Abstract
The purpose of the study was to explore the non-violent and violent parental disciplinary strategies experienced by 12-year old Sinhala speaking school children, by using the Sinhala version of the parent-child conflict tactics scale (CTSPC). One hundred and eleven children, with a relatively equal number of boys and girls, from two conveniently located schools in the Gampaha district took part in the study. The CTSPC was administered in groups of approximately 20 children. Non-violent discipline was the most commonly reported disciplinary type (annual rate 56%; lifetime rate 68%), followed by psychological aggression (annual rate 40%; lifetime rate 50%) and then corporal punishment (annual rate 33%; lifetime rate 46%). Though physically abusive acts were the least commonly experienced (annual rate 15%; lifetime rate 23%), it was nevertheless reported by a considerable number of children. The results indicate that a relatively large percentage of children experience psychological and physical violence at home. The results also suggest that parents may resort to physically abusive acts when normal violent disciplinary encounters escalate beyond their control. Larger scale studies determining the prevalence and correlates of parental use of violent discipline need to be carried out in order to design culturally appropriate preventive intervention programmes aimed at combating child-directed violence in Sri Lanka.
Highlights
Parental disciplinary strategies vary across cultures to such an extent that cross-cultural agreement on what could be considered "violent" is difficult to reach [1]
Without such for the four disciplinary types assessed by statistics, it would be inappropriate to design the CTSPC as well as the rate for each culturally relevant preventive intervention disciplinary strategy o f a given type
T h e most frequently experienced disciplinary present study was to determine the rate o f type (Table 1) was non-violent parental disciplinary strategies experienced by a sample o f 12-year old Sinhala speaking school children
Summary
Parental disciplinary strategies vary across cultures to such an extent that cross-cultural agreement on what could be considered "violent" is difficult to reach [1]. An informed discussion on discipline [2]. There are no globally accepted definitions of the types of non-violent discipline, psychological aggression, corporal punishment or physically abusive acts. In such an absence, the present study defines non-violent discipline as "widely used alternatives to corporal punishment" [3], and, psychological aggression as "verbal and symbolic acts intended to cause psychological pain or fear" [3]. Corporal punishment is defined as "the use of physical force with the intention of causing a child /
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