Listen to thisCorporal punishment is a punitive act that inflicts pain. This includes hitting, slapping, spanking, or forcing a child to maintain an uncomfortable position. Most children have been spanked. The use of corporal punishment declines as children reach adolescence.
Opposition
Frequently a punishment has more to do with a parent’s frustration level
than with the child's misbehaviour. Many cases of child abuse result
from an escalation of what starts off as “low level" hitting or
spanking. Most child welfare organizations have policies opposing the
use of corporal punishment. Many child advocates are against corporal
punishment because of the affront to the child's dignity. Others oppose
it because of the unfairness of an adult using physical force on a much
smaller child. For others still, the issue has been one of justice. If
we are legally prohibited from striking other adults, why is it okay to
strike a child? Research indicates there are more reasons to oppose the
use of corporal punishment and to support alternative disciplinary
methods.
Does spanking work?
Studies indicate that physical punishment does temporarily produce the
desired results. But in the long term, spanking not only does not work,
it carries with it many negative effects. The long-term use of corporal
punishment tends to increase the probability of deviant and antisocial
behaviours, such as aggression, adolescent delinquency and violent acts
inside and outside the family as an adult. One explanation is that after
living with violence that is considered “legitimate”, people expand this
to accept violence that is not considered legitimate. For example,
violent acts that are considered legitimate include maintaining order in
schools by punishing children, deterring criminals and defending one’s country against foreign enemies. The “cultural spillover” theory
proposes that the more a society uses force for socially legitimate
ends, the greater the tendency for those engaged in illegitimate
behaviours to also use force to attain their own ends. Corporal
punishment has been associated with a variety of psychological and
behavioral disorders of children and adults, including anxiety, alcohol
abuse, depression, withdrawal, low self-esteem, impulsiveness,
delinquency and substance abuse.
The emotional climate
It seems that mild physical punishment will have some effect on
aggression and delinquency if the punishment is administered in an
atmosphere of warmth, reasoning, and acceptance. However, studies
indicate that few children are spanked in this type of rational and warm
emotional environment. Punishment is usually administered in the heat of
the moment, when anger is the strongest emotional influence. Children
tend to perceive corporal punishments administered in anger as rejection
by the punisher – usually a parent or other person important to the
child. The strength of this perception is determined by the severity and
frequency of punishments received. The more rejected children feel, the
more impaired their psychological adjustment tends to be. Perceived
rejection and physical punishment each negatively affect the child's
emotional and psychological development. Together, the effects are
compounded. Corporal punishment is usually predicated by an adult’s frustration level, rather than by the child's misbehaviour. Most
physical punishments are imposed on children to “teach them a lesson,"
and are usually in response to a perceived misbehaviour. These
punishments do teach lessons “but not the intended ones. Corporal
punishments teach children to consider consequences of their actions in
terms of what will or won’t “earn" them a punishment. The children are
usually not taught to consider others or the consequences of their acts
on others. This is a superficial morality, based on the probability of
getting caught. There is no development of moral judgment or
self-control. When children are physically punished by adults, they are
shown that one need not consider the well-being of others. This
modelling of violence may be the most damaging effect of all.
Natural vs. artificial consequences
The consequences of a child staying up past bedtime may include not
being able to get up on time the next day, being tired and cranky,
and/or missing the school bus. The natural consequence is what occurs
without adult intervention. When children are helped to recognize the
natural consequences of their actions, they can learn to predict these
consequences and develop their own judgment based on real situations. A
punishment is an artificially imposed consequence. When a parent steps
in with artificially imposed consequences, such as punishment for
staying up late, the child learns to predict and plan for the
punishment. The child learns to focus on how to not get caught, rather
than on how to not be tired the next day. The overall result is more
likely to be a child who focuses on the rules and how to get around
them, rather than on the reasons behind the rules.
Punishment or protection
The use of force with children is not always corporal punishment. There
are times when an adult has to prevent a negative, natural consequence
from occurring. While children do learn from experiencing the natural
consequences of their actions, there are times, such as when a child
runs into the street or is about to touch a hot stove, that the price of
the lesson is too high to pay. Stopping children from fighting also
falls into this category. Restraint prevents potentially serious injury.
Physical restraint to prevent something from occurring may be force, but
it is not corporal punishment. Restraint precedes and precludes
undesirable or dangerous behaviour. Restraint becomes corporal
punishment when it exceeds the degree of force necessary to restrain.
Spanking a child provides an emotional release for the person
administering the punishment, but it comes at the expense of a child's
well-being. The temporary stopping of the undesired activity and the
emotional release for the punisher are all that can be said for corporal
punishment.
References
Graziano, Anthony M., and Kunce, Linda J., “Effects of Corporal Punishment on Children" in Violence Update (July, 1992).
Graziano, Anthony M. and Namaste, Karen A., “Parental Use of Physical Force in Child Discipline “A Survey of 679 students' in Journal of Interpersonal Violence Vol 5 No. 4., 1990).
McCord, Joan, “Questioning the Value of Punishment" in Social Problems,Vol. 38, No. 2, May, 1991.
Rohner, Ronald P., Kean, Kevin J., and Cournoyer, David, “Effects of Corporal Punishment, Perceived Caretaker Warmth, and Cultural Beliefs on the Psychological Adjustment of Children in St. Kitts,West Indies" in Journal of Marriage and the Family (August, 1991).
Straus, Murray A., “Discipline and Deviance: Physical Punishment of Children and Violence and Other Crime in Adulthood" in Social Problems Vol. 38, No. 2, May, 1991).
Reprinted from Canada’s Children.
