Roberto Cardona
Carlton Downey
ENGL 1302
5 June 2015
The Negative Effects of Spanking on Children Disciplining children is every parent’s job, but should punishment include spanking? Some parents believe that spanking young children is a form of abuse towards them, while other parents believe it is a good form of discipline because they feel like it is effective. Even though spanking a child is a form of discipline that has been used by many parents for centuries; in many cases, it can get out of control and hurt a child. Therefore, spanking a child is wrong because it creates fear towards their parents, it can be cruel, and it can affect long-term behavior. Disciplining a kid without spanking can lead to a better education and a healthy way of raising a child.
Most parents spank their children as a way of disciplining them, but many parents do not realize that it can cause their children to fear them. Corporal punishment can lead children to not feel safe at their home, which can increase the chances of sons and daughters to leave home at an early age and reject their parent’s values. Parents are responsible for educating their children, they are the first teachers in a person’s life. Meanwhile, spanking is teaching children to fear parents and not listen or respect them and it is essential for parents to teach their children to respect others. If parents excessively punish their children by spanking them, it can lead to a point where the child will feel humiliated and resentful. According to the researcher Elizabeth Gershoff, PhD, she claims that spanking children has no positive outcomes. How can that be possible? When parents realize that spanking a child is not working due to the continued unwanted behavior, they increase the violence. It does not change anything Gershoff notes that children does not learn discipline lessons from corporal punishment, there will be most likely that instead of fear their parents can lead to develop aggression. Another problem due to spanking is that is inhumane to hit children who cannot defend themselves. Corporal punishment is an immoral way of disciplining young kids because it is a form of abuse towards a child. Spanking demonstrates to children that it is right for adults to hit young kids. Parents can send the wrong message and it can actually confuse the child when a parent is trying to discipline them by hitting. If a child is raised in an environment where everything is solved with violence, the child will grow up believing that it is right for older people to hit younger people. According to Aletha Solter “Corporal punishment is emotionally and physically painful. Children who are exposed to frequent painful experiences are more likely to crave pleasurable experiences such as sex and drugs.” Children who were spanked during their childhood will mostly have many long-term effects when they grow older. For example, repeated spanking can lead to an increase in aggressive behavior toward parents and other people when they reach school age. It can also affect children to later emotional problems such as “suffering from anxiety, depression, and substance abuse as adults” (Solter).