International Journal of Psychology

International Journal of Psychology, 2017

DOI: 10.1002/ijop.12465

Positive discipline, harsh physical discipline, physical

discipline and psychological aggression in five Caribbean
countries: Associations with preschoolers’ early literacy
skills
Elif Dede Yildirim1 and Jaipaul L. Roopnarine2,3
1 Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia,
MO, USA
2
Department of Human Development and Family Science, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY,
USA
3 Institute for Graduate Studies and Research, Anton de Kom University of Suriname,

Paramaribo, Suriname

P hysical punishment has received worldwide attention because of its negative impact on children’s cognitive and
social development and its implications for children’s rights. Using UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys 4
and 5 data, we assessed the associations between positive discipline, harsh physical punishment, physical punishment
and psychological aggression and preschoolers’ literacy skills in 5628 preschool-aged children and their caregivers in the
developing nations of Belize, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Jamaica and Suriname. Caregivers across countries used
high levels of explanations and psychological aggression. There were significant country differences in the use of the
four disciplinary practices. In the Dominican Republic and Guyana, physical punishment had negative associations with
children’s literacy skills, and in the Dominican Republic, positive discipline had a positive association with children’s
literacy skills. Findings are discussed with respect to the negative consequences of harsh disciplinary practices on
preschoolers’ early literacy skills in the developing world.
Keywords: Disciplinary techniques; Literacy; Early childhood.

Two meta-analyses (Gershoff, 2002; Gershoff &
Grogan-Kaylor, 2016) conducted 15 years apart indi-
cate negative patterns of associations between physical
punishment and behavioural and mental health outcomes
in children and adults. Other meta-analyses (Ferguson,
2013; Paolucci & Violato, 2004) show similar associ-
ations but they are less robust. These outcomes aside,
there are gaping holes in the literature on the associations
between different forms of discipline and children’s
cognitive skills during the preschool years in develop-
ing countries. Focusing on these links can be useful
in addressing the effects of harsh parental treatment of
children in developing countries such as those in the
Caribbean region where rates of child maltreatment can
be high (see Levtov, van der Gaag, Greene, Kaufman,
& Barker, 2015). In these analyses, we used data from
the UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS)
4 and 5 to examine the associations between positive
discipline, harsh physical punishment, physical punish-
ment and psychological aggression and children’s early
literacy skills in the Caribbean nations of Belize, the
Dominican Republic, Guyana, Jamaica and Suriname.
Large-scale and small sample studies show that the
Caribbean region has some of the highest rates (e.g.
59.7% of mothers in Guyana and 60% of mothers in
Trinidad and Tobago spanked children) of parental use
of physical punishment in the world (Roopnarine, Jin, &
Krishnakumar, 2014; Van der Kooij et al., 2015). Across
the Caribbean, adults strongly believe that physical pun-
ishment is an appropriate way to address behavioural

Correspondence should be addressed to Elif Dede Yildirim, Department of Human Development and Family Science, University of Missouri,
Columbia, MO 65211, USA. E-mail: dedeyildirime@missouri.edu.
During the preparation of this manuscript the second author was supported by funds made available through a Pearls S. Falk Professorship in the
David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics at Syracuse University. This support is gratefully acknowledged. Elif Dede Yildirim helped
in conceiving the study, conducted all analyses, wrote the methods and results sections and edited the manuscript. Jaipaul L. Roopnarine helped in
conceiving the study, guided the analyses, wrote the introduction and discussion sections and edited the manuscript.

© 2017 International Union of Psychological Science

2 DEDE YILDIRIM AND ROOPNARINE
and other difficulties in children (Anderson & Payne,
1994; Leo-Rhynie & Brown, 2013). Moreover, parents
in Jamaica, Guyana and Dominica expect children to
obey and show unilateral respect to them (e.g. Durbrow,
1999; Wilson, Wilson, & Berkeley-Caines, 2003), and
there is a fair amount of denigration of children in the
form of blaming and name calling (e.g. “hardened” mean-
ing stubborn, troublesome, lazy) in Trinidad and Tobago
and Dominica (Durbrow, 1999; Roopnarine & Jin, 2016).
However, later studies show that a majority of moth-
ers (70%) and fathers (68%) in a sample of families in
Trinidad and Tobago engaged in low levels of physical
control with preschool-aged children (Roopnarine, Yang,
Krishnakumar, & Davidson, 2013).
A few studies have also examined associations
between physical punishment and childhood outcomes
in Caribbean families. Severity of maternal physical
punishment had an inverse direct relation with prosocial
behaviours in preschool-aged children in Guyana (Roop-
narine et al., 2013) and had a direct positive association
with behavioural difficulties in children in Trinidad and
Tobago (Roopnarine, Krishnakumar, Narine, Logie, &
Lape, 2014). Guyanese children whose mothers dis-
played high levels of warmth and low levels of control
were rated by their teachers as having better social and
cognitive skills than children whose mothers displayed
high levels of warmth and moderately high levels of con-
trol during parenting (Roopnarine et al., 2013). Another
study showed that caretaker rejection mediated the link
between physical punishment and social adjustment in
older children in St. Kitts (Rohner, Kean, & Cournoyer,
1991).
In as much as these studies advance our understanding
of parenting practices in the Caribbean region, they have
some major drawbacks. Most employed small samples
of families mainly within the English-speaking countries,
narrowly focused on the associations between physical
punishment and children’s social skills or behavioural dif-
ficulties (e.g. Roopnarine et al., 2014), and used global
indices of physical punishment without differentiating
between more severe modes of physical punishment from
normative spanking (e.g. Anderson & Payne, 1994). Find-
ings on some ethnic groups in the United States indicate
that normative physical punishment such as spanking had
negligible effects on children’s academic performance
and cognitive skills (see Paolucci & Violato, 2004), but
others report its long-term adverse effects on young chil-
dren’s receptive language skills (e.g. MacKenzie, Nicklas,
Waldfogel, & Brooks-Gunn, 2013).
This study extends prior work on disciplinary prac-
tices in developing nations by examining the associations
between positive discipline, harsh physical punishment,
physical punishment and psychological aggression and
young children’s literacy skills in the Caribbean nations
of Belize, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Jamaica and
Suriname. In the main, parents who employ sensitive
care by avoiding harsh methods of discipline during daily
socialisation practices are more likely to use explana-
tions and reasoning with their children (Baumrind, 1996;
Rohner & Khaleque, 2005). This approach to parenting
lays the foundation for the encouragement of two-way
verbal exchanges and cognitive collaboration between
parent and child (e.g. book reading, telling stories) that
are essential for early literacy skills development (Mor-
rison & Cooney, 2002). By contrast, harsh disciplinary
practices, such as physical punishment and psychological
aggression, can serve to distance children from their par-
ents, undermine trust and confidence in children and sup-
press meaningful language and social exchanges between
parents and children during the vulnerable preschool
years. The early childhood literature from the developed
world indicates negative associations between harsh par-
enting practices and children’s language and social skills
(see Berlin et al., 2009; Paolucci & Violato, 2004; Shu-
mow, Vandell, & Posner, 1998; Straus & Paschall, 2009).
The Caribbean nations of Belize, the Dominican
Republic, Guyana, Jamaica and Suriname were chosen
for this investigation because of their ethnic, linguistic
and religious diversity. Guyana is English-speaking
and Suriname is Dutch-speaking, and both have
large African Caribbean and Indo Caribbean popula-
tions. The Dominican Republic is Spanish-speaking,
with a large mixed-ethnic population, and Jamaica
is English-speaking, with a relatively homogeneous
African Caribbean population. Within this diverse ethnic
mosaic, families embrace Christian, Hindu, Islamic,
Rastafari and Orisha religious practices (Roopnarine &
Jin, 2016). The five countries are also at different levels
of economic development based on Human Development
Indices and all have pockets of poverty in rural and urban
areas (UNDP, 2016). From a risk and resilience perspec-
tive (Rutter & Sroufe, 2000), an examination of different
disciplinary practices in these diverse nation states can
help to establish whether consistency exists in associa-
tions between less and more severe modes of discipline
and children’s early literacy skills across the world.
The present study was guided by propositions in
interpersonal-acceptance rejection theory (Rohner &
Khaleque, 2005) and parenting models and literacy
development in children (see Bus, van Ijzendoorn, & Pel-
legrini, 1995; Isbell, Sobel, Lindauer, & Lowrence, 2004;
Mol & Bus, 2011; Morrison & Cooney, 2002). Interper-
sonal acceptance-rejection theory underlines the benefits
of parental warmth and the negative consequences of
parental rejection and hostility for childhood develop-
ment, whereas models of early literacy development
stress the importance of sensitive parental engagement
with children through language-rich activities. Accord-
ingly, this study explored the following questions: (a)
Are there differences in the use of positive discipline,
harsh physical punishment, physical punishment and
psychological aggression across Belize, the Dominican
© 2017 International Union of Psychological Science

Republic, Jamaica, Guyana and Suriname? and (b) What
are the degrees of associations between positive disci-
pline, harsh physical punishment, physical punishment
and psychological aggression and children’s literacy
skills across the five countries? From a biodevelopmental
perspective, the focus on literacy skills as an outcome
acknowledges its importance as an important indicator
of later academic functioning (Shonkoff, 2010). Because
sociodemographic factors such as maternal education,
economic status, preschool enrolment, children’s age,
marital status, child sex and area of residence are all asso-
ciated with children’s cognitive skills (e.g. Burger, 2010;
Votruba-Drzal, Miller, & Coley, 2015), these variables
were entered as controls in the analyses.
Based on prior research on the use of harsh disci-
plinary practices in the Caribbean (Roopnarine et al.,
2014), we expect the use of physical modes of pun-
ishment and psychological aggression to be high and
positive discipline to be low across Caribbean countries
with little between-country variation. Taking into consid-
eration associations between positive and harsh parenting
practices and children’s language skills (MacKenzie
et al., 2013; Tamis-LeMonda, Shannon, Cabrera, &
Lamb, 2004) and cognitive ability (Straus & Paschall,
2009), we expect a positive association between positive
discipline and children’s literacy skills and negative asso-
ciations between harsh physical punishment, physical
punishment and psychological aggression and children’s
literacy skills, irrespective of country.
METHODS
Sample
Data for the present study were obtained from MICS
4 and 5. MICS is a global household initiative that
collects individual and household level data from low-
and middle-income countries (UNICEF, 2015). MICS
conducted home interviews with mothers and other care-
givers aged 15–59 with children under 5 years of age.
Detailed data are collected on maternal and child health,
marital union history, early childhood development, child
discipline and labour, pre- and post-natal health, immuni-
sation history and child mortality. Five waves of surveys
have been conducted: MICS 1 (1995), MICS 2 (2000),
MICS 3 (2005–2007), MICS 4 (2009–2012) and MICS
5 (2012–2014). Data sets became publicly available
after the dissemination of survey results at the country
level. The available MICS data sets are de-identified and
do not require Institutional Review Board approval for
use. Our sample consisted of families and children from
five Caribbean countries1 : Belize (n = 309), Jamaica
(n = 321) and Suriname (n = 475) from MICS 4, and the
1 Barbados and St. Lucia were not included due to small sample sizes.
© 2017 International Union of Psychological Science
DISCIPLINARY PRACTICES AND LITERACY SKILL 3
Dominican Republic (n = 3968) and Guyana (n = 555)
from MICS 5 surveys. The sample was limited to fam-
ilies who had children under age 5 and to those that
completed the MICS household survey child discipline
section and child development surveys. We excluded 97
children whose caregivers completed the child survey for
at least one more child in the same household. Table 1
presents descriptive information on the families. Across
countries, 49.8% of children were female, with an overall
average age of 47.86 months (SD = 6.81). Approximately
29% of caregivers were between 20 and 24 years of age,
29% were between 25 and 29 years of age, 17.9% were
between 30 and 34 years of age and 10% were 40 years
or older. Two thirds of caregivers were married, 32.7% of
caregivers completed primary school and 41.2% of care-
givers completed secondary school. Among all, 28.7%
of households fell into the lowest wealth index quintile,
21.3% were in the second lowest quintile, 18.7% were
in the middle quintile, 16.9% were in the fourth quintile
and 14.4% of the households were in the highest quintile.
More than half of the families resided in rural areas.
Measures
Caregiver discipline
To measure disciplinary practices, caregivers com-
pleted questionnaires on the focal child. Caregivers were
asked a series of questions on the use of different disci-
plinary practices within the past month. Following prior
work (see Ferguson, 2013; Paolucci & Violato, 2004)
and our interest in differentiating the influence of differ-
ent forms of discipline on childhood development, we
focused on positive discipline, harsh physical punish-
ment, physical punishment and psychological aggression.
As noted earlier, the use of psychological aggression is
fairly common in Caribbean countries and its impact on
childhood development is largely undetermined in devel-
oping countries.
Positive discipline was assessed using three binary
items: “took away privileges, forbade something child
liked or did not allow him/her to leave house,” “ex-
plained why behaviour was wrong” and “gave child some-
thing else to do.” Across the countries, 45.8% of moth-
ers or other adults in the household took away privi-
leges, 71.7% explained why the behaviour was wrong and
27.3% gave child something else to do to teach child the
right behaviour in the past month. A composite measure
was created by summing up the three items (range 0–3).
Harsh physical punishment was distinguished from
more normative physical punishment such as spanking
with hand (see Paolucci & Violato, 2004). It was mea-
sured using five binary items that included: “shook child,”
“hit child on the bottom or elsewhere on the body with
something like a belt, hairbrush, stick or other hard
object,” “hit or slapped child on the face, head or ears,”
4 DEDE YILDIRIM AND ROOPNARINE

TABLE 1
Sample characteristics by country

Variables Belize Dominican Republic Guyana Jamaica Suriname

Child age (months), mean (SD) 48.08(6.65) 48.03(6.86) 48.14(6.72) 47.38(6.30) 46.33(6.70)
Children’s sex (female), % 49.8 50.1 50.6 52.3 48.8
Mothers’ age, %
15–19 1.4 3.2 1.6 1.4 2.6
20–24 27.5 29.7 30.1 22.4 24.4
25–29 33.0 28.5 29.1 32.0 27.9
30–34 15.8 17.6 20.1 17.3 20.5
35–39 12.7 11.6 11.6 14.6 10.7
40–44 6.5 6.0 4.7 9.5 10.0
45–49 3.1 3.5 2.8 2.7 4.0
Marital status (married), % 82.8 72.1 89.8 49.3 72.3
Area of residence (urban), % 40.1 65.7 20.7 46.1 38.7
Mothers’ education, %
Primary 45.3 30.6 16.8 73.2 33.5
Secondary 48.5 37.3 69.9 22.4 47.8
Household Wealth Index Quantiles, %
Poorest (0–19%) 19.4 27.9 28.8 20.9 46.1
Second (20–39%) 20.4 21.5 20.7 26.5 17.1
Middle (40–59%) 22.3 19.0 17.8 21.2 13.5
Fourth (60–79%) 22.0 17.2 14.4 19.9 11.8
Richest (80–100%) 15.9 14.3 18.2 11.5 11.6

“hit or slapped child on the hand, arm or leg” and “beat
child up, that is, hit him/her over and over as hard as
one could.” Approximately 17.6% of mothers or anyone
else in the household shook the focal child, 17% hit child
with belt, brush or stick, 2.6% hit or slapped child on the
face, head or ears, 17.4% hit or slapped child on the hand,
arm or leg and less than 1% beat child up as hard as one
could in the past month. Responses to the five items were
summed to form a total score of harsh physical punish-
ment (range 0–5).
Psychological aggression was assessed with two
binary items: “shouted, yelled at or screamed at child”
and “called child dumb, lazy or another name like that.”
Roughly 56% of mothers or other caregivers in the
household shouted, yelled or screamed at child, whereas
7.5% of caregivers in the household called child dumb,
lazy or another name in the past month (range 0–2).
Physical punishment was assessed using a binary item
asking whether caregivers in the household “spanked, hit
or slapped child on the bottom with bare hand.” This
item reflected the normative use of physical punishment
(Ferguson, 2013). Across the five countries, 39.6% of
caregivers in the household spanked, hit or slapped the
focal child on bottom with bare hand.
Children’s literacy skills
Children’s literacy skills were assessed using care-
givers’ reports on three binary items: “child can identify
or name at least 10 letters of the alphabet,” “child can read
at least four simple, popular words” and “child knows the
name and recognises the symbol of all numbers from 1 to
10.” Across the countries, 31.2% of children identified at
least 10 letters, 22.1% read at least four words and 44.5%
recognised symbols of all numbers. These items are simi-
lar to those used in standardised assessments of children’s
early language skills. A composite score was created by
summing caregiver’s responses across the literacy skills
items (range 0–3).
Covariates
The following variables were used as controls: moth-
ers’ highest level of education (1 = at least secondary,
0 = not), area of residence (1 = urban, 0 = rural), chil-
dren’s age (in months) and sex (1 = male, 0 = female),
preschool enrolment (1 = enrolled, 0 = not enrolled),
mothers’ age (in years) and marital status (1 = married,
0 = not) and household wealth index. A composite mea-
sure of household wealth index was created using the
source of drinking water, type of toilet facility, number
of rooms for sleeping, type of main material for floor and
roof, access to electricity and household assets (see Sun,
Liu, Chen, Rao, & Liu, 2016).
Analytical techniques
We first assessed between country differences in the pro-
portion of caregivers who used positive discipline, harsh
physical punishment, physical punishment and psycho-
logical aggression. Weighted chi-square tests within the
R packages of “Weights” (Pasek, 2016) were used to
take into account the two-stage stratified cluster sampling

© 2017 International Union of Psychological Science


utilised by MICS to obtain national level data. Follow-up
pairwise chi-square tests with Bonferroni adjustment
(p < .005) were conducted between countries on the pro-
portion of caregivers who used positive discipline, harsh
physical punishment, physical punishment and psycho-
logical aggression.
Next, a set of ordinal logistic regression analyses
were conducted to assess the associations between pos-
itive discipline, harsh physical punishment, physical
punishment and psychological aggression and chil-
dren’s literacy skills across countries. For each country,
children’s literacy skills were entered as the outcome
variable, and positive discipline, harsh physical punish-
ment, physical punishment and psychological aggression
were entered as predictor variables. Children’s sex and
age, preschool education, mothers’ age, marital status,
maternal education, household wealth index and area
of residence were entered as control variables in all
models. All regression models were assessed within the
Mplus 7.4 software (Muthén & Muthén, 2014) that can
handle complex survey sample designs while permit-
ting the addition of children’s sample weights to the
MICS data. Robust maximum likelihood estimates were
used and missing data (<1% at the country level) were
addressed by using full information maximum likelihood
estimates.
RESULTS
Country-level differences in modes of discipline
Table 2 presents the results from the weighted chi-square
tests on the proportion of caregivers in each country who
engaged in positive discipline, harsh physical punish-
ment, physical punishment and psychological aggression.
Across countries, a majority of caregivers reported using
explanations as a disciplinary practice (from 88.6% in
Belize to 67.9% in the Dominican Republic). At the same
time, the use of psychological aggression was moderately
high (e.g. for shouting from 82.9% in Suriname to 45.5%
in Belize). There were significant differences between
countries across all disciplinary practices (see Table 2).
For instance, caregivers in Belize were more likely to
use explanations than those in the Dominican Republic
(χ2 = 57.97, p < .005), Guyana (χ2 = 14.53, p < .005),
Jamaica (χ2 = 10.81, p < .005) and Suriname (χ2 = 8.41,
p < .005), whereas caregivers in the Dominican Republic
were less likely to redirect children compared to those
in Belize (χ2 = 150.47, p < .005), Guyana (χ2 = 116.39,
p < .005), Jamaica (χ2 = 47.26, p < .005) and Suriname
(χ2 = 260.05, p < .005). In terms of harshness, caregivers
in Jamaica were more likely to use physical punishment
than those in Guyana (χ2 = 46.53, p < .005) and the
Dominican Republic (χ2 = 57.00, p < .005). By contrast,
caregivers in Dominican Republic were less likely to use
© 2017 International Union of Psychological Science
DISCIPLINARY PRACTICES AND LITERACY SKILL 5
physical punishment than those in Belize (χ2 = 123.68,
p < .005), Guyana (χ2 = 223.53, p < .005), Jamaica
(χ2 = 411.62, p < .005) and Suriname (χ2 = 294.27,
p < .005). Another trend that stood out was that care-
givers in Suriname were more likely to shout, yell at or
scream at children than caregivers in Belize (χ2 = 121.10,
p < .005), Dominican Republic (χ2 = 162.03, p < .005),
Guyana (χ2 = 87.23, p < .005) and Jamaica (χ2 = 30.42,
p < .005), and to call children dumb, lazy or another
name than caregivers in Belize (χ2 = 41.47, p < .005),
Dominican Republic (χ2 = 295.81, p < .005), Guyana
(χ2 = 73.55, p < .005) and Jamaica (χ2 = 35.12,
p < .005).
Disciplinary practices and children’s literacy
skills
The ordinal logistic regression models produced a mixed
pattern of associations and the odds ratios, estimates, stan-
dard errors and p-values are indicated for each country
separately in Table 3.
Belize
Children’s age, household wealth and preschool enrol-
ment were positively associated with children’s liter-
acy skills. Harsh physical punishment was marginally
significantly associated with children’s literacy skills.
There were no significant associations between positive
discipline, harsh physical punishment, physical punish-
ment and psychological aggression and children’s literacy
skills.
Dominican Republic
Preschool enrolment, children’s age, mother’s age and
household wealth index were positively, and caregivers’
age was negatively associated with children’s literacy
skills. Positive discipline was positively, and physical
punishment was negatively associated with children’s
literacy skills. Harsh physical punishment and psycho-
logical aggression were not significantly associated with
children’s literacy skills.
Guyana
Children’s age, preschool enrolment and household
wealth index were positively associated with children’s
literacy skills. Physical punishment was negatively asso-
ciated with children’s literacy skills. There were no sig-
nificant associations between positive discipline, harsh
physical punishment and psychological aggression and
children’s literacy skills.
6 DEDE YILDIRIM AND ROOPNARINE

TABLE 2
Proportion of endorsement of positive discipline, harsh physical punishment, physical punishment, and psychological aggression items
by country

Total Belize Dominican Guyana Jamaica Suriname

Variables (n = 5628) (n = 309) Republic (n = 3968) (n = 555) (n = 321) (n = 475) χ2 (df = 4)

Positive discipline
Took away privileges, forbade something 45.8% 53.7% 45.7% 40.1% 44.2% 49.1% 22.93*
child liked or did not allow him/her to
leave house
Explained why behaviour was wrong 71.7% 88.6% 67.9% 77.8% 78.9% 80.8% 134.12*
Gave child something else to do 27.3% 50.0% 19.9% 40.3% 36.3% 53.2% 361.49*
Physical discipline
Spanked, hit or slapped child on the 39.6% 47.4% 36.8% 34.4% 58.1% 52.1% 104.03*
bottom with bare hand
Harsh physical discipline
Shook child 17.6% 12.3% 15.8% 20.1% 25.2% 28.0% 29.44*
Hit child on the bottom or elsewhere on 17.0% 24.0% 15.8% 16.9% 22.9% 17.7% 32.00*
the body with something like a belt,
hairbrush, stick or other hard object
Hit or slapped child on the face, head or 2.6% 3.9% 2.1% 3.3% 1.6% 6.3% 26.69*
ears
Hit or slapped child on the hand, arm or 17.4% 30.1% 9.5% 31.8% 48.4% 37.1% 666.38*
leg
Beat child up, that is hit him/her over and 0.9% 1.3% 0.6% 0.2% 1.6% 4.0% 26.46*
over as hard as one could
Psychological aggression
Shouted, yelled at or screamed at child 55.6% 45.5% 52.2% 55.8% 65.9% 82.9% 164.20*
Called child dumb, lazy, or another name 7.5% 8.1% 5.0% 7.0% 9.7% 26.7% 240.20*
like that

*p<. 001.

TABLE 3
Estimates for predicting children’s literacy skills by country

Belize Dominican Republic Guyana Jamaica Suriname

OR Est. SE OR Est. SE OR Est. SE OR Est. SE OR Est. SE

Child age 1.07 .07*** .02 1.06 .06*** .01 1.09 .08*** .02 1.08 .08** .03 1.06 .05*** .02
Children’s sex .85 −.17 .22 1.02 .02 .11 .81 −.22 .24 .83 −.18 .31 .57 −.57** .23
Preschool enrolment 2.62 .97*** .31 2.86 1.05*** .11 2.02 .70** .27 2.66 .98 .77 1.46 .38 .29
Mothers’ age .86 −.15 .09 .90 −.11*** .04 1.08 .08 .09 .96 −.04 .11 .97 −.03 .08
Marital status .73 −.32 .35 .97 −.03 .10 .46 −.77* .40 .98 −.02 .29 1.31 .27 .32
Area of residence .91 −.10 .34 1.17 .16 .11 1.62 .48* .27 1.89 .64** .30 1.32 .28 .27
Mothers’ education 1.10 .09 .29 .88 −.13 .11 1.21 .19 .23 2.42 .89** .46 1.84 .61* .33
Household wealth index 1.37 .31** .16 1.69 .52*** .07 1.31 .27** .13 1.21 .19 .23 1.56 .44** .20
Positive discipline 1.14 .13 .12 1.14 .13** .06 1.05 .05 .12 1.08 .08 .18 1.00 .00 .13
Psychological aggression 1.02 .02 .22 1.00 .00 .11 1.26 .23 .22 .90 −.11 .26 .74 −.31 .20
Physical punishment .89 −.12 .26 .71 −.35*** .11 .58 −.55** .26 1.09 .09 .33 .68 −.39 .26
Harsh discipline .77 −.26* .15 .94 −.06 .07 .88 −.13 .14 1.01 .01 .18 .86 −.16 .16

*p < .10. **p < .05. ***p < .001. OR = Odds Ratio.

Jamaica Suriname

Children’s age, mothers’ education and area of res-
idence were positively associated with children’s liter-
acy skills. Positive discipline, harsh physical punish-
ment, physical punishment and psychological aggression
were not significantly associated with children’s literacy
skills.
Children’s age and household wealth index were pos-
itively associated with children’s literacy skills. Chil-
dren’s sex was negatively associated with children’s lit-
eracy skills, indicating that girls showed higher lev-
els of literacy skills compared to boys. There were
no significant associations between positive discipline,

© 2017 International Union of Psychological Science


harsh physical punishment, physical punishment and
psychological aggression, and children’s literacy skills.
DISCUSSION
Physical punishment has received worldwide attention
because it places children at increased risk for maltreat-
ment and because of its implications for children’s rights
(Gershoff & Grogan-Kaylor, 2016). Drawing on UNICEF
MICS 4 and 5 data, we determined between-country dif-
ferences in the use of positive discipline, harsh physical
punishment, physical punishment, psychological aggres-
sion and the associations between these four disciplinary
practices and preschool-aged children’s literacy skills in
the developing Caribbean nations of Belize, the Domini-
can Republic, Guyana, Jamaica and Suriname. Using
large, representative samples from diverse ethnic back-
grounds in these countries, our analyses provided a further
assessment of the degrees of associations between harsh
and non-harsh disciplinary practices and children’s liter-
acy skills in a part of the developing world where phys-
ical punishment is seen as normative (Roopnarine & Jin,
2016).
Unlike previous assertions about the widespread use
of physical punishment and psychological aggression
with children in Caribbean countries such as Curacao,
Suriname, Guyana, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago and
Jamaica (Anderson & Payne, 1994; Brown & Johnson,
2008; Klein, Meyboom de-Jong, & de Bruijin, 2013;
Rohner et al., 1991; Van der Kooij et al., 2015), these data
showed more diverse use of disciplinary practices. Across
the five linguistically and ethnically diverse Caribbean
countries, 46% of caregivers took privileges away and
fully 72% used explanations with children. At the same
time, 40% spanked, hit or slapped their preschool-aged
children and 56% yelled or screamed at the child. These
findings tend to confirm the simultaneous use of positive
and harsh methods of attending to childhood behavioural
difficulties that have been suggested by other studies
(e.g. Roopnarine et al., 2013). This approach to childrea-
ring does not fall neatly into well-established parenting
styles typologies (e.g. authoritative, authoritarian or per-
missive) (Baumrind, 1967; Baumrind, 1996) or interper-
sonal acceptance-rejection theory (Rohner & Khaleque,
2005) that espouses levels of warmth at one end and con-
trol/rejection at the other as its core tenets. It is likely that
the use of a combination of positive and harsh methods
of discipline is a result of adaptations to rearing children
in difficult ecological niches that are plagued by neigh-
bourhood infrastructure deficiencies, persistent economic
hardship and personal challenges.
There was a good deal of variation in the use of differ-
ent methods of discipline across countries. A few trends
are notable. Caregivers in Belize were more likely to use
© 2017 International Union of Psychological Science
DISCIPLINARY PRACTICES AND LITERACY SKILL 7
positive discipline and those in the Dominican Repub-
lic were less likely to use positive methods of discipline
than those in the other four countries. It was also the case
that caregivers in Suriname were more likely to use psy-
chological aggression than those in the other countries.
In terms of physical punishment, caregivers in Jamaica
stood apart from those in the other countries. While it is
not immediately apparent to us what may account for the
country-level differences in disciplinary practices, stud-
ies have confirmed high levels of endorsement and use
of physical punishment in Jamaica (e.g. Brown & John-
son, 2008), and high levels of physical punishment and
psychological aggression (29.8% with boys and 34.3%
with girls) were recorded across ethnic groups in Suri-
name (Van der Kooij et al., 2015; van der Kooij et al.,
2017). Along with firmly entrenched beliefs about the use
of physical punishment and psychological aggression by
parents to address childhood difficulties in the Caribbean,
socioeconomic conditions and limited knowledge about
appropriate parenting practices may have also contributed
to variations in caregivers’ greater use of harsh discipline
across countries.
Although studies have established links between phys-
ical punishment and children’s academic performance in
general, few have focused on harsh disciplinary prac-
tices and young children’s literacy skills in the devel-
oping world. Early literacy skills provide the founda-
tion for children’s language development during the early
schooling process (Mol & Bus, 2011) and harsh disci-
plinary practices can severely limit attempts for parents to
engage in language-rich activities (e.g. book reading, sto-
rytelling, general conversations) with children. In Guyana
and the Dominican Republic, physical punishment had
negative associations with children’s literacy skills. There
was also a tendency for harsh physical punishment to
be negatively associated with children’s literacy skills in
Belize. These findings are in line with those of a grow-
ing body of studies in the developed world such as the
United States (Lee, Altschul, & Gershoff, 2013; Dede
Yildirim & Roopnarine, 2015; Roopnarine et al., 2014)
that point to the negative associations between physi-
cal discipline and children’s cognitive and social skills
during the preschool years. A few studies have shown
direct associations between severity of physical punish-
ment and children’s behaviours in Guyanese families (e.g.
Roopnarine et al., 2013) and in families in other cultural
groups around the world (e.g. Dede Yildirim & Roopnar-
ine, 2015; Lee et al., 2013), and some are beginning to
demonstrate the long-term consequences of physical pun-
ishment on children’s language development in particu-
lar (MacKenzie et al., 2013). That positive discipline was
associated with better literacy skills is not surprising given
that explanations and redirection involve two-way lan-
guage exchanges between caregivers and children. These
exchanges can only serve to boost emerging literacy skills
(see Bus et al., 1995; Mol & Bus, 2011).
8 DEDE YILDIRIM AND ROOPNARINE
Despite inherent difficulties (e.g. method variance,
underreporting in the case of physical punishment)
associated with total reliance on parental reports as
opposed to observations of parental behaviours and the
lack of standardised assessments of children’s literacy
skills, this study provides additional insights into the
use of different modes of discipline and children’s early
cognitive functioning in five developing Caribbean coun-
tries. These results begin to question the widespread
use of physical means of disciplining children in the
Caribbean in that there was more varied use of positive
and harsh approaches in attending to childhood difficul-
ties across countries. However, these findings bring to the
fore the negative consequences of physical punishment
on preschool children’s literacy skills in developing
Caribbean countries where children face multiple risk
factors (e.g. neighbourhood violence; lack of parenting
resources). Information derived from more careful exam-
ination of what mechanisms mediate and moderate the
associations between different methods of discipline and
childhood outcomes in developing nations can be helpful
in constructing policies and programmes that advance
the rights and welfare of children.
Manuscript received January 2017
Revised manuscript accepted September 2017
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