Corporal Punishment for Children

[Mzor203]

Since I'm bored, I was browsing some debate topics, and found this one which I think is a very open topic which can be argued both ways, and should give us some fun.

So, is corporal punishment a good means for punishing children? Is it effective? Should you take other routes before it? Discuss.

[theOperaGhost]

Yes, to an extent.

People learn through pain. If you touch a hot burner, you sure as hell aren't going to touch it again, are you? You do something you're not supposed to and get punished by pain, you're not going to do it again.

Now, I say to an extent because I don't feel it should be used for EVERY little thing a kid does wrong. I also think it shouldn't go beyond spanking, with your hand (NOT using an object to increase the effect), anything else in my opinion would be excessive. I also don't think corporal punishment should be the first thing to turn to. It should only be a last resort, as in if you've warned the kid verbally, given them a time-out and such already. I'd say if the kid keeps doing a certain action and they get in trouble for it more than 2 or 3 times, they deserve a spanking. Also I would generally only use corporal punishment if the kid is doing something repeatedly (after getting in trouble) that could hurt them, such as playing with electrical outlets, climbing on unstable furniture, getting into things that could be dangerous, etc.

[Skeln]

Yeah, but as said above only to an extent. Kids and animals alike learn from their mistakes, and eventually kids use common logic when they get older. Some animals use logic, but not many do. If you let a kid get away with somehting for too long with just a slap on the hand then they will never learn and will go off to do worse things.

Now don't go and beat the kid til he's/she's black and blue. (Same goes with animals! Poor things!) I actually suggest to have them be punished while they're in the act of doing what they're not supposed to do. My grandmother's aunt, or something like that, once had a dog...a big dog. She eventually got a duck nd it had ducklings. The dog got into the duckling cage while the mother duck was swimming the nerarby river and killed 2-3 ducklings. Well, my grandmother's aunt got a dead one, opened it's throat, stuck some VERY hot sauce in it, and gave it to the dog. He never touched a duckling (or duck) again, So don't punish them after they've done something bad, then they'll associate it with whoever's punishing them. They're young so they don't understand much.

[Andrew56]

Proverbs 13:24
If you love your children, you will correct them; if you don't love them, you won't correct them.

Proverbs 23:13-14
Don't be afraid to correct your young ones; a spanking won't kill them. A good spanking, in fact, might save them from death.

[INFERNO]

It depends on how you use the punishment. If you use it right when the child does something bad, and providing you don't beat them to a bloody pulp, it can be sort of a reminder: don't do that activity or behaviour, or else you get pain. Doing it too much or too often can be a risk factor for psychopathology in the child later on. You use it either if the kid keeps doing the bad thing or if they do something horrible. However, some kids don't get affected by it in the sense of the punishment being effective. When I was younger, if I was spanked, hit (with a cane, racket, thrown outside, shoved, slapped, had a few bottles thrown at me, etc...), I'd keep doing exactly what I was doing before. I sometimes got pissed off but I still did what I wanted. So, it won't work for all children, and some, it will cause a disorder, but for others it will teach them.

You should also try to tell them why they're being punished, as best as possible. For example, you come home and the kid or dog has turned the kitchen up-side-down by throwing flour everywhere, food all over the floor, etc... . If you go up and start beating them, they won't know why they got the punishment. To them, it would seem like if you come home, they better hide. But, if they are in the process of doing it, and you tell them not to, they continue, you tell them again in a harsher manner, they still don't, then you give them a spanking and chuck them out of the kitchen. Although with a young child or dog, it's harder because they may not understand what they've done wrong or what you're telling them.

[Prince_of_Peace]

Benjamin McLane Spock (May 2, 1903 – March 15, 1998) was an American pediatrician whose book Baby and Child Care, published in 1946, is one of the biggest best-sellers of all time. Its revolutionary message to mothers was that "you know more than you think you do." Spock was the first pediatrician to study psychoanalysis to try to understand children's needs and family dynamics. His ideas about childcare influenced several generations of parents to be more flexible and affectionate with their children, and to treat them as individuals, whereas the previous conventional wisdom had been that child rearing should focus on building discipline, and that, e.g., babies should not be "spoiled" by picking them up when they cried. Dr. Spock was also an Olympic gold-medallist in rowing.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said parents should not spank their children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem. He is an expert of child psychology and he should know what he is talking about.

Poor Dr. Spck's son committed suicide.

[Sage]

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said parents should not spank their children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem. He is an expert of child psychology and he should know what he is talking about.

It's stupid he would think that. My parents hit me around all the time and I have a superiority complex. That's about as far from self-esteem issues as you can get.

Edit: It's a bit hard to tell, but does this mean you support hitting children? If so, holy shit, we agree on something.