The Role of Managing Children's Behavior
The role of managing children’s behavior is one of the biggest dilemmas encountered by parents today. There are various ways of improving children’s behavior, including positive reinforcement, taking away privileges, time-out, and physical punishment. Physical punishment is a way of disciplining children by causing them to experience pain in order to control their unacceptable behavior. Parents who support physical punishment acknowledge that at a certain age child may fail to understand the normal logic, sense, and reasoning. They believe that their parents’ physical punishment contributed remarkably to their success in the future. In my opinion, physical punishment is a great violation of children's human rights because it may lead to other unintended emotional problems to the child, such as depression, family violence, and antisocial behaviors. This paper focuses on why physical punishment is an inappropriate way of disciplining children.
The Approval of Physical Punishment as a Disciplinary Alternative
Many parents today still approve physical punishment as a disciplinary alternative, inflicting their children with physical pain as a way of managing their behaviors. For generations, spanking children was considered one of the effective ways of disciplining children. This has led many parents to acknowledge physical disciplining as their rights and obligation. The most effective way of encouraging children’s good behavior is by establishing a supportive, positive, and healthy relationship with them. Physical punishment is highly inappropriate because it may cause the child to have long-term psychological problems. Therefore, there is a great need for parents to consider other disciplinary options, including sitting down and talking with their children about unacceptable behavior.
UNICEF's Perspective on Physical Punishment
According to UNICEF, “children spanked regularly and severely are at greater risk for mental health disorders, including anxiety, depression, alcohol, and drug abuse” (“Unicef,” 2017). Physical punishment makes the children hate themselves, thinking that there is something wrong with them to be treated cruelly. On this regard, children may act to be good in order to avoid punishment rather than doing it because it is the right thing. Many children acknowledge physical punishment as a way of paying for their mistakes. Therefore, physical punishment may cause the child to misbehave again because they have been freed from their prior remorseful feelings.
The Link Between Physical Punishment and Child Aggression
According to the Boss’s study, “physical punishment is related to less moral adaptation of norms for appropriate behavior and long-term compliance” (Boss, 2015) This study showed that physical punishment is linked to high levels of child’s aggression, temporary compliance, and mental health. Physical punishment at an early age makes children become used to getting punished, causing their self-esteem to grow negatively. Parents who use physical punishment as a disciplinary option teaches their children aggression is acceptable, stemming up their children’s temper both at home and school. Therefore, parents should emphasize other disciplinary options, including taking away children’s privileges, such as watching television, computer use, and playing with friends.
In Conclusion
In conclusion, physical disciplinary is a controversial topic in modern parenting. Many people support physical punishment because their parents’ physical disciplinary contributed remarkably to their success in the future. In my opinion, physical punishment is highly unacceptable because it causes other unintended psychological problems to the child, including anxiety, depression, drug use, aggression, and mental disorders. There are other applicable ways of rectifying children’s behavior, such as sitting down and talking with them, taking away their privileges, like watching television, computers use, and playing with friends. Therefore, parents should consider other non-abusive methods to discipline their children.
References
Unicef. (2017). Retrieved from https://www.unicef.org/ research_ summary on_the_impacts_of_corporal_punishment_-_May_2017.pdf
Boss, P. (2015). Physical Punishment in child Caring. Children Rearing, 20(03), 27-32. doi: 10.1017/s1035077200004600
