The usage of spanking as a means of disciplinary on children has been very prevalent and has been controversial of late among professional and lay audiences. Albeit majority of the experts are against corporal punishment, some parents still prefer spanking to be the most effective disciplinary strategy. However, it is important to evaluate the consequences that could arise from physical punishments of spanking. In some instances, parents spank children due to desperation (Busienei, 2012). When children misbehave often, parents tend to feel that they are out of option and they are not sure on what to do next. If a reliable disciplinary strategy is lacking, spanking might seem to be the best option for some people (Di Bartolo & Braun, 2017). Nonetheless, parents usually depend on spanking as a means of fixing behavior problems without even considering other alternative disciplinary strategies. This paper will discuss whether spanking is a precise discipline strategy while discussing its advantages and disadvantages. The paper will also identify the alternative disciplinary strategies while explaining why they are better than spanking.
As the popular idiom “spare the rod, spoil the child” suggest, spanking is important in correcting a child’s behavior (Di Bartolo & Braun, 2017). Children tend to develop negative behaviors when treated softly and it requires the parent to take action immediately to correct such behaviors. Being too nice to children is not good since children will develop bad behaviors knowing that the parents will not do anything to them. It is therefore important that sometimes parents become hard on their children behaving badly so as to make them change their behaviors. Being too nice to children spoils them.
Spanking children is an instant response that stops a child’s negative behavior instantly. Talking to a child and making him think about something he has done can work out but it is slow as it takes some time as compared to spanking (“Effects of problem-solving Nigeria”, 2016). Some children actually fail to understand the reason for the punishment they are being administered to or determine that the action they did is actually wrong. A number of children do not consider being sent to their room to think about the mistake they have done as being a punishment. Alternatively, children understand that they are being punished when they are being spanked. Spanking causes immediate pain thus being viewed as an immediate consequence to misbehaving although it physically harms the child to some extent.
It has been determined by some studies that spanking is an inappropriate disciplinary strategy. When children get spanked repeatedly, the end up developing the perception that spanking is an admissible and ordinary adult behavior (Tidmarsh L, 2000). As a result, when such children grow up to be adults they will tend to be exhibiting violent behaviors against other people or to their own kids based on their perception that adults are obliged to be violent while violent behaviors are admissible as long as they are committed by adults.
Spanking a child makes them feel humiliated causing anger, aggressiveness, and resentment to them. Moreover, Spanking causes physical harm to children. Literally, speaking does not always teach a lesson to the child that the parent is intending to convey (Kooij et al., 2017). Instead spanking make children fear their parent and in the real sense parents want children to behave since they respect them and not because they are afraid of them. Spanking makes a child fear the parent and they will tend to things since they fear physical harm from their parents. Eventually, it means that child might fail to differentiate between what is right and what is wrong as well fail to know the reason why they should not do a certain thing. They only know that suppose they do it, they will be hurt. Ultimately, result in the children misbehaving while they become smarter in hiding them from their parents so that they do not get spanked.
Instead of teaching children other alternative behaviors that are good, spanking simply teaches them on ways of avoiding being caught. Spanking teaches children that an effective response to feeling angry is by being aggressive (Tshabangu, 2016). However, some children do misbehave in order to attract attention. Spanking may as encourage some negative behaviors to arise. It is determined by some studies that spanking does not stop negative behavior amongst children. A number of psychologists have claimed that spanking teaches children to embrace violence. Suppose a child grows with that attitude, he might end up using violence in solving conflicts yet there are other alternative techniques of resolution (Tshabangu, 2016). A certain research undertaken at Tulane University revealed that children spanked more than two times in a month of the age of five were 50% more prevalent in engaging in aggressive behaviors at the age of 5 (Tshabangu, 2016).
Spanking is not a good option for disciplining children since children grow up. When children grow up to a certain age, it is difficult and seems inappropriate to spank those (Blank, 2013). Therefore, at that age, spanking does not apply to them since they are matured and it is irrelevant to spank a matured person but instead talk to them. Instead, there are other numerous disciplines that are appropriate to various age groups. Every age group has a certain discipline strategy that is appropriate and effective in modeling a child’s behavior.
Other alternative ways to spanking in order to discipline children effectively involves having timeouts with the child, suppressing privileges, modeling good behavior such as enhancing that their self-control and enabling the children to have an understanding of the connection between the personal conduct and consequences (Blank, 2013). In essence, it is significant to provide children with positive reinforcement for appropriate behaviors. Parents should have some timeouts with their children. Parents who find time to go out with their children and have some talks about their behaviors tend to report a positive change in their children’s behavior (Bell, 2006). Having a one on one talk with the child helps in enabling the child to know the mistake he has done and the reason why he should not do the mistake again (Bell, 2006). Modeling the child’s behavior involves taking the child for therapy sessions helps the child to perceive his bad behaviors psychological and get to understand how to overcome them.
Moreover, a parent should consider using alternative negative consequences which will teach the child new behavioral skills. Suppose a child dirties your walls, a logical consequence would probably be making the child to clean the walls (Tidmarsh L, 2000). This will teach him that he ought to have respect for property and as well learn that he is responsible for every action that he takes. Another effective strategy is restitution. Restitution enables to restore the relationship between the child and the parent and as well as facilitating children in learning new skills too (Blank, 2013). Restitution is also effective in addressing aggressive behavior and tends to be effective in children and teenagers across all ages. The objective of discipline should focus on teaching new behavioral skills in order to make your child grow up with essential skills to make them responsible adults (Di Bartolo & Braun, 2017). Therefore, when examining which disciplinary strategy to utilize parents should consider what they intend their children to learn.
To sum up, people believing that spanking a child is admissible and a quick and instant strategy depicts that spanking ought to be used as the last resort when other forms of punishment seem not to be working. Children misbehaving face minimal punishments and may end up believing that they let go easily and they will not learn to behave effectively. When a child is spanked for a small punishment enables the child to know the limits that their parents have set for him and what type of behavior is admissible and which are intolerable. Without spanking, some children fail to learn that some actions have critical consequences. Therefore, it is important to note that spanking needs to be used certain circumstances for pre-school children who have consciously misbehaved in big acts of defiance. Spanking should never be administered to infants and it should be rare on older children who possess better communication skills. This is only meant to convey strong messages and should not be utilized daily. Additionally, spanking should not be inspired by anger or intended to inflict shameful feelings or even guilt. This is to mean that there is constrained situations whereby sparking may be efficient and appropriate.