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The Pros And Cons Of Child Rearing

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One of the most heavily debated aspects of abuse when it comes to child-rearing is defining what abuse is relative to the cultural traditions of a society. More particularly, these cultural-specific patterns of child-rearing have been one of the most controversial topics in terms of child abuse because what might seem as abusive for some cultures might not exactly be seen as such in another (Bornstein, 1991). A good example of this type of duality would be the difference between Western and Eastern Standards of child rearing and control. In the United States, spanking and badmouthing is considered to be abusive in the sense that policies have even been established to mitigate these behaviors from the parents. However, in countries like the Philippines, Vietnam, and China, among others, spanking and use of bad words are considered to be normal as long as it is within acceptable limits (e.g. not inflicting grave injuries and permanent marks). Nevertheless, contrary to what the western perspective thinks about the use of intense physical and verbal means of rearing the child, children in the East are not exactly those how would experience psychological abuse or other types of emotional repercussions, because in the first place they know exactly what the is the purpose of acts like this. Now, this poses the question, if child rearing is relative, what would be considered as abusive and not, especially in terms of the verbal and psychological aspects of it. According to Pingleton

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