Smacking Persuasive Speech

The fierce hand strikes again. There is no sense of motherly or fatherly love when sharp pains stem from vermillion scars appearing on your undeveloped and sensitive hand. Would you like to experience this everlasting pain?
Hello my name is Isura and I will be presenting my speech on why smacking should be a crime.
There have been debates about should smacking be a crime. As stated by ABC Health and Wellbeing,”69% of Australian parents still smack their children today.” “Smacking is form of discipline has been outlawed in 33 countries.” “93% of mothers hit their 2 to 4 year olds an average of 3.6 times a week, or 187 times a year. 12.8% hit their children at least 7 times a week.” Whilst a smack is short-lived and temporary, the effects on the mind are ever-lasting. Smacking should be a crime because it is torturous on a child and they are maltreated of it. It will create emotional disturbances in a young and impressionable child

instead of teaching him/her the intended discipline that parents hope to instil in the minds of their child. The real truth is that instead of believing that teaching children discipline through physical means is beneficial, smacking is influencing them to believe that physical violence is the way to solve problems. Parents have a heart of blackness when they smack these young ones. It wouldn’t be difficult to understand that smacking creates trust issues and hate between the child and the parent. Surely you would agree that smacking is not a healthy way to manage your own rage. On the contrary, most would agree that without parents smacking and teaching, their juvenile and naïve children will be lost in a world of misery and suffering because of a lack of guidance. Ultimately, smacking should be a crime because it forms emotional disorders in a young child’s mind and creates poison rather than a growth of maturity and understanding.

Firstly, young and unexperienced children are influenced to believe that physical violence can solve problems. Every single parent has virtuous intentions but they are unaware of the destruction they are engendering to their child by smacking As mentioned by the Hobart Community Legal Service “a crime is an illegal act which is considered as offensive to someone else”. Smacking a child inflicts pain upon them and also because of this it is considered offensive. Therefore, this is a type of abusive and this is already frowned upon in this country. So, why shouldn’t it be a crime? Consequently, when parents smack a child to teach them self-discipline and self-control, they are truly creating savage, stone-hearted and evil people. For instance, a new book, from Murray Straus, founder and co-director of the Family Research Lab, brings together four decades of research and concludes that “the gains from spanking come at a big cost. These include … increasing the probability that the child will hit other children and their parents, and as adults, hit a dating or marital partner.” As mentioned above, spanking or smacking is impelling children to believe that they are allowed to hurt another person. Therefore, smacking is prompting youthful and naïve children to deem that it is legal to physically abuse another person which overthrows the intention of smacking.

Subsequently, smacking is a catalyst and a creator of hate and distrust between the parent and the child. When a rug rat or otherwise known as a child is continuously smacked by a parent as a means of discipline, there are increased chances of a child plotting and scheming revenge from their parent instead of focusing on their behaviour. As a result, the child’s shift toward focusing on the parent’s smack and its effect of unacceptance of inner responsibility fuels a sense of hate in a child’s mind towards their parent. As this hate continues to roam around his/her mind, the child believes that they can’t trust their parent as they are evil, malicious and cruel. For example, Darcia Narvaez, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame, says that smacking “destroys trust. Children trust their parents just a little less. Children increasingly mistrust the motives of others and become a more threat reactive. They start to hate their parents.” As said above, smacking engenders young children to lose their trust on parents and to lack internal responsibility of their own actions. Thus, parents have a choice of either smacking their children or to use other methods to teach them discipline. Alternative methods such as having a conversation or explaining consequences of misbehaviour are more beneficial than smacking as it has no mental or physical damage to a child. Thus, to diminish feelings of hatred and distrust, alternative methods of teaching discipline could be used.

Furthermore, using physical violence such as smacking is not a beneficial or a healthy way to control your anger because you are frustrated with your child.

Parents smack their children for many reasons. Sometimes, it is because they are angry, frustrated and irate of their child. This is not a healthy way to manage their anger. Parents are unaware of the damage that they are doing to their child. It is disadvantageous for both people as it is painful for the child and when the child is hurt, parents have to take them to hospital and it is frustrating. For example, as mentioned by the Act for Kids Preventing and treating child abuse and neglect, 68% of the of the parents who end up being a person who cannot control anger are parents who smack their children when they were new to parenting. As stated above, smacking is not an advantageous way to control anger and it has many harmful outcomes on the parent. Therefore, smacking is proven to be an ineffective method of controlling anger as it has numerous amounts of negative

outcomes.
On the other hand, most would agree smacking is essential for teaching acceptable behaviour to a child. When a parent doesn’t give their child punishment after behaving horribly, the child tends to deem that it is acceptable to do the specious action continuously. Imagine what would happen if they kept on behaving terribly? Smacking makes the child remember that the specific action he/she has done is wrong. However, there are billions of other ways to teach a child discipline. Alternative methods such as having a conversation or time outs are more useful than smacking as it doesn’t hurt the child, instead attributing to his/her maturity and understanding of the situation. Thus, other methods of teaching discipline are considered as more advantageous than smacking.

In essence, smacking should be a crime as it has an abundance of prejudicial effects on a child’s min and emotions. It teaches violence, creates hate and distrust. Don’t consider little children’s emotions’ as toys and smacking is not a synonym for improving behaviour.