We use data from the Fragile Families
and Child Well-Being (FFCW) Study.19
FFCW is a longitudinal birth cohort
study of ∼4200 children drawn from 20
US cities and representative of children
born between 1998 and 2000 in medium
to large US cities. FFCW placed
special emphasis on tracking both
mothers and fathers, and therefore we
have data on both maternal and paternal
spanking practices.
We use the data fromFFCWto analyze the
association between spanking at age 3
and 5 and Child Behavior Checklist
(CBCL) externalizing behavior and receptive
vocabulary scores on the Peabody
Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) at 9
years of age. Our analytic sample is
limited to families in which there were
valid responses on the key variables
from these interviews including the
outcome variables, and the use of
a control variable for father absent in all
regression models allowed us to maintain
the full analytic sample and avoid
dropping children whose fathers may
have been absent at any 1 time. The
resultant sample included 1933 families
for the child externalizing behavior
analyses and a subsample of 1532
families for the PPVT analyses. The
families in our analytic sample do differ
from the total FFCW study sample in
somerespects. For example, the families
inthe analytic sampleswere less likely to
have babieswith a low birthweight, and
the child was less likely to be the
mother’s first. Based on this comparison,
the families making up the analytic
sample have more resources in general
and appear more stable at baseline
than the rest of the FFCW sample. Nevertheless,
as shown in the descriptive
statistics in Table 1, they remain a fairly
disadvantaged urban sample.