Spank Or Not To Spank
Have you ever been out in public and a parent and child is having a fighting match because the child wants something that the parent want buy or the child just runs off while the parent is busy looking for something. What about the child that is laying on the floor kicking and screaming in an attempt to get there way. These particular scenarios happen all the time and parents are then put in a position to either disciple their child right on the spot by spanking their bottom or just speaking to the child in a harsh manner. Whatever manner you use to disciple your child is totally up to the parents. Disciple can and have caused families to disagree on the method that will be use to raise a child.
Spanking a child has come under serious criticism by professionals that have claimed to have study the affect of spanking a child. There is lots of information that can be confusing that talk about the long term effects of spanking a child. This article gives the opinion of a pediatrician view point on the pros and cons of spanking your child. "It has been said that spanking your child is a quick fix to a problem. The problem with spanking is that it teachers your child that it is ok to hit." .
It can be argued that spanking does not affect a child's behavior. Parents have used other methods of discipline for their children. Researchers have also suggested that these discipline methods will strengthen your parenting relationship with your child. Some of these ways are what is recommended as effective methods of discipline without spanking the child.
1) Time outs
2) Consequences of bad behavior
3) Redirection
Time-out: There are s...
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... have different style that would be consider extreme disciple for a child.
In conclusion, to spank or not to spank will continue to been a controversial subject. No one person will be able to say what is acceptable form of disciple for a child. Research will continue to be done and will continue to change based on information provided.
Works Cited
Stern, Loraine M. "Spanking Preschoolers - Discipline - Toddlers & Preschoolers - Parents.com." Parents - Pregnancy, Babies, Baby Names, Pregnancy Calendar, Ovulation, Birth & More. Web. 28 June 2010. .
"Discipline without Spanking." Essortment Articles: Free Online Articles on Health, Science, Education & More.. Web. 28 June 2010.
Dobson, James C. The Strong-willed Child: Birth through Adolescence. Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House, 1978. Print.
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
There are detrimental risks and disadvantages to using spanking children as a form of punishment. Children will never actually learn the reasoning for why they are being spanked. This will not produce benefits for the child later in life; it will actually hurt them because they aren’t learning important lessons as a child. A giant risk a parent takes when choosing to spank their child is that it may lead to increased aggression by age 5. Also the more a parent spanks, the less effective it becomes. Spanking has no benefits and is harmful to children.
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.
...ginning of humanity. It worked then, and it works now. Critics have decided to re-define spanking as abuse. They would like for everyone to believe the propaganda. The truth is, however that spanking has its benefits. A little pain has positive long term results. Parents can expect a well mannered respectful adult to be the result. Parents should decide if they want to spank their children; not society. One parent’s choice of discipline has no value over another’s. The key thing to remember when it comes to discipline is to discipline out of love for the child. Never spank a child while angry. Explain to the child why the spanking has to be given. Afterwards, show some affection. This way the child will feel loved and understand reconciliation (Dobson). The child will have no feelings of resentment. When parents follow these steps, discipline will never be abuse.
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.
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.
A parent’s right to spank their child has been an issue of great debate for a long time. On one side of the debate are people who feel that to strike a child in any way automatically constitutes abuse. The opposing side believes that parents are within their legal and, more importantly, their moral rights to discipline their child as they see fit. As one can imagine, the former are routinely portrayed to be overly humanistic and ultra-liberal, while the latter are almost always smeared as right-wing bible thumpers and uneducated miscreants.
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).
...their child while obviously angered, that emotion is likely to be very noticeable to the child. Unfortunately, that anger is all too likely to become attached to the punishment, resulting in the unwanted link of: mad parent = pain. A serene, calm parent is very much less likely to turn out to be an active part of the negative memory. Obviously, this is completely up to the judgment of the parent, but I have a tendency to concur that not only is spanking less likely to be abused if lightly applied, but also it maintains a better influence when it is applied. I would declare only when there clearly doesn't seem to be any other way of getting through to the child. Spanking is unquestionably not the only effective punishment, and perhaps not even the best, nevertheless I consider it to be effective, when applied carefully, in relation with other teaching mechanisms.
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
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 into a respectable adult, and they can pass on the behavior to their future children.
Even though most people are split on the issue, the fact still stands that spanking and child abuse tends to go hand-in-hand with violence in the future. When you hear of someone disciplining a child, you typically assume the child got a spanking. It’s actually really sad that we, as humans, assume that. Think about it though - if it actually came down to it that there were real laws set in place against spanking, what would come next? There are no true ways to put a halt to spanking as a form of punishment considering it would be too difficult to actually enforce such laws. In conclusion, spanking may or may not have a direct correlation to violent futures, but it can definitely be a huge factor to it.