The use of corporal punishment is not effective, and can have negative long term effects on children. Of the many different forms of discipline, corporal punishment is one of them. This act of punishment can be defined as the intentional infliction of pain on the body, usually done on children by spanking or with a paddle. Though there are parents who still do this in their household, it is not necessary or very effective long-term. Being that it is a true public health issue in the United States, both the society that we live in and the mental health of children are clearly at stake when it comes to physical punishment. It is important that parents and legal guardians understand what their limits are and if physical punishment should be acceptable today.
Ask yourself one thing: why do we spank children? Well, it’s simple, because we believe that it
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They live on the belief that it must only do more good than it does harm, and that only good things come out of corporal punishment. It can be argued that the infliction of pain on the child can pose major risk of harm done to them. It is not morally right to hold the child accountable for the problem, because not all children are completely developed mentally or physically enough to know the difference from right and wrong. Many who argue against this issue believe that it is a violation of children’s rights to bodily security. Studies show that since the ban of corporal punishment on children in Sweden schools in 1979 there has been a huge decrease in the use of it. It was said that 51% of all preschool children had experienced corporal punishment in 1980, only 8% had by 2000. This goes to show that the criminal prohibition of this punishment can reduce these
Corporal punishment is considered as an act of violence against children, and it includes any use of physical punishment in response to misbehavior. Corporal punishment has been associated with child abuse, aggression, delinquency, moral internalisation, antisocial behavior, mental health, and perpetration of the spouse and child abuse. This study explored the trends in corporal punishment among the three to eleven year old children due to they are the group age that is most likely to be subjected to corporal punishment
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).
Many critics believe that spanking is just a form of abuse and does not teach a child right from wrong. According to Jeanne Lindsay, “Spankings generally lead to more and harder spankings to make the child respond” (89). Critics think that spanking leads to more violet children and, in the end, more violet adults. They also believe that if a parent truly loves their child, they would never hit them. Critics believe that time-outs are a more effective form of punishment. They think time-outs teach children right from wrong better than spankings. Some critics also believe that spanking should be illegal in the United Stated. However, this is not accurate. Spanking when done out of love is not abuse at all. According to Jeannette Moninger, “A parent who spanks as a form of discipline is quite different from one who strikes with the goal of injuring a child.”(The great Spanking debate)) A parent does not spank their child because they get pleasure out of it; they do it so they can teach their child wrong from right and to ensure that they will not do it again. J. Addleman states that in 1979 Sweden was the first country to out-law spanking. Seven other countries decided to follow Sweden and outlaw spanking as well. However, several studies have shown that since spanking has been out-lawed in Sweden the child abuse rate has actually increased. One can see from this article that child abuse has nothing to do with spanking. With that being said, spanking does not mean to physically injure a child; it simply means just a slap on the butt. In Drjamesdobson.org, children learn lessons through pain.
Social tolerance of spanking has been the norm for thousands of years. The most widely accepted source coming from the bible. He who spares the rod hates the son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline (New International Version, Proverbs 13:24). Religion and culture have been a very common excuse for the spanking of children world-wide. “Hitting children is intertwined with religious beliefs, cultural views, and social policy… (Kazden & Benjet). However, the world has changed and evolved into a much more civilized society. In this country alo...
Everyone has heard the phrase “monkey see, monkey do”, and children are definitely victims of copying what their parents do (Ogilvie). Spanking does not teach right from wrong, unless a parent feels the need to let their children become aggressive and violent, by the example they set in place for their child (Park). In a study led by Catherine Taylor, it was found that a child at age five that is spanked twice during one month would become more aggressive by fifty percent (Park). Spanking sets up a continuous cycle of bad behavior because this punishment causes fear rather than understanding of what they had done wrong (Park). Spanking a child can change the relationship between child and parent, the child will fear being hit again and learn to lie instead of learning to do what is right (Ogilvie). This poor disciplinary action can lead a child to not do what is right, but to never learn and do wrong.
If your family is like 90% of the population, then you have been disciplined using corporal punishment or have discipled your children with it. The topic of whether parents should use corporal punishment has been debated for years, and it is illegal in the United States to use physical punishment; however, each state’s law on corporal punishment varies and all allow some form of physical punishment. New studies greatly question whether corporal punishment should be used when discipling children. Parents or guardians should not be allowed to use corporal punishment because it causes anti-social behavior, it increases aggression, and it causes cognitive problems.
Recently, NFL superstar running back Adrian Peterson was arrested for allegedly severely disciplining his four-year-old son. This latest news has sparked another fresh debate over whether or not parents should be allowed to spank their children. What Peterson did to his children was very wrong and harsh, and it is not the type of spanking that is tolerable. There is a difference between disciplining a child by mildly spanking them for making a mistake they made and between taking out anger and venting emotions by harshly hitting their children. Spanking a child mildly that sends a clear message to what they have done wrong can be a very effective tool to shape their behavior in a positive way. Jamie Wilson stated
Every parent has differing beliefs in how a child must be disciplined. A child’s undesirable behavior is a cause for a parent to spank them to correct them. Simple mistakes made by children, who have yet to develop cognitive reasoning, are not deserving to experience pain. By definition in the psychological world, corporal punishment is used in like terms with spanking. It is the “use of physical force with the intention of causing a child to experience pain, but not to injury, for the purpose of correction or control of the child’s behavior” (Straus 3). There are countless of studies that has been done by psychologists on the effects
To commence, parents should avoid spanking their children because of the physiological consequences. Sufficient evidence exists in proving that spanking slows the cognitive development of children (Straus, 2011). Spanked children tend to do far worse on achievement tests than those whose parents used other forms of punishment (Straus, 2011). Because of the retardation in the cognitive development, spanked children must spend their entire lives catching up to their counterparts who did not receive such harsh punishment and cannot enjoy a quality childhood. Hitting children can cause back problems (Hunt, 2011). Shock waves travel up the spine and cause nerve damage (Hunt, 2011). If a parent disciplined his/her child out of love, it would not be with an expensive medical bill later on in life.
Spanking. It is a hotly debated topic, and everyone who has an opinion seems to have a strong one. It is either child abuse or it is a fundamental form of discipline. It is traumatizing or it is character-building. It is repugnant or it is commendable. Many have difficulty removing their emotions from such a controversial topic. I, myself, struggle to consider objectively a situation I’ve always deemed moral and paramount to a child’s development, but with the cruciality of raising the next generation, objectivity is imperative. Because children are wayward and often misunderstand instructions, parents must decide early on how they will discipline their child. This raises the controversial question: Should parents use corporal punishment
Children are like flowers, if well taken care of they will glow. If ignored or tortured, they will damage or die. Child discipline is one of the most significant basics of successful parenting. Today, many people have this belief that physical abuse is in no way a solution to helping children recognize between right and wrong. Since generations children have been learnt the art of discipline through physical punishment. Often this approach to disciplining has resulted in two consequences, one is where the child becomes more generous and is able to obey what he or she has been stated, or the other which more often results in children developing a sense of suffering and wish to revolution. I believe that sometimes parents are caught in a situation when children annoyed all boundaries of discipline and spanking is the only actual answer. Therefore, it is essential to do spanking for child discipline since it is the important element of successful parenting.
According to Miller, Cindy, and Robin, the primary advantage with corporal punishment is that it is the only practical approach to discipline the unruly children (68). Apparently, the opponents of corporal punishment argue that the power of physical punishment does not instill behaviors or manners, but provokes further misbehavior and resentment. However, centuries have proved that spanking kids have produced more civilized and reliable young people. A practical example is during the American Occupation in the Philippines, where spanking and any other form of corporal punishment were applied to all the students who disobeyed the school rules, to be particular, the English-only rule. The approach led to the production of more disciplined Filipino students, who turned to be multilingual and academically competent (Miller, Cindy, and Robin 69). Nevertheless, in the current world, with the prohibition and restrictions of corporal punishment under the human right laws, there is a rapid rise in the number of juvenile delinquents every year. Consequently, the infliction of physical pain by spanking or whipping is associated with disciplining the wrongdoing kids, where they can realize their mistakes, and end up not repeating them. Therefore, corporal punishment is the most practical form of punishing the unruly kids than any other means (Engulu
“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.
First, corporal punishment in public schools is barbaric because it can cause so much stress in a child who usually experiences this from bullying or child abuse. Brain scans display a structural and biochemical change that affects a child’s social behavior. For example, in an article written by Shen-Li Lee, argues that a “child’s anterior cingulated gyrus (ACG) suffers from cell loss, which affects a child’s ability to moderate and emphasize their fear.” Furthermore, the pathway to their brain is changed in ways that can affect their ability to manage stress, which can lead to the child being impulsive, and aggressive toward other people. In addition states that it “can cause impairment to the brain, which can lead to disorders such as ADHD, depression, impaired attention, etc.”
Any parent who has threatened to spank a child to modify behavior has observed the immediate change in demeanor. Psychologists tell us, however, that corporal punishment has no more of a desired effect on a child in the long term than alternative disciplinary methods such as a timeout or revoking privileges. Sweden proved that corporal punishment is no more effective than alternative methods and law enforcement officers are no more burdened by the laws put in place to protect the physical integrity of children. If in fact opponents and proponents are both right, their methods both work equally as well as the other, which one is the right one? Can they both be right? Unless we are going to make it legal to go around hitting each other for being snarky, rude, disrespectful, not paying attention, or just out of irritation due to undesirable behavior, the right thing to do is protect the most innocent of our kind. The right thing to do is give our children the same rights we give our family, friends, neighbors, and strangers. The moral thing to do is lead by example. The answer is