It could be proven in numerous studies that punishment in the education of children leads to the fact
- that the undesired behavior is only suppressed instead of changed,
- whereby parents here however have the impression that their punishment was successful, whereby their punishment behavior is strengthened,
- that a child learns aggressiveness as a way of solving problems and, following the example of the parents, later acts aggressively himself,
- that over time, through stimulus discrimination, a child is able to distinguish between situations and, for example, no longer swears when the punishing adult is nearby, but does so as soon as he or she feels unobserved,
- that a child is afraid of the punishing parent, so that stimulus generalization in this form of operant conditioning can cause a child to associate the punishment not only with the undesirable behavior, but also with the person and the situation,
- which promotes the development of depression and feelings of helplessness in the child.