The experience of being a parent
can be one of the most beautiful experiences in one’s life. While this is true,
many parents will also agree that it can be one of the most challenging
experiences of one’s life. As a parent, one has to play many roles and fulfill
many duties and responsibilities. One of the responsibilities that rests on the
shoulders of the parents is that of guiding, teaching, and disciplining their
children. Most people can agree that the majority of parents love their
children very dearly and want what is best for them. However, parents do not
always end up doing what is best for their children. This is an issue we often
see regarding how parents discipline their children. While some parents try to
use more positive disciplining methods, others often resort to more negative
methods such as corporal punishment.
Corporal punishment, defined as “an
act carried out with the intention of causing a child to experience physical
pain, but not injury, for purposes of correction or control” is one of the most
controversial issues regarding parenting today (Straus, M.A., & Paschall,
M.J., 2009 p. 459). Despite the warnings by the American Association of
Pediatrics against this practice, the United States still allows parents to
spank their children. Although information about the effects of corporal
punishment on children’s development has become much more accessible, there are
still many parents who employ this method of disciplining their children.
Recently, many research studies have been done to determine the effects of
corporal punishment by the parent on the child’s development. This way of
discipline has been repeatedly associated with a slew of negative effects on children
through several research studies. Despite this, however, corporal punishment
continues to be experienced by many children in the United States today
(MacKenzie, Nicklas, Waldfogel, & Brooks-Gunn, 2013). According to
MacKenzie, et al. (2013), 57% of mothers and 40% of fathers used spanking to
discipline their 3 year old children and 52% of mothers and 33% of fathers used
spanking to discipline their 5 year old children. According to Knox and Schacht
(2016), children that are raised in a home where they are corporally punished
are more likely to have distant relationships with their parents. Based on the
current research, it is not recommended that parents use corporal punishment as
a discipline method as it has been repeatedly associated with negative effects
on behavioral and cognitive development in children including increased
externalizing behavior such as aggression and anxiety, as well as decreased
receptive vocabulary.
Below is a video about the negative
effects of corporal punishment:
Although it has been shown that
that immediate compliance with the parent’s request is often associated with
corporal punishment, this is the only desirable outcome that is associated with
it (Lansford, et al., 2014). While many parents may engage in this disciplining
behavior to achieve immediate compliance, this is not recommended by professionals
as there are many negative effects associated with it as previously noted. At
every age, children go through a unique developmental stage that has its own
needs and challenges. It is recommended that parents understand what the child
is going through developmentally as well as how they should go about
disciplining them from a child development perspective. This way, children can
be provided with the guidance they need in a way that is developmentally
appropriate for them. Although many
parents may assume that corporal punishment is the only way to discipline
children and get them to comply with what they want, there are in fact various
other ways to discipline children that are more effective as well as supportive
to the children’s development. One of these methods is called positive
discipline. Positive discipline is a disciplinary approach that adopts a “cooperative
relationship orientation” and encourages parents to teach children how to be
responsible and respectful through positive means rather than through
punishment (Holden, 2015). One example of this is allowing the child to
experience the natural and logical consequences to their actions within reason.
This allows the child to learn from the experience and understand why the
action is not acceptable (Telep, 2009).
Below is a video as well as a
helpful website about using positive discipline to discipline your children;
https://www.positivediscipline.com/
Works Cited
Holden, G. W. (2015). Parenting: A
dynamic perspective (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Knox, D., & Schacht, C.
(2016). Choices in Relationships: An Introduction to Marriage and the Family
(12th Edition). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Lansford, J. E., Sharma, C.,
Malone, P. S., Woodlief, D., Dodge, K. A., Oburu, P., & ... Di Giunta, L.
(2014). Corporal punishment, maternal warmth, and child adjustment: A
longitudinal study in eight countries. Journal Of Clinical Child And Adolescent
Psychology, 43(4), 670-685. doi:10.1080/15374416.2014.893518
MacKenzie, M. J., Nicklas, E.,
Waldfogel, J., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2013). Spanking and child development
across the first decade of life. Pediatrics, 132(5), e1118-e1125.
doi:10.1542/peds.2013-1227
Straus, M. A., & Paschall, M.
J. (2009). Corporal punishment by mothers and development of children's
cognitive ability: A longitudinal study of two nationally representative age
cohorts. Journal Of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 18(5), 459-483.
doi:10.1080/10926770903035168
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