ATTITUDES OF KUWAITI PARENTS TOWARD PHYSICAL PUNISHMENT OF CHILDREN

Objective: The major aim was to describe parental attitudes to physica l punishments and examine their sociodemographic correlates. A related aim was to assess the association of parents' own experience of physi cal punishment with attitudes to punishment of children. Method: A cro ss-sectional survey was conducted during the second week of December, 1996 in five general clinics covering the major administrative areas o f Kuwait: 337 Kuwaiti mothers and fathers with at least one living chi ld were contacted; 95% were successfully interviewed using a structure d questionnaire. Results: Eighty-six percent of parents agreed with ph ysical punishment as a means of child disciplining. Agreement with pun ishment was higher in case of serious misbehaviors such as stealing (6 3%), sniffing glue and using drugs (77%). Multiple regression results showed that parent's lower level of education and Bedouin ethnicity we re positively associated with agreement on physical punishment. Larger percentages of parents who had experienced physical punishments thems elves agreed with such punishment to discipline their children, but th is was not statistically significant. Conclusions: In recent years edu cation has become widespread for both sexes. An inverse association be tween educational level and agreement on physical beating suggest that attitudes to this form of child disciplining are changing. Those with a Bedouin ethnic background still adhere more strictly to the traditi onal forms of child disciplining including physical beating. There is a need for conducting research on the possible negative psychosocial i mpacts of physical punishment in View of findings from other countries . (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd.