Is Corporal Punishment Necessary to Discipline Children?

Is Corporal Punishment Necessary to Discipline Children?

Introduction

Corporal punishment refers to the application of physical force with the intent of causing a youngster to experience pain (Baumrind, Larzelere & Cowan, 2002), though not injury, for the reason of controlling or correcting the behavior of a child. Youth in America experience different types of corporal punishment in two major places: their schools and their homes. When corporal punishment takes place at home, it can be conceived as a kind of family violence. The most rigorous types of corporal punishment take place with pregnant teens, very young kids, and boys between the ages of fifteen and seventeen (Baumrind, Larzelere & Cowan, 2002). In addition to this, spanking is the most frequent type of corporal punishment exercised by adults to discipline the youngsters. However, the use of spanking as a corrective or disciplinary means is controversial (Holden, 2002). Parents mostly believe that the use of spanking is a useful and effectual method of child nurturing that teaches morals and values to a growing kid. On the other hand, instead of being used as a successful disciplinary intervention that is gauged out corresponding to the misdeed, teachers or parents are more likely to manage the frequency, intensity, and timing of corporal punishment as per their teacher or parental mood than the real misdeeds of the child (Holden, 2002). But the question which continues to stay under debate is whether corporal punishment is necessary to discipline children or not?

Discussion

Different school of thoughts answer this question differently; however majority of them believes that instilling discipline into the mind of a child should not be carried out by means of corporal punishment. Hit a child and he will bear anger and bitterness till he grows up. Lack of discipline puts at risk the possible achievement an individual may gain in his personal life, career and job (Parke, 2002). Thus, all the parents wish to teach their children the worth and value of discipline and exercise this value in practical life.

In the past, corporal punishment has been applied for cases of adults by the military and the penal institutions, as well as cases of children in the course of parents, schools, reformatories and juvenile courts (Parke, 2002). However, at present the United States of America restricts the exercise of corporal punishment to the controlling and disciplining of youngsters, whereas majority of other Western nations have banned corporal punishment completely (Baumrind, Larzelere & Cowan, 2002). Today in the United States of America, corporal punishment is allowed exclusively in cases concerning children and may only be managed by parents or those acting on behalf of a parent like a school administrator or a guardian (Holden, 2002). Though the use of corporal punishment has been diminishing over the last several hundred years and has been forbidden in most of the Western world, still corporal punishment is used as a means of teaching discipline to the youngsters in the United States.

According to Murray Straus and his colleagues, ...