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Should Children Be Allowed To Spank Children

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The stresses of parenting are often times hard and relentless. With this in mind, many parents try their best to deal with those stresses and make the best of raising their children. This often-times requires disciplining, in order to end and/or curb bad behavior. Corporal punishment is one of these forms of discipline. According to Merriam Webster Dictionary, corporal punishment is “punishment inflicted on a person's body” ("Corporal Punishment"). The most common form of corporal punishment is spanking which is often used to deal with child rearing or bad behavior (Knox and Brouwer 341-342). According to American Academy of Pediatrics, upwards of 90% of Americans spank their children infrequently (American Academy of Pediatrics 725). Furthermore, …show more content…

In fact, most clinical child physiologists do not believe in spanking and would never recommend it (Larzelere "Child Outcomes of Nonabusive…” 199). For this reason, many people have been looking for alternatives to spanking their children. Surveys show that a large number of parents spank their children in the heat of the moment and generally regret it afterwards (Meltz). This seems to be a reoccurring theme as 54% of mothers said that spanking was the wrong thing to do in at least half the times they used it (American Academy of Pediatrics 728). While 85% of parents say that they would rather not spank if they had an effective alternative (American Academy of Pediatrics 728). Recently, new ways of controlling children’s behavior have come to light and are now becoming more popular. A survey done in 2015 by Pew Research Center showed that %53 of parents claim that they have never spanked any of their children (Pew Research Center). So, with the data presented it is safe to say that there are other effective methods of controlling children without or limited use of corporal punishment. One of these methods has been well researched and seems to produce positive and/or neutral results is reasoning with the …show more content…

According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, reasoning is “the ability of the mind to think and understand things in a logical way” ("Reasoning"). So, the goal is to get the child to understand or at least think about what he/she has done wrong. Sometimes, parents will raise their voice at their kids. In fact, most parents will yell at their child at some point (Morris). This is very ineffective when trying to reason with a child as tends to just shut them down (Arky). Furthermore, yelling has also been associated with lower self-esteem in children (Arky). One way to reason with a child effectively, without yelling, is to use a firm tone (Ramchandani). This lets the child understand he/she has done something wrong, but does not scare or shut him/her

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