Punitive Violence against Children: A Psychoeducational Parenting Program to Reduce Harsh Disciplining Practices and Child Beating in the Home Violencia punitiva contra los nihos: un programa psicoeducativo para reducir las practicas de disciplina severas y maltrato a los niños en el hogar

While parental harsh disciplining of children is a global concern, children living in Nigeria often experience particularly high levels of harsh discipline. Constrained by the lack of parenting skills to effectively manage children, most Nigerian parents rely too heavily on the use of violent methods in the disciplining of their children, which poses a huge threat to their well-being and development. Given the high levels of harsh parenting and the lack of understanding of its harms, we set out to develop a program of intervention called Psychoeducational parenting program to prevent violence against children (PEPVAC), guided by psychological principles of social learning theory, to help parents reverse the trend. We tested the effectiveness of the program using a quasi-experimental design with questionnaire and observation as data collection tools. Participants were 300 parents of children age 3-12 years, who endorsed using harsh discipline. Parents (n = 150) who received the 8-week intervention were compared with parents in the control group (n = 150). A mixed-model ANOVA revealed that the PEPVAC parents demonstrated a reduced use of harsh disciplinary tactics and a decreased incidence of parents beating their children compared to parents in the control group who continued with business-as-usual. Findings suggest that PEPVAC can be a useful intervention tool in the prevention of punitive violence against children, especially in a culturally-oriented country like Nigeria with over 91 million population of children who are at risk of disciplinary violence in the home. Si bien la disciplina severa de los padres hacia los hijos es una preocupacion mundial, los ninos que viven en Nigeria a menudo experimentan niveles particularmente altos de disciplina severa. Restringidos por la falta de habilidades parentales para manejar eficazmente a los ninos, la mayorfa de los padres nigerianos dependen demasiado del uso de metodos violentos en la disciplina de sus hijos, lo que representa una gran amenaza para su bienestar y desarrollo. Dados los altos niveles de crianza severa y la falta de comprension de sus consecuencias, nos propusimos desarrollar un programa de intervencion llamado Programa de crianza psicoeducativa para prevenir la violencia contra los ninos (PEPVAC), guiado por los principios psicologicos de la teorfa del aprendizaje social, para ayudar a los padres. Probamos la efectividad del programa utilizando un diseno cuasi-experimental con cuestionario y