About 60% of parents in the United States use spanking as a method to discipline their young children. In most cases parents believe that spanking is the only effective way to discipline their children. According to the “International Encyclopedia of Marriage and Family”, spanking is often referred as; “one or two flat-handed swats on a child's wrist or buttocks, but would not include a beating with a whip or a belt, for others, spanking also includes slaps and pinches to the leg, arm, back, or even the head, as long as no marks are left”. While some parents favor spanking children, others are against spanking children because they feel that teaching them and giving them consequences is the way method for a child to behave. I believe that parents should not spank their children because it is not only an incorrect way to punish their children, but because spanking can bring psychological damage to the child.
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
Arguments arise when the topic of “spanking” comes up. There are good and bad feelings that are brought out about it. The world has different opinions on how misbehavior should be handled. Race, ethnicity, and age also have influenced how spanking is looked upon. Is spanking too much for children? Is spanking just beating children? This tool is used too get the attention of the child in a firm manner. Spanking is an effective way to show punishment, although it is looked upon as a crime in today’s era through the nation’s eye.
While many parents are still spanking their children when they are being naughty, they do not stop to consider how effective this method is. Is this method really working? A question Dr. Phil McGraw asks is: what does a child learn by being hit?(Three Questions to Ask Before Spanking, online) The answer to this question is different for every child, but in many instances you are telling your child that violence is acceptable and that it is an okay way to react when you’re mad .(Three Questions to Ask Before Spanking, online) Although commonly used throughout households with children, not much can be said for spanking’s long term success. To begin with, the only way to maintain the original effect of spanking, is to increase the force with which it is delivered. This can quickly escalate into abuse. (Guidance for Effective Discipline, online) Using spanking as a method can turn into a quick fix whenever the child misbehaves, rather than using other rational techniques for each scenario. Finally, positive reinforcement and other discipline techniques are more difficult to implement when spanking has been used as a primary method of discipline. (Guidance for Effective Discipline, online) As might be expected, the lack of effectiveness also leads to negative consequences and more problems.
Do you think that parents should still spank their children? Well, studies show that parents spanking their children should be outlawed in many states, although some parents think that it helps improve their children’s behavior. This paper will clarify that many parents do spank their children for many different reasons. No I think some parents should stop spanking their children after a certain period of time. Because sometimes these kinds of things make the child act out even more only just because the child may feel that they are not doing wrong when it comes to certain situations. Spanking is allowed under state law, though many in the child welfare business believe. Young children can’t run or speak for themselves. And it is just not true that the current law protects children well. Christian families in many nations in Europe and even in U.S. military bases are faced with the challenge of disciplining h...
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).
Spanking, a fictitious form of child abuse, is an appropriate action toward unruly children. It is a popular practice used to instill discipline and values in children, and is more effective than talking to or yelling at the child or placing the child in “time out” sessions. In the long run, spanking causes no damage to the child’s mental or physical health. Instead, it creates a basis for good behavior.
Brigitte Vittrup and George W. Holden surveyed 108 children aged six to ten years old after they watched videos of children being disciplined by either spanking, reasoning, withdrawing privileges, or time-out. The results show most children rating reasoning as the fairest form of punishment, and spanking as the least fair. This research illustrates that when parents spank their children, they are doing so in a manner that the children think is unfair, and therefore unnecessarily antagonize the child as opposed to disciplining him or her in a way that is
Parents' discipline of young children affects many aspects of their lives. There are many different methods of discipline being used my may different parents. Each parent has different methods to helping their children distinguish right from wrong. Some methods are more beneficial than others, but when comparing methods, it is clear to all that corporal punishment is the most frowned upon form of discipline. Some may wonder why it is looked down upon today if it was a major method of discipline in the 1900's that seemed to work just fine. A recent survey has shown 40% of parents with children under 3 yrs. old have yelled at their child and 40% of parents in this same age bracket have spanked their child (Regalado, M., Sareen, H., Inkelas, M., Wissow, L., & Halfon, N. 2004). Also, 11% of parents have spanked their infants under 1 year of age and 16% of parents have yelled at them. (Regalado, M., Sa...
The use of spanking is one of the most controversial parenting practices and also one of the oldest, spanning throughout many generations. Spanking is a discipline method in which a supervising adult deliberately inflicts pain upon a child in response to a child’s unacceptable behaviour. Although spanking exists in nearly every country and family, its expression is heterogeneous. First of all the act of administering a spanking varies between families and cultures. As Gershoff (2002) pointed out, some parents plan when a spanking would be the most effective discipline whereas some parents spank impulsively (Holden, 2002). Parents also differ in their moods when delivering this controversial punishment, some parents are livid and others try and be loving and reason with the child. Another source of variation is the fact that spanking is often paired with other parenting behaviours such as, scolding, yelling, or perhaps raging and subsequently reasoning. A third source of variation concerns parental characteristics. Darling and Steinberg (1993) distinguished between the content of parental acts and the style in which it was administered (Holden, 2002). With all this variation researchers cannot definitively isolate the singular effects of spanking.