Should Corporal Punishment Be Allowed To Spank Children

The diversity in ethnicities and cultures throughout the world is extreme. These cultures come with different visions in disciplinary action whether it seems logical or not in other points of views. The world has different perspectives and different people to back up their reasons behind the actions taken. The main controversy that has been taken on for years in several parts of the world is the debate of whether or not spanking, as a disciplinary action for children when they are misbehaving. As expressed in these three articles: “Today’s Child Abuse Creates Tomorrow’s Criminals” by Chandre Gould, “The Overwhelming Evidence Against Spanking” by Meghan Leahy, and “Disciplinary Spanking is Not Child Abuse” by Okey, Chigbo; there are severa pros and cons to an action such as spanking. This specific disciplinary action can affect the life of a human being for either a short term and long term effect.

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.

Have you ever been spanked as a kid and felt angry towards your parents? Did you feel they just hated you? Spanking is a form of corporal punishment which is a punishment intended to cause pain in many different ways. Corporal punishment started in slavery and led to schools and homes. Although many states have banned corporal punishment it is still allowed in 19 out of 50 states. Many adults will agree children just need a ‘good ol’e spanking’ and others will argue that it is a negative way to parent and causes more problems. Spanking children is not a proper way of parenting because it gives a negative effect on children.

     There has been a shift of late from a more liberal mindset, to a more conservative one. With that change I have noticed a pattern. More and more parents I converse with are pro spanking, even going as far to brag about it. It is not uncommon to hear people talking about how their parents beat them when they were children, and how they believe they turned out better for it. But there are numerous other accounts of how people were scarred emotionally, and physically from such abuse. I have too many times seen parents beating their children at stores, parks, and other very public places. This creates a cycle. Children who are spanked turn into parents who spank. Spanking usually starts out as a light swat, but over time can turn into much more. Studies show that the longer a person uses this practice, the more severe it gets over time. Children can be extremely frustrating, and that frustration can lead a parent to overdo any type of discipline.

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

Should a parent have the choice to choose what is best for their child or should somebody else decide what is best. Like what if you child did something like breaking a something in your home. Who should decide what kind of punishment the child gets, you or the law. This is something that many parents are arguing not only here in the States but all around this world. The problem is with corporal punishment if it should be allowed or banned. What this is meaning is should the parent have the right to lets say spank their child when the child has done something wrong or give the power to the government to choose what you do to your child. There are many parents who believe that a child should have a voice in what happens to them. This may be

About 90 percent of parents admit to spanking their children (Ogilvie 1). Studies were conducted that showed the more parents spanked their children, the more likely the children would hit their parents. Spanking is traumatic for children, imagine someone three times your size began hitting you with all out rage. In most cases spanking is not done correctly, parents often display spanking as out of frustration, not concern. Ogilvie stated that, “In a study I published in the Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review in 2005, I found that when used correctly, spanking leads to lower defiance and lower aggression than 10 or 13 other disciplinary alternatives with which it has been compared.”

Parents have been finding new ways to discipline their children for decades, but one form of child rearing has endured through out the years as the go to punishment, spanking. Although spanking children has been around for a long time, it is a form of abuse used to punish bad behavior in children, the term spanking dissociates hitting kids and abusing them. Spanking children is extremely popular in the United States with almost all parents participating in this cruel behavior. Giles-sims, a Professor of Family Sociology at Texas Christian University quotes a study that says, “99% of parents had spanked 5-year-old children at least once” (Giles-sims, 170). The reason spanking is so common is because there is a lot of misinformation about how spanking effects kids. Parents do not know what spanking will do to the psychology of the child or the relationship they have with their children. For that reason, Parents should not discipline their children through spanking because spanking can have adverse effects on children’s relationship with parents and other children.

Many parents tend to spank their own children. While spanking your children out of anger for what they did wrong, will it teach them a lesson? Alternatively, make things worst? Spanking is to teach younger children or teenagers to be better and not to choose to wrong decision again. About 94% of kids or teens around the world been hit at least once a year. Many excuses are from lacking education. Spanking causes pain and bruises, it would lead children to the worst thoughts. Should parents use force with their kids? At least it stops them from doing what you hate right. A little humiliating would not hurt, it will make child’s look back before doing the wrong decisions again. I believe parents should not spank their child either way. Children have a mind that can come to think violently or become in fear of how much pain their in. Using force on a child can injure child’s development and wrap up their feelings or understanding of how to interact with others.

When the choice is made to use spanking as a disciplinary method, children are often left with more negative psychological results than parents intend. Parental behavior is the supposed to be an example to children of what love looks

Do you think that a child should be spanked? Yes, in some situations I think that a spanking on the bottom is necessary. I wasn't spanked much as a child, maybe three times, but all three spanking were to teach me a lesson about the dangers that I had put myself in. One day at 7 years old I got off of the bus and instead of going home I went home with one of my friends instead and did not go home. For hours my mother looked for me, and when she finally found me I received a scolding and a spanking.

Spanking children is a very controversial topic; there are people who agree with spanking and there are those who disagree. Everyone’s decision varies based on if they were spank or not spanked as children. After taking several courses in child development it is my belief that physical punishment actually alters the brain, it can traumatize a child, as well as have a decrease of gray matter in certain areas of the prefrontal cortex that have been linked to depression, addiction and other mental disorders. Which could be a leading cause for children growing up with higher risk of commenting a crime. Some may say there is no damage left on children and it can alter unwanted behavior affectedly. Regardless of the reason for what people stand behind when it comes to spanking, it is my belief every individual reacts different to being spanked. There are many elements that affect if the outcome is positive or negative. Spanking should only occur if a child is mentally capacity to understand it is a form or correcting unwanted behavior; followed by a firm lecture as to why the child got spanked. A child should know why they were spanked, furthermore, a parents’ goal should be to not resort to spanking. As a child, I was not spanked, nevertheless, I knew my parents could spank me; from witness childhood friends get spanked. The beliefs and values of American’s are that no one deserves corporal punishment, however, corporal punishment is practice in homes on children, corporal

Spanking, also known as corporal punishment is a highly controversial method of discipline that parents currently use in an attempt to modify their children’s misbehavior. This type of punishment is not known to uplift the essence of education in children, and many parents and researchers feel that spanking leads to developmental problems. Research studies show how spanking produces a negative effect in children, and parents and caregivers should reconsider the use of corporal punishment as a form of discipline for their children because of its harmful effects. In addition, there are other, better alternatives that can be used to discipline children.

The research on disciplinary spanking is misleading. There are three major criticisms of the research against spanking. The first is correlational which does not prove causation. All of the evidence against spanking has been based on correlations. Most of Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor’s evidence is based on “cross-sectional” correlations. These correlations only consider data collected during one time period without considering the previous state of the research participants. This kind of correlation technique superficially makes spanking appear to cause aggression since the children spanked more often are the children who were more aggressive during the same time period. This is a problem for research on spanking because there is no way to tell what came first in cross-correlational research so there is no way to tell what affects what. Even if infrequent spanking is correlated with better outcomes than overly frequent spanking, that does not prove that zero spanking is best. Every child is different. There is not a certain amount of times a child can be spanked in order for them to change behavior. Only 4 of their 75 studies were limited to two open-handed swats to the buttocks for child defiance. The other 71 studies lumped together all “spanking” regardless of how it was implemented and why it was used. Not all spanking is the same, some is stronger

The term corporal punishment means the intentional infliction of pain on the body for purposes of punishment. "Spanking can be defined as the use of physical force aimed at causing children to experience pain but not injury, for the purposes of correction and control of youthful behavior"(http://www.123helpme.com/preview.asp?id=32539). Spanking is a controversial topic and should not be taken lightly.