Reasonable Corporal Punishment, Its Detrimental Effects and

Before delving in any further, we must begin by searching for a definition to such a hazardous

While a parent may rationalize their spanking or hitting as something that they reserve for when their child does something exceedingly wrong, something that they really need to prevent from ever happening again, they are actually showing their child what to do when they feel that they have been equally wronged. Parents must teach by example. If you do not want your child to hit others, then don’t hit him. Show your child that there are other, more logical, compliant ways to solve problems as well as alternative methods for releasing aggression. The basic principle that parents who exercise use of corporal punishment use, is that when my child does something truly outrageous and refuses to listen to reason, it is then acceptable to hit. This is precisely the same lesson that their child learns. They learn that if their peers do something that they view as truly outrageous, and then it is equally permissible for them to physically attack a wrongdoer as well.

It appears that in most cases, a parent exercising use of corporal punishment is nothing but a short-term solution that in turn is creating a much larger problem in the long-run. It is a catch-22 in that you may be stopping a problem at the moment, but you could simultaneously be creating a much larger, more difficult to reverse, problem; teaching these children to have a propensity or inclination towards violence. Repeated hitting may harden children and teach them that violence is acceptable on some level, whether overtly or somewhat more subconsciously. They will accept it and possibly exercise that propensity towards violence upon others later in life. If someone does something wrong, they have been taught that it is okay to react physically. Unfortunately, this is unacceptable in the adult world.

Surely the argument can be made that hitting a child, after he or she has engaged in some ill behavior, will stop it. An adult might think, my thirteen-year-old daughter spoke back to me in a disrespectful voice, she even told me to “fuck off,” so I slapped her. Naturally then she shut her mouth, and I assume that she learned her lesson. Parents look at this short-term outcome as an indication of a favorable solution and justification for their abuse. I have no doubt that impressions would be made on some children, and the patterns of bad behavior would be stopped in their tracks. These children would think of their actions, rationally assess what they had done wrong, understand why they had been hit, and rethink committing such offenses again in the future. But I do not feel that this is the overwhelming majority of children who are hit or otherwise reasonably abused by their parents.

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