression, than girls. 18 Child aggression has been
examined both as a precursor to and an outcome of
corporal punishment, and a positive association is
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Logistic regression modeling was performed for each dis-
ciplinary practice (that was reported at more than 5%) as
the dependent variable, and the child, mother, and family
factors listed above as the independent factors. This re-
gression accounted for the correlation of observations within
each subject. The resultant odds ratios are the odds of us-
ing the particular disciplinary practice for a given misbe-
havior. Main effects were entered in the model at a = .10,
and were eliminated using stepwise elimination at a = .05.
All possible 2-way interactions with significant main ef-
fects were tested and retained at a = .05.
In addition, we were interested in examining what each
mother chose first as a disciplinary response to a misbe-
havior, ie, the primary response, and what mothers chose
to do when the primary response did not work, ie, the sec-
ondary response. To examine factors associated with dif-
ferent primary responses relative to secondary responses,
we divided the disciplinary techniques into 3 categories:
(1) corporal punishment (codes 9 and higher); (2) teaching/
verbal assertion or limit setting (codes 5 and 6); and (3)
other (codes 1-4, 7, and 8). We then looked at 4 primary
to secondary response groups (since the frequency for the
“other” code was small): corporal punishment (primary)
to corporal punishment (secondary) (CP to CP); corporal
punishment to teaching/verbal assertion or limit setting (CP
to T/LS); teaching/verbal assertion or limit setting to cor-
poral punishment (T/LS to CP); and teaching/verbal asser-
tion or limit setting to teaching/verbal assertion or limit-
setting (T/LS to T/LS). The T/LS to CP response group starts
with nonphysical techniques and moves on to physical
means if the other methods do not change behavior. The
CP to T/LS response group starts with physical methods
and then backs off to less intense methods. When the pri-
mary and the secondary responses are the same (ie, CP to
CP and T/LS to T/LS), this might be thought of as a gauge
of the intensity of use of that type of discipline. Since the
practice is not changing contingent on the child’s behav-
ior, it could potentially be a gauge of noncontingent dis-
ciplinary practices as well.
We examined the frequencies for each misbehavior
for these 4 primary to secondary response groups when
subjects reported them for at least 3 of the 4 given misbe-
haviors. We examined 4 regression models—one each
with the 4 primary to secondary response groups as the
dependent variable, and the same array of independent
variables as above, but found 2 models not to be robust
due to small frequencies. Thus, we report bivariate analy-
sis for all independent variables found to be significant at
a , .05, for the primary to secondary response groups.
Dichotomous variables are reported using odds ratios, and
continuous variables using means for 1 or more misbehav-
iors vs never used.
Data were analyzed using SAS software (SAS Insti-
tute, Cary, NC) on a personal computer. The study was ap-
proved by the University of North Carolina Institutional
Review Board for the School of Public Health, and in-
formed consent was obtained from all participants.
found between aggression and corporal punishment in
both cases.7,19-23
Several studies have shown that older parents are
less likely to use corporal punishment.4,24,25 Multiple stud-
ies4,23,24,26,27 have shown that being spanked as a child is
one of the strongest predictors of whether one would
 ships to disciplinary practices, although each plausibly
Table 1. Characteristics of Families (n = 186)* might affect disciplinary practices.
Several studies indicate that lower socioeconomic
Child status is associated with more corporal punishment, but
Age, y 8.5 (7.8-9.6)
in the research by Straus and Donnelly,4 once the age and
Sex, female 55
Manageability (average or difficult) 59 ethnic group of the parents were taken into account, there
Mother was no longer an association. Several studies have shown
Age, y larger (or more crowded) families to be more likely to
,26 24 use power-assertive methods.1,31,35
26-35 49 The child abuse literature shows a strong associa-
$36 27
tion between stress and lack of social support and physi-
Race
White 34
cal abuse.13,36 Thus, the practice of extreme forms of cor-
Black 66 poral punishment might be related to lack of social support
Education and/or higher stress levels.
Did not complete high school 41 In previous research, Socolar and Stein24,37 found that
Completed only high school 42 the beliefs of parents and physicians about spanking and
Physically victimized as child or teenager 28 other types of discipline depend on whether the disci-
Brief Symptom Inventory score for 2.10 (0-21)
maternal depression
pline is in response to dangerous misbehaviors com-
Relationship to child (biological mother†) 80 pared with annoying ones. Others38 have also found dif-
Partner status ferences depending on the kind of transgression. It is likely
Biological father in home 27 that parents use different disciplinary strategies depend-
Nonbiological father figure in home 17 ing on the type of misbehavior, although this aspect of
No father figure in home 56 the context has largely been ignored to date.
Religious service attendance‡ 2.52 (0-5)
Social support§ 75.50 (56-96)
In previous research about the relationship be-
Family tween disciplinary practices and contextual factors, only
Child reported for abuse or neglect 42 a very limited number of factors have been examined. In
before age 8 y this study, we explored a range of contextual factors likely
Had only abuse report(s) 5 to be associated with disciplinary practices using mod-
Had only neglect report(s) 65 els that allowed us to control for other variables. In ad-
Had both abuse and neglect report(s) 30
Percentage of federal poverty level (1995) 99.7% (11.0%-417.0%)
dition, while there are several studies of disciplinary prac-
Receive AFDC 40 tices in small samples of neglectful and/or abusive
Neighborhood support\ 8.96 (3-12) families,13 research does not exist that focuses on disci-
No. of siblings (full, half, and step) 1.4 (0-7) pline in larger or population-based samples of at-risk fami-
lies. Thus, our goals were to examine the relationship of
*Data are given as mean (range) or percentage unless indicated otherwise. numerous contextual factors to disciplinary practices, to
AFDC indicates Aid to Families With Dependent Children.
†Analysis of the same sample at age 4 of index child revealed that at that
use a new measure of discipline that is more compre-
time 89% of caregivers were the biological mother. hensive and contextually rich, to describe primary and
‡Measured with 6-point Likert scale, ranging from “never” to “more than secondary disciplinary techniques, and to learn about dis-
once a week.” ciplinary practices in a statewide sample of at-risk families.
§Measured with the Social Provisions Scale.
\Measured by summing 4-point Likert scale responses to 3 questions
(whether neighborhood is one in which people help each other, watch out RESULTS
for each other’s children, and can be depended on).
A total of 186 mothers were interviewed. For our sample,
spank as a parent. In addition, parental sex is found to risk factors present at birth included no prenatal care
be associated with disciplinary practice, in that mothers (15%), congenital condition (21%), birth weight less than
were found to spank more often than fathers,4 though 2500 g (32%), and maternal age younger than 18 years
this may be an effect of the greater amount of time that (33%). Multiple demographic and social measures show
mothers spend with children, as compared with fathers. these families to be disadvantaged (Table 1).
There is conflicting evidence about disciplinary styles of Of the 13 discipline codes, only 4 were reported as
black families, but a fair amount of evidence suggests that primary or secondary responses by more than 5% of re-
they tend to be more power assertive, punitive, and ar- spondents: teaching/verbal assertion, limit setting, mild
bitrary.28-31 Elder et al10 and Patterson et al32 showed that physical force, and moderate physical force (Table 2).
stressful experiences increase psychologic distress in par- The agreement between coders was excellent, with an
ents, which in turn increases aversive, coercive, and in- overall k of 0.91 for questions about disciplinary prac-
consistent discipline of children. McLoyd and cowork- tice (95% confidence interval, 0.87-0.96; P,.001).
ers33 found that unemployed mothers had increased Limit setting was the most commonly used disci-
depressive symptoms and that this predicted more fre- plinary practice for 4 of 5 misbehaviors. Sixty-three per-
quent punishment of their adolescent children. McLoyd34 cent of mothers reported that limit setting worked best
linked the disciplinary styles of blacks with the in- with their children most of the time. Teaching/verbal as-
creased stressors they experience—economic and other. sertion was used more commonly for lying than for any
There is not much research regarding parental part- other misbehavior, limit setting for disobeying, mild physi-
ner status, education, and religiosity, and their relation- cal force for stealing, and moderate physical force for be-

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 Table 2. Use of Disciplinary Practices as Primary Strategy for Misbehaviors

% of Respondents

Teaching Limit Mild Moderate

Misbehavior (No.)* Verbal Assertion Setting Physical Force Physical Force Other
Disobeys (180) 16 60 11 6 7
Fights with younger child (138) 34 43 9 4 10
Is disrespectful (148) 28 32 20 12 8
Lies (149) 46 33 7 7 7
Steals (61) 16 51 25 5 3

*No. varies by misbehavior because responses shown are only for actual misbehavior and discipline used in the past 6 months; no hypothetical responses
are included.

Table 3. Use of Disciplinary Practices as Secondary Strategy for Misbehaviors

% of Respondents

Teaching Limit Mild Moderate

Misbehavior (No.)* Verbal Assertion Setting Physical Force Physical Force Other
Disobeys (163) 4 45 33 12 6
Fights with younger child (119) 4 60 25 7 4
Is disrespectful (127) 5 47 22 14 12
Lies (122) 7 57 18 9 9
Steals (55) 15 31 31 4 19

*No. varies by misbehavior because responses shown are only for actual misbehavior and discipline used in the past 6 months; no hypothetical responses are
included.

ing disrespectful. Mild physical force was more likely as
a secondary response when the primary one had not suc-
ceeded for each misbehavior, whereas teaching/verbal as-
sertion was always less likely as a secondary response
(Table 3). Thirteen percent of respondents reported CP
to CP for at least 1 misbehavior; 33% reported CP to T/LS;
58% reported T/LS to CP, and 73% reported T/LS to T/LS
for at least 1 misbehavior.
Regression models were evaluated using the 4 most
reported disciplinary practices as dependent variables and
child, mother, and family characteristics as the indepen-
dent variables (Table 4). Independent factors that were
predictive of disciplinary technique in multiple models
included race, AFDC receipt, maternal education, and re-
port of maltreatment. Black race was associated with teach-
ing/verbal assertion and mild physical force, and race was
part of an interactive effect with maternal age for limit
setting. Those receiving AFDC were less likely to use
teaching/verbal assertion and more likely to use moder-
ate or severe physical force. Mothers who were more edu-
cated reported significantly more use of teaching/verbal
assertion and less use of moderate or severe physical force.
Mothers who had been reported for maltreatment of the
child were more likely to use mild physical punishment
but less likely to use moderate or severe physical pun-
ishment. Limit setting was used less often in homes with
biological fathers than in homes with no father present,
whereas limit setting was used more with a nonbiologi-
cal father in the home compared with homes with no fa-
ther. Girls were disciplined with teaching/verbal asser-
tion more often than boys. Mothers with a history of
victimization reported that they used mild physical force
less often than nonvictimized mothers.
Bivariate analysis of factors associated with the 4 pri-
mary to secondary response groups showed that the
poorer families use corporal punishment as both a pri-
mary and a secondary response (Table 5). Factors as-
sociated with using corporal punishment first and teach-
ing/verbal assertion or limit setting as a secondary response
were black race, receipt of AFDC, the absence of the bio-
logical father, and less social support. There was an as-
sociation between mothers with more education and more
religious service attendance and use of teaching/verbal
assertion or limit setting as a primary response and cor-
poral punishment as a secondary response. The use of
teaching/verbal assertion or limit setting as primary and
secondary responses was more likely for female chil-
dren. The use of corporal punishment as primary and sec-
ondary responses was more likely for poorer families.
Factors that we studied that were not associated with
any disciplinary type or response group in the analyses per-
formed included child manageability, maternal depres-
sion, relationship of the mother to the child (biological
or other caregiver), and the number of siblings of the child.
COMMENT
In this sample, limit setting was the most common dis-
ciplinary technique reported by mothers. It would be in-
teresting to know to what extent this is generalizable to
other families. Patterson et al48 found that the most fre-
quent parental discipline techniques in their sample of
antisocial boys were ignoring (18%), commanding or re-
questing (15%), giving a time-out (10%), and scolding
or nattering (8%). It is difficult to compare disparate clas-
sification systems for parental discipline, but likely that

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 Table 4. Logistic Regression Models for 4 Types of Primary Discipline: Factors Associated With These Disciplinary Practices*

Odds Ratio†
Parameter Estimate (95% Confidence Interval)
Teaching verbal assertion
Child’s sex (1 = male, 2 = female) 0.531 1.7 (1.1-2.5)
Race (1 = white, 2 = black) 0.488 1.6 (1.0-2.5)
Maternal education (years of school) 0.122 1.1 (1.0-1.3)
AFDC (0 = no, 1 = receiving) −0.624 0.5 (0.3-0.9)
Religious attendance* ... ...
Neighborhood support* ... ...
Interactions
Religious attendance 3 neighborhood support 0.073 ...
Religious attendance given low neighborhood support NS NS
Religious attendance given high neighborhood support 0.497 1.6 (1.0-2.8)
Limit setting
Biological father in home (0 = no, 1 = yes) −0.623 0.5 (0.3-0.9)
Nonbiological father in home (0 = no, 1 = yes) 0.461 1.6 (1.0-2.6)
Race* ... ...
Maternal age* ... ...
Interactions
Race 3 maternal age 0.057 ...
Maternal age given black race NS NS
Maternal age given white race −0.731 0.5 (0.3-0.9)
Mild physical force
Race (1 = white, 2 = black) 0.755 2.1 (1.1-4.1)
History of maternal victimization (0 = no, 1 = yes) −0.695 0.5 (0.25-0.98)
Report of maltreatment (0 = no, 1 = yes) 0.755 2.1 (1.2-3.7)
Moderate or severe physical force
Maternal education (years of school) −0.385 0.7 (0.6-0.8)
Report of maltreatment (0 = no, 1 = yes) −1.300 0.3 (0.1-0.6)
AFDC (0 = no, 1 = receiving) 0.886 2.4 (1.2-4.9)

*n = 157; a = .05. All factors and 2-way interactions with significant associations are shown. AFDC indicates Aid to Families With Dependent Children; ellipses,
main effects not interpretable due to interactions and NS, not significant.
†Odds ratio is for the odds of using this disciplinary practice for a misbehavior.

commanding or requesting and time-out would fall un-
der limit setting, making it the most common discipline
in the sample of Patterson et al as well. There is very little
literature describing disciplinary practices, other than cor-
poral punishment, for general populations. Such descrip-
tive research would be helpful as a first step toward learn-
ing about the effects of various disciplinary practices in
the general population.
We found that disciplinary practices depend on con-
textual factors including child, parent, family, and situ-
ational characteristics. Increasingly we see that it
does not make sense to ask simply, “What kind of
discipline does a parent use?” But rather, “What kind
of discipline does a given parent use for a given child,
in a specific family for a particular misbehavior?” It is
notable that black mothers in this sample tended to use
teaching or verbal assertion more and to spank more than
white mothers. The finding that they spank more is not
new, but that they use teaching or verbal assertion more
is notable. Black mothers may emphasize their role as
teachers even when they use corporal punishment. It will
be interesting to explore this finding in more detail in
the future.
Aversive stimuli are known to stimulate aggression
in animals and humans.49,50 The most aggressive paren-
tal behavior included in this study, spanking with an ob-
ject, was used for the misbehavior of disrespect. This may
suggest that parents found disrespect to be the most aver-
sive misbehavior. In addition, it raises the question of
whether physical punishment is often a parental reflex-
ive response to aversive stimuli rather than a planned strat-
egy or a response to a child’s need for learning. There is
evidence that parents use mild physical punishment as
a planned strategy,24 but it is not clear if this is the case
for more severe forms of physical punishment.
The factors that we found associated with the 4 pri-
mary to secondary response groups must be considered as
exploratory, since they are bivariate analyses, and do not
control for other independent variables. Using corporal pun-
ishment as a primary response and teaching/verbal asser-
tion or limit setting as a secondary response implies a co-
ercive and potentially illogical contingency pattern for
parental response to child behavior. The association of black
race, AFDC receipt, the absence of the biological father, and
less social support with using this pattern of response for
1 or more misbehaviors needs to be explored further to de-
termine the motivation and efficacy associated with this re-
sponse. Perhaps these mothers are trying to use corporal
punishment to stop the misbehavior and get the child’s at-
tention, before going on to discuss it.
The new measure of discipline used in this study was
helpful in exploring the relationship between the type
of misbehavior and type of discipline, and allowed the
extension of the existing body of research about disci-
pline that focuses on situational context. We also gained
new knowledge about some of the patterns mothers ex-

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hibit as they follow-up on primary strategies—namely,
that mild physical force is used more often and teaching/ Table 5. Logistic Regression Models: Factors Associated
verbal assertion less often as a backup than as a primary With Primary to Secondary Response Groups*
response to misbehavior. On the other hand, this mea-
Odds Ratio
sure indicated that fewer than 5% of mothers reported (95%
verbal aggression. It is likely that the true incidence of Confidence
yelling is higher than this.18 Possibly, yelling is remem- Response Group Means P Interval)
bered as “talking.” Sometimes there may be a fine dis- CP to CP (15% ever used)
tinction between verbal assertion and verbal aggression. Income as percentage of
Finally, the method of open-ended response with cod- poverty level
ing used in this new measure elicits a richer description Used at least once 61.5
.004 ...
Never used 96.8
of actual parental practices than closed-ended struc-
CP to T/LS (28% ever used)
tured surveys. It would be useful to learn more about Race (black) .005 3.7 (1.4-9.2)
whether an open-ended approach increases the validity AFDC (receiving) .03 2.3 (1.1-5.1)
of measurement of parental discipline compared with a Biological father (present) .02 0.3 (0.1-0.8)
closed-ended approach. Social support (index total:
There are limitations in this study. First, discipline higher = more social support)
Used at least once 72.7 ...
was measured by parental report, rather than actual .01
Never used 76.7
observation. Survey methodology has the advantage that T/LS to CP (53% ever used)
it can be used more readily for large samples, and has Maternal education (years of school)
the potential to be valid since parents know about their Used at least once 11.7 ...
.02
own behavior. However, Patterson et al 48 found that Never used 10.8
parental report was not as accurate as direct observation Religous attendance (0-5 scale:
never to more than once per week)
for most aspects of discipline. In particular, there could
Used at least once 2.8 ...
be a social acceptability reporting bias against the use of Never used 2.0
.02
physical discipline. In fact, we found a paradox that T/LS to T/LS (73% ever used)
could be due to bias in the willingness of mothers to Child’s sex (female) .03 2.4 (1.1-5.4)
report about moderate or severe physical punishment.
We found that families that had been reported to state *n = 120; a = .05. CP indicates corporal punishment; T/LS, teaching or
child protection authorities for abuse or neglect said that verbal assertion or limit setting; ellipses, not applicable; and, AFDC, Aid to
Families With Dependent Children. Means are compared for continuous
they used mild physical punishment more and moderate variables. Odds ratios are used for dichotomous variables. Mothers must
or severe physical punishment less than other families. have responded for at least 3 of 4 misbehaviors for primary and secondary
The latter may be due to fear of reporting this kind of disciplinary practices to be included in the analysis.
punishment when a family has been in trouble with
state authorities in the past. On the other hand, this AFDC teach or use verbal assertion less and use moder-
finding may be true because both neglectful and abusive ate or severe physical force more?
families are included in the maltreatment report cat- Recently, there has been much interest about the ef-
egory, and neglectful families may actually use moderate fects of fathers on family interactions and child out-
or severe physical punishment less. If physical punish- comes.51 In our study, the presence of a biological father
ment is underreported, then the corollary is that other was associated with the group who used teaching/
types of disciplinary practices are likely to be overre- verbal assertion or limit setting as a primary strategy and
ported. Second, it is difficult to know to what popula- used corporal punishment as a secondary strategy. In ad-
tion these findings can be generalized based on the dition, it is interesting to note that our data suggest that
sample selection process. Third, 20% of mothers were it may not be just the presence or absence of a father, but
nonbiological when the child was 8 years old, and 11% whether the father is biological that makes a difference
were nonbiological when the child was aged 4 years. It is in the extent to which limit setting is used to discipline
likely that many important factors have changed over children. By extension, it seems likely that for some child-
time for a significant fraction of these families, including rearing behaviors the role of the father within the house-
the identity of the primary caregiver. Thus, this cross- hold and the biological ties he has to the family may be
sectional view at 8 years does not embody the ways in more important than whether a father is present.
which the at-risk status may have changed over time. As we continue to learn about discipline, it will be
Fourth, we have described disciplinary practices, but not important to learn more about what is effective in the
outcomes that may be related to those practices. It short-term, and the ways in which disciplinary prac-
would be useful to know more about short- and long- tices affect long-term child outcomes such as prosocial
term outcomes of these practices, eg, which strategies behavior, self-esteem, conscience, and aggression. We will
are more effective in stopping the misbehavior, and what also need to understand more about discipline as an in-
are the ultimate effects of these strategies in terms of teractive process through time, between parent and child
how the child is socialized? Finally, we have described within a contextual frame. As we learn about the short-
relationships between contextual factors and disciplin- and long-term effects of disciplinary practices, and the
ary practices, but for these to be useful, it will be impor- processes involved in those practices, we will need to in-
tant to learn in more detail about the nature of these troduce interventions to help parents discipline in the
relationships. For example, why do families receiving ways that bring about the results they desire.

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Accepted for publication March 4, 1999.
The Longitudinal Studies Consortium on Child Abuse
and Neglect has been supported by grants 90CA1433 and
90CA1467 from the National Center on Child Abuse and
Neglect, Washington, DC. The analyses presented herein were
supported by grant UO1HD30945 from the National Insti-
tute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, Md.
We thank Vincent Dufort for valuable input at several
stages of the analyses, Dot Browne for editing, and Denise
Craig for help in preparation of the manuscript.
Corresponding author: Rebecca R. S. Socolar, MD,
MPH, CB 7225, Community Pediatrics, University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7225 (e-mail: rsocolar
@med.unc.edu).
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