A groundbreaking national household survey carried out ahead of 2025 has laid bare a troubling disconnect between caregiver beliefs and disciplinary practices when it comes to raising children in the Dominican Republic, according to a new release from UNICEF. The Enhogar-MICS 2025 survey, implemented by the country’s National Statistics Office (ONE), has uncovered that violent discipline of minors remains alarmingly common across the nation, even as growing numbers of caregivers reject the idea that physical punishment is a necessary part of child-rearing and education.
The study’s data shows that only 12.1% of parents and caregivers responsible for children between the ages of 1 and 14 still hold the view that physical punishment is required for proper child upbringing – a figure that translates to roughly one out of every eight caregivers. Despite this relatively low share of adults who endorse violent discipline, more than half of all children in the 1 to 14 age bracket experienced some form of violent disciplinary action in the 30 days before the survey was conducted, hitting 54.9% overall.
Breaking down the data by age group reveals that the prevalence of violent discipline peaks among younger children. Children between 3 and 4 years old face the highest rate of violent discipline at 61.4%, followed by 5 to 9-year-olds at 57.9%, 10 to 14-year-olds at 52.4%, and 1 to 2-year-olds at 45.9%. When broken down by type of violence, 37.9% of children experienced physical punishment, and 43% were subjected to psychological aggression, meaning many children face multiple forms of violent discipline. Severe physical punishment impacted approximately 2.5% of all children surveyed, while only 31.2% of children were disciplined exclusively through non-violent disciplinary strategies.
UNICEF analysts have identified the stark gap between caregivers’ stated attitudes (the vast majority of whom reject violent punishment as unnecessary) and their actual disciplinary behavior as a key factor explaining why harmful practices remain so entrenched. Researchers note that persistent violent discipline is often shaped by long-standing social norms that normalize physical punishment as a parental right, intergenerational patterns of abuse where caregivers who experienced violence as children are more likely to replicate it with their own children, and widespread lack of access to information and training on evidence-based non-violent methods for setting clear boundaries and guiding child development.
Carlos Carrera, UNICEF’s lead representative in the Dominican Republic, emphasized that addressing this public health and child welfare issue requires deep cultural and conceptual change around how family authority and discipline are framed. Carrera stressed that it is entirely possible to teach children respect for rules and boundaries through consistent, kind guidance that does not rely on instilling fear. He added that meaningful progress will require coordinated action across multiple sectors: families must receive support to adopt non-violent practices, schools must embed positive discipline approaches into their policies, and communities must work collectively to shift harmful social norms around child-rearing.