It appears that repeated anger, hitting, shaking, or yelling at children are associated with smaller brain structures in adolescence.
According to a study conducted by Sabrina Suffren, PhD, at the Université de Montréal and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center, in collaboration with researchers from Stanford University, harsh disciplinary practices in childhood have long-term repercussions on children’s brain development.
“The implications go beyond changes in the brain. I think it is important for parents and society to understand that the frequent use of harsh disciplinary practices can harm a child’s development”, stated Suffren, the lead author of the study.
Severe child abuse (such as sexual, physical, and emotional abuse) has been associated with anxiety and depression later in life. Previous studies have shown that children who have experienced severe abuse have smaller prefrontal cortexes and amygdalae, two structures that play a key role in emotional regulation and the emergence of anxiety and depression.
In this study, researchers observed that the same brain regions were smaller in adolescents who had been repeatedly subjected to harsh parenting practices in childhood, even though the children had not experienced more severe acts of abuse.
“It is the first time that harsh parenting practices, which do not reach severe abuse, have been linked to reduced brain structure size, similar to what we see in victims of severe abuse,”, said Suffren. She added that a study published in 2019 “showed that harsh parenting practices can lead to changes in brain function in children, but now we know that they also affect the structure of children’s brains.”
One of the strengths of this study is that it used data from children who were monitored from birth at CHU Sainte-Justine in the early 2000s by the Research Unit (GRIP) at the Université de Montréal and the Quebec Statistics Institute. The monitoring was organized and conducted by GRIP members Dr. Jean Séguin, Dr. Michel Boivin, and Dr. Richard Tremblay. During this monitoring, educational practices and children’s anxiety levels were assessed annually between the ages of 2 and 9. This data was then used to divide the children into groups based on their exposure (low or high) to persistent harsh disciplinary practices.
“We need to consider that these children were consistently exposed to harsh disciplinary practices between the ages of 2 and 9. This means that the differences in their brains are related to repeated exposure to harsh disciplinary practices in childhood”, said Suffren, who worked with her colleagues to assess the children’s anxiety levels and perform MRI scans between the ages of 12 and 16.
This study is the first to attempt to identify the links between harsh disciplinary practices, children’s anxiety, and the anatomy of their brains.
Photo source: Mikhail Nilov – https://www.pexels.com/photo/little-boy-sitting-on-a-bed-under-a-duvet-8654434/
