Corporal Punishment: Harms Outweigh Benefits

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.
Corporal punishment is used in many homes throughout the United States despite

There is an indirect correlation between children who are physically punished and those who have antisocial behavior. Studies have shown that children who are punished in a physical way, often exhibit difficulties obeying rules and norms as they grow up. According to "The Effect Of Corporal Punishment On Antisocial Behavior In Children” by Andrew Grogan Kaylor, “Children 's age had an effect on levels of antisocial behavior, in that older children exhibited higher levels of antisocial behavior.” Antisocial behavior is demonstrate more as the child grows older. Parents often use corporal punishment as a way to discipline a child when they exhibit antisocial behavior. However, studies have shown that corporal punishment increases this behavior instead of decreasing (Eamon 2001; Eamon & Zuehl, 2001; Straus & Donnelly, 2001; Straus et al., 1997). When comparing data from children who were greatly exposed to corporal punishment and those whose parents occasionally used this way of punishing their child, data showed that there was a very small differences between both groups. This study demonstrated that even if parents do not use physical punishment often, it can still cause their child to have antisocial behavior. According to "A Cross-Cultural Examination Of The Link Between Corporal Punishment And Adolescent Antisocial Behavior” by Ronald L. Simons, Chyi-In Wu, Kuei-Hsiu Lin,

This punishment can affects the child’s thought processes, problem solving, and decision-making. According to “Corporal Punishment by Mothers and Development of Children’s Cognitive Ability: A Longitudinal Study of Two Nationally Representative Age Cohorts” by Murray A. Straus and Mallie J. Paschall, “ CP adversely affects the development of cognitive ability, ending use of CP could result in an increase in the national average level of cognitive ability.” A child undergoes cognitive development as they grow, and corporal punishment can impact this process. When a child is slapped or spanked, the child becomes afraid causing high levels of stress. When a child’s body undergoes significant levels of stress, it can result in cognitive deficits like erroneous, difficulties understand events, and this limits the child’s ability to overachieve in school. This is supported by an interview conducted in 1986 by Power and Chapieski; women’s children who mainly used corporal punishment were tested along with children that mothers did not believe in corporal punishment. The group of kids that mothers used corporal punishment tested below or averaged compared to those who whose mothers did not practice physical punishment. Multiple children who were not punished physically did well and better than expected when they took this academic test. This study demonstrated that causing high level of stress, by using corporal