Parental Discipline And Child Abuse

Children do not come with guidelines or instructions. What they do come with is a crucial set of physical and emotional needs that need to be met. To raise children properly, parents duties are not limited to just food, shelter and protection. Parents are largely responsible for their children’s success in life. Parents are required to teach and educate children. They have to shape knowledge and character into their children to prepare them to face the real world. To be successful with this, parents must provide self esteem needs, teach moral and values and provide discipline that is both effective and appropriate. As the generations have changed, many parenting styles have evolved, as well.

Do you know the difference between child abuse and discipline? Child Abuse is when someone physically and mentally hurts another person. Discipline is teaching someone or something to do the right thing. Child Abuse is very common in the United States. Many children suffer from bruising, swelling skin, and broken bones. Situations like this happen because of problems at home or personal problems. Parents at home abuse their children because of drinking and depression issues. In this crazy world, there are numerous types of abuses. There is sexual abuse, physical abuse, neglect, and emotional or psychological abuse. Sexual abuse is an intentional incident that involves sexual relationship to a child using all their power and taking advantage of them. According to Family & Community Services, Physical abuse is a nonstop injury that happens more than one time. Neglect is a type of abuse you just don’t care or pay no attention to your child. Emotional or psychological harm is when you make your children think something that isn’t true. Discipline children usually do the things their parents or guardian tell them what to do because they teach them to pay attention and be polite.

Parents are afraid that if they don’t give their children harsh discipline they will grow to become incompetent members of society. This is a valid concern; no caregiver would ever want to see their child fail. Parents are also imperfect, they become frustrated and tired. Sometimes corporal punishment can be easier to dole out instead of a more productive strategy. What mostly keeps the cycle of corporal punishment going is the “My parents hit me and I turned out just fine” argument. If violent punishment is all someone has ever known, it’s understandable that they would turn to that form of discipline in adulthood. When looking at corporal punishment in this context, it seems entirely justified; however, this would be ignoring a multitude of data that describes the ill-effects

As the child gets older i.e. around two years old the relationship as parents begins to change they start educating their children through discipline etc. When setting boundaries for discipline rules are implemented. The rules provide children with the freedom to express themselves within certain boundaries enabling them to learn and develop effectively.

Ponder this; you are a parent with only a seven year old child. Your child continues to perform an act that you told them to stop doing, because they have already done it three times before. You have had enough and decided to discipline your child in a way different from a stern discussion. You decide to spank your child. Would you consider the spanking a form of child discipline, or would you consider it child abuse? Are you expecting your child to learn from this disciplinary action, or are you spanking your child because you enjoy knowing that you are in control and that you quite possibly may be injuring your child?

Parenting is a very delicate and difficult task that has been around ever since the beginning of time. Although many forms of parenting exist, some seem to work better when compared to others. A very well known and somewhat shunned upon part of parenting is discipline. Defined as control gained by enforcing obedience or order, discipline is present in many different ways. From an occasional physical form or domineering-like acts of punishment.

Most parents subconsciously use the same disciplinary actions that were used on them growing up. There is a ton of variety concerning ways of disciplining your children. These include, but aren’t limited to; spanking, creating consequences, withholding privileges, and time outs. However, experts don’t recommend using spanking as a disciplinary measure, as it causes anger, antagonism, amps up aggression, and makes the child feel devalued, as well as being ineffective in the long run. Spanking is also known to cause antisocial behavior. It is especially ineffective with toddlers and babies because they are unable to make the connection between their bad behavior and physical punishment.

The laws in the states back this theory by allowing the use of reasonable physical punishment that does not include a deliberate act to harm or injury children. (p. 1) The vague definitions of these state laws the failure to define the limits between discipline and abuse have led to inconsistent decisions in the judicial system across the country. Carlson, (2009) reported that although physical punishment may stop a misbehavior on the spot some of the times; the effects of continued physical punishment can lead to aggression and teach children continued abuse as they visualize the idea that power comes from a large individual forcing a smaller individual to do something regardless of what they are thinking. (p.2) The moment a parent physically disciplines children the stress may be released for that moment but that act of punishment escalates without the parent noticing. Soon, law enforcement officers at knocking on the door and another otherwise great parent is headed to jail or worse, does not get reported and gets to do it all over again next

Firstly, child abuse is unfair making it not an effective way to discipline. The bad act done by the child needs to have an equal discipline. For example if the child acts up in an store the equal punishment would be being sent to his/her room. In

My prior understanding of discipline was uneducated and inaccurate. I was certain that discipline was related to punishment and the goal was to have a particular unwanted behavior to cease. A child that required discipline would be singled out, scolded, forced to perform a chore or action, such as sit for a time out, or the child would have something taken away, such as television or toys. As a child, I grew up in a household with parents who were primarily authoritative. They tended to be fair; however they did use punishment through "grounding", which generally meant that we were not able to engage in fun for set period of time. Other times, we were instructed to perform some sort of labor of their choice, such as washing my Dad's

An adult who practices punishment, controls a child externally. This communicates to a child that they are not able to control themselves, thus have no responsibility for their actions. Also, it can create in the child’s mind, the idea that they can commit a behavior so long as they do not get caught or are willing to accept the consequences. Behavior that is modified with punishment does not evolve from the understanding of what is expected in a society, but rather from fear. Since no understanding was obtained this will not

Many people today are getting arrested for simply disciplining a child. But, in older times disciplining a child set good moral standards and taught that child on what that child was supposed to do and what not to do. There is a fine line between abuse and discipline. So what is child abuse? Child abuse consists of any act of commission or omission that endangers or impairs a child’s physical or emotional health and development. Child abuse includes any damage done to a child which cannot be reasonably explained and which is often represented by an injury or series of injuries appearing to be non-accidental in nature. There are also different kinds of child abuse; which include physical, emotional, and sexual. But, discipline does not

Discipline is one of the basic things a child learns from his parents before he or she faces the outside world to learn more about life as a whole. Teaching this trait can depend on how the parent shows it to their child and how they explain the importance of having this trait both in and out of their homes. Misbehaving children cannot be avoided as they are curious little beings and they have a tendency to explore. But there are some parents, even teachers, who do not tolerate misbehaving and they resort to corporal punishments such as spanking to make sure the child never forgets how painful it is to misbehave as they will remember the punishment entailed to it and become more disciplined. However, not all children would understand the

Children are like flowers, if well taken care of they will bloom. If ignored or tortured, they will wither and die. Child discipline is one of the most important elements of successful parenting. Today, many people have this notion that physical abuse is in no way a solution to helping children discern between right and wrong. Since generations children have been taught the art of discipline through physical punishment. Often this approach to disciplining has resulted in two outcomes, one is where the child becomes more tolerant and is willing to adhere to what he/she has been told, or the other which more often results in children developing a sense of anguish and desire to revolt.

Parents should be learned about how their form of discipline affects their child because punishment does not have a sense of discipline as the only outcome. Sometimes children are less responsive to a certain form of discipline than others. It cannot be helped that a child is unique and different from others. The child is also a factor in terms of discipline and punishment it is not solely dependent on his/her parent and the way they discipline.