Attitudes of Palestinian parents towards the use of physical punishment as a method of discipline

Abstract EN

This study deals with the attitudes of Palestinian parents towards the use of physical punishment as a method of discipline.

It aims to determine the association between the parents' endorsement of physical punishment towards their children with the following variables: number of children in the family, parents' level of education and income and parents' being victims of physical punishment in their childhood.

The data was based on a sample of 890 Palestinian parents residing in the Palestinian Territories (West Bank).

The instrument of the study was a close-end questionnaire that included a list of six non-normative types of children's behavior (Haj-Yahia, 1999).

Each parent was asked to express his/her support level regarding the use of physical punishment when faced with a non-normative behavior of his child.

The main findings of the study are the following: single-child parents are less supportive of physical punishment than parents who have several children; parents' support level of all forms of physical punishment decreases proportionally with the increase in the education level; parents with high family income are less supportive of physical punishment than parents with low family income; parents who were victims of physical punishment in their childhood endorse physical punishment more than parents who were not.