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Corporal punishment effects on children
Functions of child rearing practices
Negative effects of corporal punishment
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“Can parenting or child rearing be non-punitive?” Is one of the most common questions that parents ask. If spanking is so effective, why do most people have such an uneasy feeling about it? Some how we cannot silence our inner doubts about the long term effects of physical punishment. We are a little embarrassed by the use of force and we keep saying to ourselves, “”here ought to be a better way of rearing children.” Another reason is, within ourselves, no one wants to be hit.
While hitting releases anger and frustration, and might work in the short-term, what parents really want is for children to be self controlled and disciplined. If long term goals are not addressed, bad behavior will return as soon as the person doing the punishing leaves. Non punitive actions can create well behaved, independent, socially developed children.
Physical punishment is not a constructive method of discipline. It tells the child that you are displeased with what they have done, but it doesn’t tell them how to behave in a way that will be more satisfactory. According to Professor Murray A. Straus “Physical punishment unfortunately is the foundation on which the edifice of family violence rests.” He also states that, “Physical punishment is the way most people first experience violence and it establishes the emotional context of association love with violence.” The child learns early that those who love him or her are also those who hit.
Since physical punishment has been used as a method to train children or to teach them about dangerous things to be avoided, it also establishes the moral rightness of hitting other family members. A further unintended consequence of spanking is the lesson that, when something is really important it justifies the use of physical force.
Lets think for a minute. Haven’t you heard this statement many times, and it has been proven.
“Adults who were abused as children become abusive parents.” If that is so, then adults who were reared with physical force will rear their children with physical force.
The question now at hand is, what is discipline? The word discipline has fallen into ill repute through the years. It had respectable origins in a Latin root which established its connections with education in the dictionary: Training that develops self control, character, or orderliness and efficiency.” Common usage has corrupted the word so that discipline today is used synonymously with punishment, particularly corporal punishment. Now that we have taken a brief look at a few side effects of physical force, the next question is, if
Swat! The entire store tries not to stare at the overwhelmed mother spanking her three-year-old whaling son. As if the screaming tantrum wasn't enough of a side show at the supermarket. This method, or technique perhaps, has been around for decades, even centuries. Generations have sat on grandpa’s lap and listened to the stories of picking their own switch or getting the belt after pulling off a devilish trick. So why then has it become a major controversy in the past few decades? The newest claim is that spanking and other forms of physical punishment can lead to increased aggression, antisocial behavior, physical injury and mental health problems for children. Brendan L. Smith uses many case studies and psychologists findings in his article “The Case Against Spanking” to suggest that parents refrain from physically punishing their children due to lasting harmful effects.
According to McCoskrie (2013), an appropriate smacking does not teach aggressive behaviour. The researchers argue that children who punished are unlikely to antisocial behaviour as long as the child believes their punishment is coming from “a good place” (McCoskrie 2013). Despite this, these claim are incorrect because, young children cannot distinguish whether the punishment is reasonable or not. There are numerous ways that parents can teach and control their children more affectively. As the college estimates that, in fact corporal punishment besides being hurtful and psychologically harmful does not necessarily stop the kids from bad behaviour. It is even more likely child responds back more aggressively (Why smacking should be regarded as a crime
There is a point raised by the author on the article “Spanking children isn’t abusing them” that children in residential schools had horrible and often fatal beatings (2015). Furthermore, while reading “Corporal punishment by parents and associated child behaviors and experiences: A meta-analytic and theoretical review” Gershoff asserts, “Behaviors that do not result in significant physical injury (e.g., spank, slap) are considered corporal punishment, whereas behav- iors that risk injury (e.g., punching, kicking, burning) are consid- ered physical abuse. ” (2002) As it was stated on the previous point, reasonable force has its limits, and limits the parent and care givers to discipline the child without degrading them or causing physical or psychological harm.
Nadine Block argues that spanking children is not a form of love or compassion, but rather an act of violence and disciplinary spanking should be an outlawed practice. Disciplinary spanking is a different thing than a depressed or angry parent spanking a child to relieve their mood. Spanking a child in order to remove the idea of performing an action known to the child to be unacceptable is something that every parent should do, and is not an act of abuse or violence. When used correctly, spanking children is a highly effective and loving response to unruly behavior, because the child learns how to behave and become an upstanding citizen (Dodson). If a child is not disciplined for improper actions, the child is more likely to develop behavior problems and illnesses such as ADHD, while a child who is properly disciplined is more likely to grow into a better-behaved individual (Shute).
When describing a physical altercation between two adults, the term is assault and battery. Assault on an individual has more than immediate effects; the effects can last a lifetime in severe cases. In all fifty states, it is a crime to hit, strike or use corporal punishment in any deliberate manner towards any person over the age of eighteen. However, this law does not apply to physical force being used on minors. Spanking, whipping, and paddling are among a few common references to this form of punishment. Physically disciplining children has had many names over the years. No matter which term is used, corporal punishment has a negative impact on every party involved. It is a widely used, socially accepted method of discipline. “Approximately 94% of three and four-year old children have been spanked in the past year (Slade & Winssow 1321). Although spanking is a widespread practice, it is becoming more controversial. The negative effects of spanking greatly outweigh the benefits. Spanking is a socially tolerated view promoting abusive patterns, and has a negative psychological impact in teaching children that pain, fear, and confusion promote conformability.
Because the beliefs, education and cultures of people vary so much, along with the age of the child, methods of child discipline vary widely. The topic of child discipline involves a wide range of fields such as parenting, behavioural analysis, developmental psychology, social work and various religious perspectives. Advances in the understanding of parenting have provided a background of theoretical understanding and practical understanding of the effectiveness of parenting methods.
Finally, we need to know more about the personal resources of parents that can lessen the incidence of spanking. It is found that spanking sharply decreases as the parent ages. Despite ideological motivations, parents can and should be trained to understand alternative strategies of discipline (Day 93).
The actions of physical punishment and physical abuse both intend to cause harm to a child, but to different severities; despite the difference in degree of physical harm and in the difference of the definitions of each themselves, it is difficult to state whether there are any actual differences in effects between physical punishment and physical abuse. Although there is variance between the definitions of both physical punishment and physical abuse, the definition typically used for physical punishment developed by Straus (1994) states that it is, “the use of physical force with the intention of causing a child to experience pain but not injury for the purposes of correction or control of the child’s behavior” (Gershoff, 2002, p. 602)., while
In other words many do not know how to approach the idea and simply use the methods they grew up with that their own parents’ used, like spanking, hitting, and etc. Caregivers’ that use physical punishment believe that children learn between what is wrong and what is right. Physical punishment is believed to be effective, and is shown by research that it works in short terms. For those who use physical punishments believe in the common saying is,
Violence within families often reflects behaviours learned by children from their parents. A theory is that violent behaviour is passed down from generation to generation through families (Cole & Flanagin, Pg. 2). The majority of Americans are subjected to corporal punishment at one point or another during their lifetime(Kandel, Pg. 4). Surveys suggested that almost all American parents used physical punishment at one point or another and the punishment was regared as an appropriate child rearing technique. Another survey also suggested that some psychologists belive physical punishment to be an effective and useful socialization tool(Kandel, Pg. 2). Aggression is commonly conceived as existing on a continuum, ranging from very severe parental aggression to much milder and normal parental aggression, such as use of corporal or physical punishment(Kandel, Pg. 1). A common concern is that parental use of physical punishment will lead to aggressive behaviour in children.
...E. (2000). Child Outcomes of Nonabusive and Customary Physical Punishment by Parents: An Updated Literature Review. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review. doi:10.1023/A:1026473020315.
...tions (PAM) as soil conditioner .PAM is applied to increase soil ventilation and porosity and reduce compaction, dirtiness and water run-off. PAM solutions are applied into irrigation ditches using the patch technique at a concentration of 200 mg /l. When irrigation water comes into contact with Gypsum which we broadcasted into the soil, it dissolves into "Ca2+" and "SO42-" ions that slightly increase the salinity of water while reducing the SAR of the soil. The "Ca2+" cations are free to replace the "Na+" cations, thereby enhancing flocculation, improving soil structure, and increasing water infiltration rate. Frequent quantities of water over 1-2 weeks during summer, and 3-4 weeks during winter are to be added to the furrow to make sure Date Palm does not suffer from water deficiency during different seasons. (Gharaibeh, M. A., Eltaif, N. I., and Albalasmeh, A. A.)
“It hurts and it’s painful inside – it’s like breaking your bones; it’s loud and sore, and it stings; it feels like you’ve been adopted or something and you’re not part of their family; you feel like you don’t like your parents anymore; you feel upset because they are hurting you, and you love them so much, and then all of a sudden they hit you and you feel as though they don’t care about you” (Pritchard 9). These are the feelings of those juveniles who suffer from corporal punishment. Corporal punishment has been one of the main topics of research in Psychology in last few decades. Although people had believed, “Spare the rod and spoil the child” but in the present age of science, research has revealed that the corporal punishment causes more harm to the children instead of having a positive effect on them. According to UNICEF, “Corporal punishment is actually the use of physical measures that causes pain but no wounds, as a means of enforcing discipline” (1). It includes spanking, squeezing, slapping, pushing and hitting by hand or with some other instruments like belts etc. But it is different from physical abuse in which punishment result in wounds and the objective is different from teaching the discipline. Although Corporal punishment is considered to be a mode of teaching discipline and expeditious acquiescence, however, it leads to the disruption of parent-child relationship, poor mental health of juveniles, moral internalization along with their anti-social and aggressive behaviour and it is against the morality of humans.
...bad behavior. However, I cannot completely agree with physical punishment. It is largely because the effects of corporal punishment are just temporary. Also, according to studies, physical punishment has had a bad effect on students such as students imitating the corporally-punishing behavior of their parents or teachers and reducing self-esteem and the IQ of children. Corporal punishment can be abused as well. Most teachers are now using corporal punishment out of anger instead of using it to correctly change behavior of students. Spanking children is an action that goes against the times and it is time for a change in the world. Corporal punishment isn’t the best way to discipline children. There are other ways like encouragement and consultation. All in all, I can say without hesitation that we should find other means of discipline instead of corporal punishment.
Most parents and other caregivers do not intend to hurt their children, but the effect on the child defines abuse, not the motivation of the parents or caregiver. Abuse comes in many forms and the statistics prove how alarming the issue is, “Every year there are 3.3 million reports of child abuse involving nearly 6 million children”.(Source F) It is immensely difficult to imagine what would make adult use violence against a child. Parents have the responsibility to nurture, raise, and discipline an offspring. However, the definition of the term discipline is differently interpreted by parents. Children will misbehave and teaching the difference between right and wrong and not resulting to forms of abuse .Some go to extreme measures to discipline a child, thus creating deep physiological problems. Child abuse needs to be prevented and the government should intrude to insure the safety of the children and of future generations.