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Spank Children Research Paper

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Since the birth of the nation, Americans have debated about the topic of spanking children for discipline. Parent’s waver back and forth for a while it is okay and expected that they will discipline the children by using corporal punishment. Then over the years everything changes and now it’s no longer acceptable. It will be the center of many heated debates and will continue to be so as long as we have parents and as long as they raise children. In the long run parent’s will find out if spanking turned out to be a strength or a weakness but for the immediate future, it’s something America needs to go back to using for guidance purposes. Spanking when used as a form of discipline and not abuse is an effective tool. The use of spanking has …show more content…

Even the churches can’t agree on the biblical interpretation. A Church of God congregation in Aylmer, ON are composed of mainly German-speaking Mennonites from Mexico. They believe that the Bible requires that when they spank their children, they must strike them with an object, typically a wooden stick or a leather belt. Their belief is that they are forbidden to spank their children with their hand, because the hand is considered an instrument of love, guidance and comfort. Whereas The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Mormon Church are conservative Christian group which discourages …show more content…

Corporal punishment is defined as the deliberate infliction of pain as retribution for an offense, or for the purpose of disciplining or reforming a wrongdoer, or to deter attitudes or behavior deemed unacceptable (Wikipedia 2014). The line between spanking and abuse is not always clear and is decided on a case by case basis by the state prosecutors and judges and whether the line has been crossed. If asked parents use the word spanking as not just a slap on the buttocks, but a form of corporal punishment that is not severe enough to be classified as abuse. Corporal punishment has been repeatedly associated with child abuse, moral internalization, aggression, delinquent and antisocial behavior, decreased quality of the parent-child relationship, increased behavioral symptoms, later criminal behavior, worse mental health, and perpetration of spouse and child abuse (Gershoff, 2002; Zolotor et al., 2008). In the long run the psychological effects of spanking can become damaging to a child. A study given by the conducted by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Maryland show that when an IQ test was given to children that received spanking the test showed they score less compared to the children that didn’t receive spankings. "What we are teaching a child when we spank her is that hitting is the solution when something doesn't go her way," explains Marilyn Benoit, M.D., president of the American Academy of Child

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