Episode 114: The Case Against Spanking

Into the Fold: Issues in Mental Health

It’s well established that children with histories of abuse demonstrate higher levels of depression, conduct disorder, PTSD, impaired social functioning and other problems. This is deeply entangled with how we discipline them. On this special episode of Into the Fold, we are teaming up with fellow member of the Texas Podcast Network, Marc Airhart, host of the Point of Discovery podcast from the University of Texas at Austin College of Natural Sciences. Together we talk with child discipline expert Dr. Elizabeth Gershoff, professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences at UT Austin and the director of the Population Research Center, who has been studying the effects of physical discipline on children for two decades and is advocating for an end to the practice.