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Benefits of spanking children
Consequences of corporal punishment
Consequences of corporal punishment
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Should parents stop spanking their children?
In the article, “No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problem”, the author Olga Khazan uses emotions to influence the audience into the controversial of the type of punishment parents should use for misbehaving children. Khazan purpose in her article is to persuade the parents to stop resulting to physical abuse, spanking, their children as a disciplinary method. Khazan explains the consequences physical abuse can cause of used as a disciplinary method. “On the international front, physical discipline is increasingly being viewed as a violation of children’s human rights.” (Smith 5) Olga Khazan not only uses her own thoughts as well as the thoughts of other experts. Alan Kazdin, PhD, Yale University psychology
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When she explains, “…that parents fall roughly into three categories.” (Khazan 3) Khazan categorizes parents into three groups, the categories follow the type of disciplinary methods the parents use. The three categories described by Khazan are as followed; the first category is the parents who have snacks ready to reward the child who obey the chore chart made by the parents; the second category of parents are the overly abuse parents, who abuse their children tremendously; the third and final category are the parents that aren’t abuse, but are also not the best parents, these parents can be classified as “bi-polar” because they can be tough abuse parents one day and then relaxed lenient parents the next. After reading and realizing the category parents fall in, it hits them in their heart. No parent wants to read and realize they fall in the worse of the three categories. After reading which category they fall in parents will try and fix the mistakes it is they are doing. Spanking causes not only the obvious physical harm but, as well as emotional …show more content…
The way children are treat by their parents reflects from themselves and onto their peers. “… parents that are very sarcastic, a child will be very sarcastic with their peers…” Parents don’t realize the affects spanking causes too the children’s mental state. In the article written by Brendan L. Smith, he explains that physical punishment, including spanking, “...can lead to increase aggression, antisocial behavior, physical injury, and mental health problem for children.” Although physical punishment, such as spanking, may work momentarily, but it just causes the children to become more aggressive. (Smith 3) Over 30 countries have completely banned physical punishments for children. Elizabeth Gershoff, PhD, at the University of Texas at Austin, another expert on the issue says “Physical punishment doesn’t work to get kids to comply, so parents think they have to keep escalating it. That is why it is so dangerous…” (Smith
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.
There is a point raised by the author on the article “Spanking children isn’t abusing them” that children in residential schools had horrible and often fatal beatings (2015). Furthermore, while reading “Corporal punishment by parents and associated child behaviors and experiences: A meta-analytic and theoretical review” Gershoff asserts, “Behaviors that do not result in significant physical injury (e.g., spank, slap) are considered corporal punishment, whereas behav- iors that risk injury (e.g., punching, kicking, burning) are consid- ered physical abuse. ” (2002) As it was stated on the previous point, reasonable force has its limits, and limits the parent and care givers to discipline the child without degrading them or causing physical or psychological harm.
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...
The question of whether to spank or not has been the most controversial child-rearing issue of the past three decades. Though no end in sight, after analyzing my research of the extremes of spanking, I conclude in the gray area. John Rosemond proved the most logical approach to spanking. He has studied both sides of the issues and points out the inconsistencies of each side. Rosemond supports his point of view with grounds of disagreement and agreement and fills gaps the gap of the gray area connecting the opposing sides.
On the CNN website, Ruben Navarrette wrote an article titled “Spanking Isn’t Child Abuse; It’s Common Sense” on the topic of how to educate children. The piece is targeted at parents who have little idea of what they should do to discipline their children. He stated that he is against child abuse, but he supports corporal punishment as a form of education. Ruben questioned the methods of “modern parents” by comparing their ways with the previous generation of parents.
Hyman, Irwin A. The Case Against Spanking: How to Discipline Your Children Without Hitting. San Fransico: Jossey-Bass, 1997. Print.
Nonetheless, considers spanking an outcome with dysfunctional mental and physical health issues that roots from often harsh spankings (Kazdin and Benjet, 2003). If parents were set to believe corporal punishment leads to the development of mental issues or physical aggression with peers solving conflicts (Taylor et al.,2016). If the world knew what corporal punishment actually does parents would seek a different approach. Most parents think the views of their children is a reflection of how they are being raised, which supports why this article argument is stronger. Another reason this article is stronger argument is because of how severe the logical fallacies are with in “Spanking and Children’s Externalizing Behavior Across the First Decade of Life:” Even so, the article did provide some strong points as well by recognizing the limitations the studies bring with parents by relying on their responses to general questions about spanking.
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.
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).
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.
First of all, spanking does not lead to violence. Our surrounding world and media do. "The average sixteen-year- old has watched 18,000 murders during his formative years, including a daily bombardment of stabbings, shootings, hangings, decapitations, and general dismemberment" (Meier 34). It seems unjust to blame parents who are trying to raise their children properly for today's violence. If a child touches a hot stove he does not become a more violent person because of it, he just learns not to do it again because he learned a valuable lesson from the pain (Meier 34).
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
It has been said that “spanking trains children ‘in violence and domination’, even when it’s moderate” (Saunders 1)...
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
First of all parents feel that the children are theirs, and they can spank them when they misbehave. There are many factors that lead to physical punishment: parents were to young and not ready for children, parents are going trough a divorce and need to take out their anger on something or someone, or parents do not know another way to punish their children. These children grow up to be aggressive and often abusive towards others. Although parents think this is the only way of educating their children there are many other alternatives.