Authors

• Central Union for Child Welfare

Keywords

attitudes, child development, children, corporal punishment, domestic violence, parent attitude, parent-child relationship, parents, smacking

Abstract

The dataset continues the research conducted by the Central Union for Child Welfare on the development of corporal punishment of children and attitudes towards it. The survey also maps the use of corporal punishment reported by parents themselves. Taloustutkimus was responsible for the data collection.

The survey first explored Finnish people's opinions on the acceptability of using physical and psychological forms of corporal punishment. For example the respondents were asked whether it is justifiable to resolve conflicts between a child and a parent with moderate violence in exceptional cases, and whether it is acceptable to address a child's misbehavior by yelling. Next, the respondents who had underage children were asked whether they had used corporal punishment on their children, such as pulling their hair or threatening them with violence. Additionally, all the respondents were asked whether they had been subjected to corporal punishment during their own childhood and whether they were aware that corporal punishment is illegal in Finland. Finally, all the respondents were asked to evaluate how harmful they consider different methods of addressing a child's behavior in terms of the child's development, such as spanking, ignoring the child, or sending the child to calm down alone.

The background variables of the dataset include gender, age group, region, major regions, municipality population size, household composition, age and number of children living at home, occupational status, marital status, employment situation, type of locality, and generation.