Parents Should Abolish Corporal Punishment as a Way to Discipline Children Essay

Managing a child's behavior and handling them in a way that would churn out responsible adult from a child is one of the most challenging task a parent can have. The essence of punishing a child is to correct their behavior by eliminating the undesirable traits and instilling discipline. The parental love for their children often presents them with a dilemma on how best to handle their desire to correct a child's malady with love and respect. There is an argument as to whether it is proper for parents to use the means of dialogue or corporal punishment as a way to rectify the behavior of a child. Corporal punishment is both punitive and an unproductive way that should be utterly discouraged as a method of enforcing discipline in children.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Corporal punishment constitutes infliction of pain on the body of the child as a way of inculcating behavioral reforms on the child. The parent hits the child with good intentions hoping that the child would interpret the essence of the punishment with a rational approach. The hitting objects entail the use of light objects like canes, belts, pipes, hands and so forth. The problem with this approach is that a child is exposed and attuned to the subliminal message that violence and infliction of pain on the other is the most effective way of dealing with people to get rid of behaviors they do not like (Nijhara 405). What therefore is the implication? A child grows with suppressed violence and rage, possibly turning into a serial assaulter to deal with friends and people they disagree with. This phenomenon is one of the causes of teenage violence among young people.

Whenever a parent expresses unchecked rage in front of a child, they are creating an atmosphere of extreme fear on the child. Most parents are not literate on the psychological underpinnings of the emotions they exhibit in the presence of children in their formative stages (Long 8). A child is gradually exposed to the raw emotions of the adults who speak and mention things they should censor. This is subsequently followed by, most times, excessive force in the process of disciplining the child. Anxiety, fear, and stress are the resultant psychological effects of corporal punishment. The child grows up feeling unloved and in the presence of people who are hostile to them always. The effect of fear makes the child suppress a rebellion that would be unveiled later as a character when the parent is unable to contribute to behavioral change in the life of the child. The severity of childhood anxiety is a disorder with residual effects that remain to torment the child for the rest of their life unless there is a psychological intervention to that effect.

The concerted efforts of the policy-makers to have corporal punishment abolished has succeeded in over 30 nations globally. These nations have ultimately banned corporal punishment both at home and in school. The argument against the legislative decree to initiate a softer and more result-oriented methods of instilling discipline in children is that a child does not have the capacity to understand the language of diplomacy, and if the form of reinforcement adopted does not spell unpleasant stimulus against poor behavior, then the delinquency will guide the path of their behavioral foundation (Bassam et al. 13). This argument is not sustainable because research shows that children who have grown in the environment where corporal punishment is banned are more disciplined than their contemporaries in nations that uphold the system of punishment. The children who are not exposed to harsh corporal punishment equally mature faster and are more sociable since all they have are good memories of school and home.

Another argument parents and teacher have used to sanitize the incorporation of corporal punishment is the attribution of their success to the harsh conditions of their childhood environment that was equally characterized by corporal punishment at the slightest instances of provocation. Most parents feel that there was fear of breaking the rules and conformity to the norms was easily achieved (Bassam et al. 14) What this cohort of parents are not honest enough to share with the current generation is that during their past times, they generally had little or no knowledge on the benefits of school and the importance of law and order; things that children of today easily understand from a very young age.

The study conducted in England in 2008 by the statistical analyst Elizabeth Gershoff sought to establish the relationship between the use of physical punishment as a method of enhancing discipline in kids at a young age and future crime propensity of these children and the results were appalling. It was found that around 47% of the people who had long term jail sentences and were serial offenders of the law had grown up under strict parents who always resorted to spanking and flogging for the offenses the child committed (Gershoff 322). These people then grew up feeling that punishment is a normal thing and they did not understand the essence of being on the right side of the law.

Conclusion

Every parent wants the best for their child, and each parent is trying to work on modeling the character of their young ones. It is therefore important that parents understand those wrong ways of doing something derails the success even if the intentions are very genuine. The use of corporal punishment, just like the use of capital punishment is outdated and counterproductive in creating a conducive environment to foster behavioral change.

Works Cited

Bassam, Eid, et al. "Corporal punishment of children: discipline or abuse?." Libyan Journal of Medicine 13.1 (2018): 1485456.

Gershoff, Elizabeth T. "Corporal punishment associated with dating violence." The Journal of Pediatrics 198 (2018): 322-325.

Long, Sarah S. "Negative consequences of corporal punishment of children are unequivocal." The Journal of Pediatrics 194 (2018): 1.

Nijhara, Kushagra, Snigdha Bhatia, and B. Unnikrishnan. "Corporal Punishment in Children and its Implications on Mental Health." The Indian Journal of Pediatrics 85.5 (2018): 405-405.