The NFL suspended Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson for the rest of the football season for violating the NFL Personal Conduct Policy for inflicting “abusive discipline” on his 4-year old child. Washington Post’s reporter Des Bieler’s article The Details of Adrian Peterson’s Arrest are Disturbing, summarizes a CBS Houston report that vividly describes how the football player “grabbed a tree branch…[and] removed the leaves and struck the child repeatedly” thus resulting in many injuries including cuts and bruises to his “back, buttocks, ankles, legs, and [privates].” Bieler also writes that Peterson defended himself by stating that he merely punished his child in the same way his own parents did when he was a child. Although parents …show more content…
Alan Kadzin, Yale University’s Professor of Child Psychiatry and Director of Yale Parenting Center, as cited in A Surprising Number of Americans Still Spank Their Kids written by Time Magazine’s Denise Foley, believes that “spanking can be destructive long before it becomes a clear cut case of child abuse.” He supports this with his research that indicates that spanking can “predict” future mental and physical health problems. Additionally, individuals who were spanked died at a younger age of “cancer, heart disease, and respiratory illnesses.” Dr. Murray Strauss, a University of New Hampshire in Durnam professor of sociology and co-director of the Family Research Laboratory, also describes in the article Pros/Cons: Spanking by Jessica Pauline Ogilvie, how this induces the child to be at a higher risk for “committing juvenile crime, assaulting other kids …and hitting their dating or [domestic] partner[s].” Dr. Strauss also describes that spanking “violates” a child to grow free from assault as this leaves traumatic implications and increases the risk of mental illnesses such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or …show more content…
However, individuals do this because the idea or just the thought of spanking is used as a fear tactic. Ruben Navarrette of CNN explains in the article, Spanking Isn’t Child Abuse; It’s Common Sense that “fear is essential to respect”. A child will refuse to comply with this unless they “at some level” fear the reprehension for refusing to do so. The fear of the consequences, humiliation, disappointment, and even the tool used to implement the punishment bleeds through a child’s mind and scares him right into following the rules. By doing this, parents prepare their children for the real world where individuals receive punishment for bad behavior. Navarrette narrates his own personal experiences with the ways his parents and grandparents did the same thing, and thus this prevented them from getting in trouble with the law, joining gangs, and disturbing individuals with reckless behavior. He wants individuals to understand, that in this day and age, the aspect of respect is absent in many American households and children treat their parents as if they both are equals, by either ordering their parents around or demanding them to get what they want. Parents need to be strong and control their misbehaving children into respecting them who will in return obey and avoid committing devious
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.
Spanking could also teach children that it's all right to hit, and that it's all right to be hit and that could have a negative long term effect on the children. I
Being physically aggressive by spanking your child leads them to be physically aggressive as well. According to the Pediatrics Journal, spanking 3-y...
People say spanking can be harmful to a child’s health. They have placed laws in Washington State in regards to spanking and other corporal punishments. But why, why all the fuss, spanking couldn’t be that bad could it? There must be studies to prove that spanking can cause bad child behavior otherwise why would there be laws on this madder? What are the opinions of the experts, and their methods of disciplining children?
Spanking is an important aspect of a child’s social development and should not be considered an evil form of abuse. In her argument, Debra Saunders says that there is an obvious difference between beating a child and spanking a child, and parents know the boundary. Spanking is the most effective form of discipline when a child knows doing something is wrong, but the child does it anyway. A child who is properly disciplined through spanking is being taught how to control her or his impulses and how to deal with all types of authorities in future environments. Parents can control their child’s future behavior by using spanking in early childhood, because if...
Critics of spanking need to understand that spanking and abuse are not the same. Spanking is a quick squat on the buttock that causes temporary pain. Child abuse is physical injury such as beating, kicking, or punching a child with cruel intent. Psychiatrist William Glasser makes a distinction between the two. Glasser explains, “Discipline is directed at the objectionable behavior, and the child will accept its consequences without resentment.” By contrast, he defined punishment as, “A response that is directed at the individual” (qtd. in Dobson 96). Spanking allows room for forgiveness and reconciliation. Abuse comes from a place of hostility. It is harsh and leaves little room for forgiveness or reconciliation. Yes, spanking may cause brief discomfort, but it is not the same as beating, punching, or kicking a child.
Spanking is commonly associated with parents attempting to correct behavior in a child; ultimately often out of frustration and/or anger with the child’s behavior. In the heat of the moment, most parents do not associate the long term psychosocial or behavioral effects the act of spanking can have on a child. The dangers of these effects derived from how children think and behave show us that spanking is not an effective form of discipline.
Harvard Medical School . "The Spanking Debate." Harvard Mental Health Letter (2002): 1-3. Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 April 2011.
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).
Holden (2002) reviewed Gershoff’s (2002) meta-analyses of eighty-eight (88) studies and noted that there were both positive and negative outcomes associated with the punishment of spanking. According to Gershoff’s (2002) analysis, the one positive outcome was immediate compliance by the child (Holden, 2002). This result was found to be consistent in five (5) studies. Immediate compliance was defined as the child complying to the parents directive within five (5) seconds. In stark contrast, there were four (4) negative outcomes. The analysis showed a negative effect on the quality of the parent child relationship, the child’s mental health, the child’s perception of being a victim of physical child abuse, and also impacted aggression in adulthood (Holden, 2002).
Many authorities and psychologists believe that spanking breaks a child's spirit and only leads to violence. They think that it causes the child to become depressed, angry or hostile and they have conducted many studies to prove these things. This type of harsh punishment occurs often, but it is called child abuse. There is a great difference between abusing a child and properly disciplining a child. "One is an act of love; the other is an act of hostility, and they are as different as night and day" (Dobson 35).
Smith, B. L. (2012). The case against spanking. American Psychological Association, 43(4), 60. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/04/spanking.aspx
"Spanking doesn 't work, and it just makes kids mistrustful and aggressive. What we 're teaching them is fear rather than responsibility and problem-solving." said Kimberly Sirl, a clinical psychologist at St. Louis Children 's Hospital (Blythe). This is important because parents need to understand spanking doesn 't work and it results that the child becomes aggressive and mistrustful. Parents are trying to teach their child a lesson but instead making them fearful. Children will be aggressive and think violence is the answer to everything. The point of spanking is to teach the child what they did was wrong but kids don 't get that message when they get physically abused. It teaches them the wrong lesson and they think that it 's okay to spank kids so when they get older they will probably do the same thing. Corporal punishment of a child by a caregiver is legal in every state, but it crosses the line to abuse when a child is injured. Doctors and teachers are required to report to authorities any marks, bruises, cuts or other injuries inflicted on a child (Blythe). Anyone who is a caregiver of a child is legally allowed to hit the child. It only becomes an issue or problem when the child is left with bruises, marks, and injuries. If a doctor or teacher were to see any type of bruise on the child they are required to report it. There is spanking a
Some people believe spanking a child is child abuse, and that it causes the child to grow up aggressive and violent. This would mean that every child that is spanked during their developmental stages will grow up to be an example of bad behavior. However, there is no actual data or information that can confirm that spanking a child will cause a child to grow up to be violent or too aggressive. Children have been trained to obey rules or a set code of behavior for centuries. It is the best way to mold a child to be a respectable adult, and they can pass on the behavior to their future children. It may not always happen, but its pretty effective.
It has been said that “spanking trains children ‘in violence and domination’, even when it’s moderate” (Saunders 1)...