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“I will beat you into the middle of next week!” or “I will whip you until your butt swell up!” or “If you play with fire you will get burnt by the belt!” or I will smack the daylight out of you!” These are some of the quotes my parents used on my brothers and me when we were kids.
Have you ever been spanked? We all have our own stories of how our parents disciplined us, we take them as funny stories and even joke about them. If you were born in the 70s, 80s, or 90s, you already know what I’m talking about and I bet many stories already ran over your minds just now. But as we grew up and time passed by, there has been this predicament about this method of parenting. “Parents feel mixed-up and uncomfortable about disciplining their children”.
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My parents spanked my brothers and me when we were younger. By the same token, a parent’s point of view on spanking has as an effective form of punishment that gets the point across to the child that they should not be doing the bad things that they received that punishment for. Also, most children are spanked from age two until almost ten years old. However, spanking has been known to lead to many emotional and physical illnesses. Not to mention, a spanking can be a violent punishment that should not be used to penalize children. The line between spanking and child abuse is very thin, and a parent could go too …show more content…
If you were to list all the things a parent wouldn’t want their kids to be doing, you would have a list of the harmful side effects of spanking. For instance, several studies have shown spanking and other forms of physical discipline can pose a serious risk to children. (Smith) As a matter of fact, spanking can lead to increased aggression, antisocial behavior, physical injury and mental health problems for children. Also, researchers looked at the effects on three detrimental behaviors in children who were spanked: non-compliance in the short term, non-compliance in the long term, and aggression. (Darcia Narvaez) Although it is hard completing these studies in the homes since spanking hardly ever occurred at all nor in front of strangers. Correspondingly, it was hard to study them in a lab due to the injunction against hurting
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.
(Miltenberger, 2012) Spanking a child for misbehaving, or grounding a child is an example of a punishment. The reason people do this is because the child begins to associate being punished with the negative behavior. The child will not like the punishment and will want to avoid it in the future, so the child will stop misbehaving in that manner. I would explain to the parents that there are ways that you can punish a child who has misbehaved without the use of excessive punishments.
Spanking doesn’t allow children to learn the reasons why to act appropriately. When parents use physical punishment, such as spanking, to discipline their children, they do so in order to improve their child’s behavior. According to a report composed by a lead researcher in the field of pediatrics, spanking does not teach children the reason for why they are being punished or why their behavior was wrong. Spanking teaches children to act in a desired way only because of fear of being punished. Being a victim of spanking, I only feared the idea of being spanked, and that is why I changed my behavior for the time being. I did not actually understand the reasoning for why I was being punished. Spanked children do not understand the positive and important reasons for acting properly.
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...
Growing up as children, from a very early stage in life we are taught by our parents and guardians to follow the simple rules set in the family setting as well as being respectful to everyone. As a child if one misbehaved or failed to live by the code of conduct, they ought to be disciplined in order to get back on track. Discipline simply meant to impart knowledge and skills. Many times however, discipline is mistaken for punishment and control and this poses a great challenge to parents on effective methods of instilling discipline in their children from one stage of life to the next for instance; how parents ought to discipline older children varies from the way they are required to handle toddlers.
...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.
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.
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.
"There is a great difference between spanking a child and abusing a child. One is an act of love; the other is an act of hostility" -- James Dobson, MD
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.
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.
In today’s era, there are so many things that can interfere with how a parent is able to discipline their child. Discipline is a very thin line that can be surpassed without even knowing the harm that was done. There are many different ways a child can be disciplined such as by talking to them, taking away their favorite things, not allowing them free time, time outs, and sometimes even spanking. As children, everyone has experienced some type of discipline depending on the way parents decided to raise their children. Depending on what culture children were raised in can take part on the way parents decided to discipline their children. Parents have different beliefs on how their child should be disciplined. As parents, many are faced with
Spanking has been a form of punishment used by many parents for years. Although spanking has always been controversial, spanking shouldn’t be outlawed because it is an effective way to discipline and structure children. Parents view spanking as an effective form of punishment that gets the point across to the child that they should not do the bad things that they received that punishment for. Most children are spanked from age two until almost ten years old. However, many studies have shown that spanking has led to many emotional and physical problems.
When I was a child, I could not remember a time when my parents spanked me. I asked my mom how she and my dad disciplined my three brothers and I, and she said she never spanked us. When we got into trouble we were sent to our room, and had privileges taken away. My mom also said that she can remember spanking my younger brother once, but left a bruise on his bottom, and she felt so bad that she never did it again.
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