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Maria Santiago
ENG 112-01
Connie Douglas
11 June 2016

Bringing Back Harmless Discipline

Physical punishment has evolved drastically throughout the

years. Throughout the world physical discipline is used the same; when
a child behaves badly him or her would be spanked. Many countries
like Sweden and Norway have banned spanking in their country.
(Dobson). Canada unlike Sweden and Norway has done the opposite is
actually praising parents for using punishment as a way to correct and
reinforce bad behavior. (Dobson). Section 43 of the criminal code in
Canada allows reinforcement to be used by parents and is justified if
they use physical discipline to teach the child. (Dobson) As antispanking protesters try to get rid of this law in Canada, a huge
percentage of parents in the US use spanking as their first option in
stopping a child from misbehaving. (Dobson). Because spanking is
such a common thing in the US and the percentage has remained high
for years it is considered a cultural norm for the country. (ODonnell).

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Parents who are newer to raising children and are beginning the stages
of disciplining their children should first look into other methods and
really think about the negative effects they will be doing to their
children once they use spanking as a remedy to stop bad behavior.
A vast majority of children whom are physically disciplined daily
lead to physical abuse. Robbyn Bennett spoke about how violence and
how physical discipline can lead to a child becoming abused, Bennett
speaks on a personal experience she encountered with from her
granddaughter. Bennett spoke about how her granddaughter whom is
in kindergarten would come to her every day to speak to her about a
classmate of hers, whom would behave badly and would always get his
class behavior sticks revoked. Bennetts granddaughter would explain
to her grandma that Jack the little kid would move around, break
crayons, and just not stay still. (Bennett). According to the speaker, a
study done called Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) studied stress
in children and the more stress the child had, led to a higher risk of
health concerns, such as drug use, suicidal and depression. (Bennett).
Bennett explained that the reason behind Jacks misbehavior and the
way he is reacting is caused by his brain becoming stressed and the
lack of development his brain is actually doing because of what he
might be experiencing in his home. The speaker suggest that more

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attention is needed to the child and that the parent should take more
time understanding the issue the child is having and try their best to
correct it.
The effects of physical discipline has led to many mental issues
leading a child to become more depressed, stressed and lonely
throughout their years. (Zevenbergen). Negative behavior issues such
as anger and anxiety develop over time as the child is spanked more,
making the parent-child relationship diminish. (Aronson Fontes). A
study was made by researchers called Adverse Childhood Experience
(ACE) in which they asked young children what they feared the most
and a high percentage of them replied with getting spanked. (Bennett).
Parents today are on stress mode half of the time and when a young
child does not listen it puts much more of a heavy load on the parent,
resulting in spanking. When a child is overpowered by yelling,
screaming, paddling and spanking by the parent it causes the child to
disconnect with the parent causing more misbehaving and less rule
following. Five studies were made by researchers in the late 80s and it
showed the progression of behavior among children throughout the
years. (Straus). Throughout the studies parents were asked how many
times they administered a spanking and asked children the same
question, throughout the years the behavior of the child was more

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violent and problematic. (Straus). Parents should think about their

childs behavior in the future, think about how much more stress the
parent will put upon themselves.
Life would be so much easier if children were always following
rules and everything was exactly how you wanted it. Well that is just
not how things go whether the parent tries their best to achieve the
perfect child. Parents who take their time to communicate with their
child see more reasonable behavior improvement from the child.
(Bennett). When a parent pays more attention to the child when the
child is behaving well it creates more of a positive reinforcement
instead of negative. The benefits of not spanking a child is very widely
ranged, and one of the reasons would be a higher IQ a child gets when
they experience less spanking in their home. (Straus). A child develops
faster, they are able to concentrate more in class and not get so easily
distracted.
Children need love, affection and when a child feels as if they are
not receiving these things in return they act out in ways that stress the
parent. Parents need to actually release the stress they feel, take their
time to understand the child to analyze what the issue is, instead of
resulting in spanking. When a child is repeatedly spanked by their
parents they run the risk of having a higher risk of developing health

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issues in their adult life. Spanking should not be a way out or the first
resort to run to when the child is misbehaving. Parents whom cannot
fix the issue to correct their childs behavior should look into help from
an advisor seek help wherever it is possible. The most important thing
here is the childs development issue later in life, try to avoid less
stress in the parent by removing corporal punishment all at once and
try to break down the problem at hand.