OVERVIEW

For the past 12 years, Prevent Child Abuse America has commissioned national public opinion polls to determine the public's attitudes and actions with respect to child abuse prevention. The first survey, in December 1986, was conducted by Louis Harris and the subsequent surveys by Schulman, Ronca and Bucuvalas of New York City.  Each year the survey has sought to identify shifts in public attitudes and behaviors in four areas: the public's attitudes toward specific parenting behaviors; the frequency of various discipline practices; the public's optimism toward and involvement in child abuse prevention; and the extent to which parents reported the receipt of home visitation and other supportive services around the birth of any of their children.  In addition, each survey has included a small number of unique questions regarding the perceived efficacy of various child welfare policies or prevention strategies.

The consistency of this survey effort both in its application and measurement strategies offers a unique data source for addressing the impacts of public education efforts over time and for monitoring how public attitudes and perceptions have been altered. The purpose of this document is to present data from our most recent survey. Specifically, this report examines trends observed in public perceptions of corporal punishment, parental discipline practices, the public’s perception of and involvement in child abuse prevention and the use and support of home visitation services.  In addition, the document reports on the relative receptivity of the public to programs incorporating child abuse in their title versus those using a more general description (e.g., family support, early intervention, etc.) and the neighborhood characteristics that parents find most useful in raising their children.

METHODS

Sample

Each survey has involved a representative telephone survey of 1,250 randomly selected adults across the country of which approximately 36 to 38% are parents with children under 18 living at home.  Each sample was a nationally modified random-digit-dial telephone sample.  Random-digit-dial procedures substitute random digits for the last three numbers in each core telephone number.  The sampling frame consisted of 200 sample points, stratified by region and type of place.  The final sample was a representative sample of listed and unlisted telephone numbers weighted to account for households with multiple telephone numbers.

 In households with more than one eligible respondent (an adult 18 years old or older), respondents were randomly selected.  As with all samples, this sample is subject to sampling error. The sampling error for the entire sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points, assuming a 95% confidence level. Consequently, differences greater than 3% in response patterns to the same question across years suggest a statistically significant change in attitudes or behaviors. In those instances where only a portion of the sample is analyzed (e.g. questions pertaining to parenting practices), the sampling error increases to plus or minus 5 percentage points or greater.

Measures

The survey items were developed jointly by Prevent Child Abuse America staff, the survey firms and Dr. Richard Gelles, a consultant to the project.  Where possible, items were worded and response categories structured to be similar to other national polls on child abuse and domestic violence.  For example, items measuring parental discipline practices were drawn from the Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS) developed by Murry Straus and his colleagues at the University of New Hampshire.

KEY FINDINGS

Attitudes Toward Parenting Behaviors

Physical punishment and repeated yelling and swearing continues to be viewed by the majority of respondents as potentially detrimental to a child's well being, as indicated in Table 1. In the most recent survey, 19% of the public felt that physical punishment hardly ever or never injures a child and only 5% of the public believed repeated yelling and swearing at a child hardly ever or never leads to long-term emotional harm. For the past 11 years, the public has consistently expressed greater ambivalence over the potential harm of physical punishment (e.g., hitting or spanking). Each year, roughly one third of the respondents have felt that these forms of discipline often or very often harm a child whereas three-quarters consider repeated yelling and swearing often or very often harms a child’s well-being. While those who currently have children under 18 living with them were slightly more likely in the most recent survey to express concern over the potential negative impacts of physical punishment (36% percent of this group as compared to only 30% of those without children in the home saw such punishment very often or often leading to injury), overall parental attitudes regarding this issue have closely mirrored the attitudes expressed by the full sample.
 
Parenting Practices

Given the diversity of opinion regarding the negative consequences of physical punishment, it is particularly interesting that parents in our sample continue to report decreased usage of this discipline practice as compared to the initial 1988 levels. As indicated in Table 2, 45% of the parents in our most recent survey reported that they had spanked or hit their child in the last month, 17% fewer parents than reported this behavior in our 1988 survey. Another way of stating this decline is that one-quarter fewer parents are reporting the use of corporal punishment today than did so in 1988. In the most recent survey, 37% of the respondents reported that they had insulted or swore at their child in the past 12 months, 16% fewer parents than reported this behavior in 1988.  For the past two years, we have asked parents how often in the past year they have failed to pay attention to their child’s emotional needs.  As indicated in Table 2, fewer parents admitted to this behavior this year than did last year.  Overall, 49% of the respondents indicated they had failed to meet their child’s emotional needs last year, a response given by 53% of the respondents last year.

In addition to the decline in reported negative discipline strategies, the trend data suggests a stable or possible increase in the use of less authoritarian discipline strategies.  The use of alternatives such as denying privileges or confining a child to a room or other "time out" strategies has been consistent or has increased slightly over this same period, as reported in Table 2. Overall, 79% of the parents in the most recent survey denied their child privileges over the past 12 months and 59% reported confining their children to their rooms.

Examining these trends by subpopulation finds that the decrease in potentially harmful discipline practices has been virtually universal across income levels, race, educational status, residential location and political and religious preferences.  The one exception to this pattern of general decline is an increase in the reported use of spanking among the youngest respondents (ages 18 to 24). During the 11 year reporting period, the percentage of young parents in this age category who reported the use of spanking and hitting rose from 45% in 1988 to 59% in 1998.  This increase among the youngest respondents, particularly in light of the universal decline observed on this measure among most other subpopulations examined, suggests caution is warranted in assuming a lasting normative change is occurring within the society. It may well be the case that more aggressive prevention efforts are needed which specifically target this age cohort, particularly if this is the cohort most likely to have very young children.

A very small percentage of the parents surveyed reported that they kicked, bit or punched their child in the past twelve months. In the most recent survey, only 2% of the parents reported this
behavior, a percentage comparable to that reported in prior Prevent Child Abuse America surveys as well as other larger, national household surveys on family violence conducted in 1975 and 1985.  Overall, 9% of the parent sample reported hitting or trying to hit their child with an object (i.e., belt, strap, paddle, ruler, etc.) over the past twelve months. Of the 200 parents in the most recent survey who admitted to hitting, spanking, kicking, punching or biting their children, five reported that these actions resulted in bruising or injury. Overall, these patterns and percentages are comparable to those reported in prior surveys suggesting that very little change has occurred in the percentage of children identified by their parents as having experienced severe corporal punishment or violence each year.

Public Commitment to Preventing Child Abuse

Public commitment to and involvement in preventing child abuse has been virtually unchanged over the past 12 years. Throughout this reporting period, those individuals with children under the age of 18 living at home have been consistently more optimistic about their ability to prevent child abuse and more likely to take action to do so. As indicated in Table 3, 73% of all parents surveyed in 1998 reported feeling they could do a lot to prevent child abuse. In contrast, only 54% of those without children living at home were this optimistic about the influence of individual actions on the child abuse problem. Indeed, those without children in the home were more than twice as likely to see nothing they could do to prevent child abuse than were those individuals currently caring for young children and adolescents.  Looking across the various subpopulations, those less optimistic about their ability to influence the rate of child abuse included males, those in the youngest and oldest age categories, those with more limited education, and those with annual household incomes below $25,000.

Independent of one’s belief in the power of prevention services to impact child maltreatment rates, the surveys also have sought to determine the proportion of respondents who have made a personal commitment, by virtue of their behavior, to reduce maltreatment levels.  As summarized in Table 4, one in four individuals report they have taken personal action to prevent child abuse in each survey year, suggesting that very little change has occurred in motivating the general public to play an active role in reducing child maltreatment. As with the public's perception of their ability to prevent child abuse, a greater proportion of respondents currently living with children under the age of 18 report active, personal involvement in this issue than do respondents without children in the home.  Among those currently parenting a child under 18 years of age, involvement rates rise to one out of three.  When asked in past surveys what these actions involved, the most frequent responses were: utilizing both formal and informal opportunities to talk to parents about non-abusive methods of discipline (31%); volunteering and contributing to child abuse prevention agencies within their local communities (29%); actually intervening to stop someone from hitting or emotionally abusing a child either by talking to the parent or removing a child from a potentially dangerous situation (21%); and reporting an abusive parent to authorities (14%).

Receipt of Home Visitation Services

For the past seven years, the survey has included questions regarding the frequency and characteristics of home visitation services parents might have received around the time any of their children were born. Table 5 summarizes the responses to this set of questions. As noted in this table, 9% of all parents with children under 18 living at home surveyed in 1998 reported that they had received home visitation services at the time one or more of their children were born. Among those parents with children less than one year of age, 20% reported receiving these services, significantly more than the percentage of families in this category who reported receiving services in 1997.  However, significant fluctuation in this figure has occurred over the seven-year reporting period suggesting caution is warranted in drawing any firm conclusions regarding the most recent increase.

Similarly, wide fluctuations have occurred in the proportion of families who report receiving more intensive home visitation services.  This year, in contrast to last year’s findings, most families who reported the receipt of home visitation services received only a single visit.  Again, the variation in response to this question over time makes it difficult to determine if home visitation programs are simply becoming more common or more common and more intensive.

With respect to participant satisfaction, 75% of the parents who received home visitation services when their children were young viewed this assistance as useful in learning how to care for their child. This figure is slightly lower than the proportion of program recipients who expressed satisfaction with the service last year.  On balance, most new parents appear to welcome access to this service at the time they give birth and feel the intervention has positive benefits.  Indeed, 71% of those who did not receive the intervention indicated that they perceived such a service as being potentially useful for themselves and parents like them in learning to care for a first child . When asked how they would respond if someone came into their hospital room after delivery and asked if they needed any help to care for their child, 73% of the parents interviewed in our most recent survey thought the concept was a "good idea" in contrast to 17% who viewed the service as a "bad idea."

In all seven surveys in which we asked about home visitation services, current parents were significantly more likely to approve of Government support for this intervention than were those who did not have children or whose children were over 18. In the most recent survey, 79% of the parents approved of Government investment in home visitation, a position shared by 72% of those without children under 18 in the home. A key factor in this discrepancy is the percentage of older Americans included in the non-parent group. On balance, those individuals in the oldest age groups were significantly less enthusiastic about the Government spending money on home visitation (only 57% approved of the idea) than individuals ages 18 to 24 (where 87% approved of the idea).

Respondents also were asked to identify other assistance they would have liked at the time their child was an infant. Among the most common services listed by the respondents in the most recent survey were medical services for the baby including immunizations (55%); out-of-home nursery care or day care for the baby (27%); a telephone number to call with medical or health problems (24%); a support group for new mothers and parents (14%); donations of food, clothing or baby equipment (10%); and someone to come in and help care for the baby (9%). Compared to prior survey years, a higher proportion of respondents this year indicated that these specific service needs had been addressed.  This was particularly true in the cases of health care services. For example, 97% of those seeking medical services for their baby reported success in securing their needs and 75% of those who desired access to a medical help line were successful.  Relatively high service utilization rates also were reported in the areas of out-of-home nursery or day care (56% of those seeking this assistance received it); donations of food, clothing or baby equipment (53% of those seeking this assistance received it); and someone to come in and help care for the baby (44% of those seeking this assistance received it).  In contrast, only one in five (27%) of those seeking parent support groups were able to secure this service.

Public Perceptions of Prevention Services

A commonly expressed concern among those operating child abuse prevention programs is the degree to which parents are uncomfortable enrolling in services with an explicit mission to reduce child abuse.  Many feel that parents are more likely to seek out assistance from programs that advocate positive parenting or healthy child development.  To explore this issue, we asked a subsample of the public opinion poll respondents their impressions of a specific parenting program.  The subsample included all 200 respondents (46% of the 433 parents we interviewed this year) who had indicated that they had hit, spanked, bit, or punched their child or used an object to hit their child.  We selected this subsample on the basis that these respondents might be the ones we would be most interested in engaging in prevention efforts.  Each of these 200 respondents was randomly assigned to one of two versions of the same question. Half the group was asked the question:
 

• There is a parenting program called Healthy Start.  How useful do you think this program would be for your family and other families like yours?

• There is a parenting program called Prevent Child Abuse.  How useful do you think this program would be for your family and other families like yours?

Table 7 summarizes these findings.  As this table indicates, the response patterns are fairly similar, although a higher percentage of respondents said they were “uncertain” about the utility of Healthy Start than were “uncertain” about the utility of Prevent Child Abuse.

A few interesting patterns emerged when we examined the response patterns within various subgroups.  First, among parents with children under the age of six, 66% of the respondents had a favorable reaction to Healthy Start while only 61% of the respondents in the Prevent Child Abuse group found the program potentially useful.  While we saw rather dramatic differences in favor of Healthy Start among those with children under the age of 1, the sample size for this category is very small.  Overall,  8 of the 9 (89%) respondents with children under 1 asked about Healthy Start approved of the program while only 12 of the 19 (63%) respondents with children under 1 asked about  Prevent Child Abuse approved of that program.

In terms of gender, women were more likely to have a favorable opinion of any program than were the male respondents (i.e., 73% versus 44%).  However, men had a more favorable response to Prevent Child Abuse while women preferred Healthy Start.  Of those asked about Prevent Child Abuse, 67% of the women and 54% of the men responding thought that the program would be useful.  Of those asked about Healthy Start, 79% of the women found the program useful, a response given by only 33% of the men.

In terms of race, both programs had more favorable ratings among Hispanics and African Americans than among White respondents.  Again, while sample size is an issue, 79% of the Hispanic respondents had a favorable impression of one of the two programs, an approval rating offered by only 68% of the African American respondents and 53% of the White respondents.  In other words, regardless of the program title, it seems that African Americans and Hispanics were more likely to view a parenting program as useful to themselves and families like them than were White respondents.

A similar pattern emerged with respect to income level.  Overall, approval and acceptance of both parenting programs declined as income increased.  Overall, only 50% of those with incomes $25,000 or higher found either parenting program potentially useful.  In contrast, 75% of those with incomes below $25,000 found either parenting program useful.  The only income category in which a greater percentage of respondents expressed a favorable impression of Prevent Child Abuse than Healthy Start was among those earning less than $15,000 a year.  In all other categories, respondents generally were more positive toward Healthy Start.

Small sample size and the fact that the respondents were ones who had indicated some level of aggression toward their children suggest caution is warranted in generalizing the findings.  Respondents in this survey may not be representative of the majority of people in their respective income, racial or gender groups.  On the other hand, they do represents parents who we would want to engage in prevention efforts.

Utility of Various Neighborhood Characteristics

The final set of questions in the most recent survey asked the public to rate various neighborhood characteristics in terms of their ability to facilitate or hinder child rearing.  In crafting this set of questions, we were particularly interested in identifying those features which we might want to include in a more comprehensive, community-based strategy to prevent child abuse and to promote healthy families.  As indicated in Table 8, respondents were asked about eight neighborhood characteristics: good quality schools, accessible schools (i.e., within walking distance); safe communities; the presence of other families with young children; access to local shopping outlets for simple food items; outdoor play areas for children; structured activities for children; and a public library.

Four of the items – good school, safe communities, outdoor play areas and a public library – were rated as necessary by over 90% of both those currently parenting a child under the age of 18 and those not at this stage of the family life cycle.  In the other instances, greater variation in response patterns were observed either between current parents and non-parents or among subgroups of the parent population.  For example, minority parents placed greater emphasis on schools to which their children could walk than did White parents.  While 77% of African American parents and 66% of the Hispanic parents surveyed rated accessible schools as a necessary feature of helping parents rear their children, only 57% of White parents interviewed expressed this view.  Similarly, the ability to walk to a local grocery or connivance store and to have neighbors with children were more important community features for minority respondents than for White respondents.  In terms of structured activities for children, again African American parents expressed a greater interest in this feature than did White parents.

CONCLUSIONS

Annual survey data collected in a consistent manner can offer child welfare advocates and policy makers useful indicators on behavioral and attitudinal changes occurring within the general population.  Among the most significant changes or patterns observed in this survey effort over the past ten areas are the following.
 

• Physical punishment and repeated yelling and swearing continues to be viewed by the majority of respondents as potentially detrimental to a child's well being.  Over the past ten years, no more than one-quarter of the respondents have felt that physical punishment hardly ever or never injures a child and no more than 8% of the public has believed repeated yelling and swearing at a child hardly ever or never leads to long-term emotional harm.

 
• Parents in our samples continue to report less use of physical punishment today than was true in our initial 1988 survey.  One-quarter fewer parents are reporting the use of corporal punishment and repeated yelling and swearing today than did so in 1988. Further, the use of alternatives to these behaviors, such as denying privileges or confining a child to a room or other "time out" strategies, has been consistent or has increased slightly over this same period.

 
• Examining these trends by subpopulation finds that this decrease in potentially harmful discipline practices has been virtually universal across income levels, race, educational status, residential location and political and religious preferences.

• Contrary to this general decline, we have seen an increase in the reported use of spanking among the youngest respondents, those ages 18 to 24.  During the 11 year reporting period, the percentage of young parents in this age category who reported the use of spanking and hitting rose from 45% in 1988 to 59% in 1998.

• Public commitment to and involvement in prevention child abuse has been virtually unchanged over the past 12 years.  Each year, roughly one in four of the general public and one in three parents have taken personal action to prevent child abuse.

• Despite efforts to increase the availability of support services for new parents, our survey data suggest service levels in this area have been relatively stable over the past seven years.  While some increases have been seen over a two to three year period, such increases have been followed by a one to two year period of decline.

• Potential participants in prevention services do not appear to harbor a strong bias against enrolling in programs that explicitly seek to prevent child abuse.  Overall, women, minority respondents and those with lower incomes were more likely to find prevention programs, regardless of their name, useful to their family and families like than were males, Whites and those with higher incomes.

• Parents and the general public have fairly consistent views on the importance of key neighborhood characteristics in facilitating the childrearing process.  Our data, however, suggests that a greater degree of interconnectedness and reliance on local economic and recreational resources may exist among minority populations.