Corporal Punishment By Susan Perry: A Meta-Analysis

A recent study shows 70 percent of parents believe it is right to discipline a child through physical means. Most commonly, parents will spank their children but being hit with things like belts or other objects happens as well. Parenting methods haven’t changed much with time and discipline in similar no matter the country. With more studies out to find the most effective method of parenting and discipline it’s coming to attention whether or not physical harm is the best way to teach children. Parents want what is best for their children, so it is important to constantly bring up and question methods commonly accepted in the past. One method that is becoming more controversial is spanking children. Though it is still considered normal to do, it is gaining more traction and more studies are being done to find the problems it causes. Checking on parenting methods can be difficult as everyone is raised differently. It is also difficult to test which forms of punishment lead to certain outcomes. However, there is a trend of negative effects from hitting. Gershoff acknowledges, “several national professional organizations have called on parents to abandon spanking as a child rearing practice and for professionals to recommend disciplinary alternatives to spanking.” Spanking children is a terrible discipline method as it has negative effects.

Everyday parents are faced with the challenges of disciplining their children. We all wish there was an instruction booklet that we could magical pull out and get them back on the right path, but no such thing exists. Often times, your child pushes you to the edge of your personal limitations. At this moment it is often we correct our child’s behavior by spanking. Spanking is considered a form of discipline that is acceptable by most and an unacceptable to a smaller crowd. Spanking can lead to psychological problems in early adolescent, which long term can lead to emotional and anger retention.

1. (Tell the Story of my friend and his son rough housing) 2. Spanking children is an act where the parent and/or governing figure in the child’s immediate circle slap the child, mainly on the buttocks as a punishment. This is very harmful to the physiological and neurological development of children. 3.

While this review of literature on spanking children is limited in finding evidence in supporting spanking, the research available that opposes spanking is rather compelling. The findings from the reviewed articles provide advice to parents, both new and long-time, on how to discipline their children if they want their children to have the best outcomes. The studies that have been reviewed are only a small amount of what has been published regarding the negative impacts that spanking can have on children. Additionally, this research may be a start for a move in society to begin viewing spanking as a negative child-rearing practice. While there is a lot more research that could be reviewed on this topic, high levels of aggression, behavioral problems, and

They claim that spanking only teaches the child to fear their parents instead of respecting them. It can be dangerous because children will grow up thinking it's okay to hit other people to get their way, which is what parents do. Spanking can lead to violent behaviors later in their lives. "Corporal punishment is of limited effectiveness and has potentially deleterious side effects," American Academy of Pediatrics has said in a policy statement. In a 2002 study, published in the Psychology Bulletin, said that even though corporal punishment can make a child obey their parents in the short run, it can also be the link to long-term problems such as mental disorders and behavioral

I. Attention Getter: There have many opinions on how to discipline a child. One of the biggest disagreement is spanking children with some believing in it and other against it. Bennett (2015) says that even though the percent of people against spank have growth it still estimated that 70 to 90 percent of parents in the U.S. spank their children. II. Thesis: Spanking children as a punishment will not have bad effects on a children development.

It had to control non-spanking related factors that might affect the children’s outcomes. And, lastly, it had to have findings with statistical strength. (Perry). Making sure each criteria eliminates the past doubt many had with other meta-analysis studies on spanking. After leading the study, Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor verified that spanking has many negative effects. Such as children who have been spanked in their childhood were more likely to support physical punishment. (Holeman and Wire). Also, this study displayed a positive correlation, meaning if there is an increase in the amount of spanking then there will be an increase in the child’s likelihood of anti-social behavior, mental health issues, and aggression (Holeman and Wire). The study even indicates, spanking will only discipline the child’s behavior for a small amount of time. Gershoff observed that, when there is a “long-term” behavior acquired by the child, the behavior disappears once the physical threat has left, then the child will go back to their old behaviors (Narvaez). Another conclusion from the study was if the parent spanked their kids then the parents have a higher chance of physically abusing their children. This recent study is very beneficial to help parents understand the consequences of spanking. “We as society think of spanking and physical abuse as distinct behavior. Yet our research shows that spanking is linked with the

Most parents want to raise their kids to be well disciplined. This can prove to be a challenging task, depending on the temperament of the child or children that they are raising. Therefore, spanking, a form of corporal punishment, becomes a parent’s way of disciplining their child. Today, the practice of spanking is not as widely accepted as it was in the past. The big question is whether or not this change in social norms is more or less effective in the lives of children?

Spanking hurts children psychologically because it puts them at a greater risk for psychological disorders. Anxiety and depression are prevalent in spanked children (Oppenheimer, 2011). In a study of one-hundred-seventeen children, one-hundred-ten demonstrated evidence of developing a mental disorder (Straus, 2011). Besides causing harmful mental side-effects, spanking is linked to lower empathy levels and domestic violence (Straus, 2011). If a child does not see love from his/her parents, then a child does not know how to show love or understanding.

Many harmful behaviors and outcomes have been associated with the use of corporal punishment. These include great depression, anger and suicidal thoughts for children who are more frequent recipients of corporal punishment, As well as, poorer school performance and more anti-social behavior on the part of these repeatedly punished young people. Also they are more likely to abuse and neglect their own children and spouses when they grow up. It interferes with the learning process as well as emotional development. In fact it Promote negative expectations and

Many studies have come out with negative effects that can come about from using many forms of corporal punishment. As parents we need to ask ourselves are we able to control ourselves when we are upset at our kids? Are we able to be fair to our kids? Can the things we do to our children come back and turn out to be used against us and others? “Corporal punishment

The world has changed in many different ways, but there are still things that need to be changed for the better. Corporal punishment is one of those things. All around the world, corporal punishment is affecting children in many ways. It is described as a form of discipline that hurts a child in a way and is used both in homes and schools. It has been going on for years upon years and very few people try to stop it. People believe corporal punishment is good for children, but there have been so many negative outcomes that other people argue against it. Although some people believe that corporal punishment helps improve a child’s behavior, corporal punishment should not be used because it could be used excessively and it is ineffective.

There have also been dissenting views regarding the use of corporal punishment; some scientists hold the view that there is no correlation between spanking and delinquent behavior among children; they assert that delinquency comes about when there is excessive abuse by parents, but when punishment is meted in moderation, there is no impact on the child’s psychological growth. A Canadian study showed that children who were spanked by their parents also were most likely to have been assaulted by the said parents, either through kicking or punching as compared to their counterparts who were never spanked. An American study also indicated that infants spanked by their parents were more likely to end up with injuries, “infants in their first year of life who had been spanked by their parents in the previous month were 2.3 times more likely to suffer an injury requiring medical attention than infants who had not been spanked” (Durrant and Ron).

In the article Corporal Punishment by Parents and Associated Child Behaviors and Experiences: A Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review, Elizabeth T. Gershoff discusses corporal punishment and the effects it has in children. There are only a few positive effects of corporal punishment which include immediate compliance, prevention of future misbehavior, and moral internalization. Corporal punishment is often seen as ineffective and as having negative results in children’s development including developing of aggressive behaviors, harming parent-child relationships, and damaging mental health. Mediational processes are inevitable consequences of corporal punishment when administered to children; a few of them include emotional and sensory arousal, perception and acceptance of disciplinary message, and observational learning and social control. The effects of corporal punishment on moral development, according to Gershoff's article, are concerning due to the negative effects it brings forth.

The authors also identify the known effects of spanking on childhood outcomes. They noted that most of the literature has been concerned with aggressive child outcomes, such as increased child stress reactivity (Bugenthal, Martorell, and Barraza, 2003). They also noted that studies are emerging on the connection between spanking and child cognitive outcomes. (Gershoff, 2010). They criticize these emerging works as suffering from a lack of "…adequate controls for the predictors of spanking, risk factors which themselves could be