Reflections From a Member of the AAP Committee That Prepared “Guidance for Effective Discipline”

I served as a member of the Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) from 1994 to 2000. It was in this period that the policy statement, Guidance for Effective Discipline, was prepared, published, and disseminated among professional and lay audiences.¹ I remember intense discussions about the content of the article and then multiple revisions on the basis of detailed reviews. I received my first course in media training from the AAP shortly before its publication. Those tips proved useful during tense interviews with skeptical debaters. Eventually, the excitement wound down. Now, 18 years later, it is extremely gratifying to consider that those long hours of voluntary work may have contributed to positive change in parent discipline strategies.² 

The study by Ryan et al² in Pediatrics this month examines 4 different representative national databases from 1988 to 2011,...