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Three in ten parents 'manhandle' kids: study

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TT/The Local/rm - [email protected]
Three in ten parents 'manhandle' kids: study

Thirty percent of Swedish parents state that they occasionally push or shake their children, with stress being the most common underlying reason, according to a new study.

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“These figures must be seen as slightly alarming,” said Maria Larsson, minister for children and elderly, to daily Dagens Nyheter.

The survey, carried out by the foundation Allmänna Barnhuset, which works to safeguard children in society, shows that the number of parents handling their children roughly has increased from 12 percent in 2000 to 30 percent in 2011.

Swedish-born parents are more likely to grab or shake their children than parent born outside of Sweden, according to the survey.

Among the Swedish-born parents, the majority of such punishments are carried out by men.

Almost 42 percent of Swedish-born fathers said that they had on occasion used such methods, while 34 percent of Swedish-born women had done the same.

For men born outside of Sweden the corresponding figure was 16.7 percent and women 24 percent.

However, no parents in the survey said they had shaken a child younger than one year old, which the authors of the report saw as a positive sign.

Neither had any child under two years of age been subjected to corporal punishment.

Despite the rise in the general rough handling of children, the study showed no significant changes to parents’ attitudes about corporal punishment.

92 percent of parents in Sweden didn’t think that it was acceptable to beat children.

Men and women from outside of Sweden and parents with a lower level of education were on average more positive to corporal punishment than the others.

The study was carried out by the foundation Allmänna Barnhuset on the behest of the government. Similar studies were carried out in 1980, 2000 and 2006.

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