Corporal Punishment
Corporal punishment or ‘physical punishment’ is the major corrective method used to teach and assist children develop a pattern of behavior. In social and cultural context, parents believe that child development and growth is strengthened by discipline. For example, young children aged 2-6years do not have the ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy, or in other words their behaviors are shaped by encouragement and punishment. In home setting, punishment helps parents achieve particular objectives and suppress the occurrences of unacceptable responses. To accomplish the objectives, punishment is a way of providing aversive stimulation and controlling deviant response. In addition to social and cultural issues, parents believe that socializing the behavior require punishment especially to cognitive developed children (Eshleman & Bulcroft, 2010). Child development and behavior are reinforced by interaction with the environment and the parental role in teaching the children. Parental attention is an important element in developing the desired behaviors and parents are expected to shape behaviors through instruction, encouragement and correction. Based on corporal punishment, correction (punisher response) is applied when children fail to follow instruction and both punishment and encouragement produce the desired behaviors. According to the ‘American Academy of Pediatrics’, parents should use verbal reprimand as a form of punishment in order to control the behavior and achieve the desired outcomes (Eshleman & Bulcroft, 2010). This raises controversy as parents argue that punishment produces successful discipline and is an effective method in controlling antisocial behaviors. In addition, punishment should be applied to shape the behaviors of those who defy parent’s instructions.When instruction and encouragement fail to achieve the desired behaviors, punishment will work best to control the behavior (Eshleman & Bulcroft, 2010).
According to Baumrind (2003), the use of corporal punishment is associated with inevitable harmful effects which affect child’s growth and development. First, he asserts that child develops cognitive and emotional disturbances such as personality problems, hostile withdrawal and more. In addition, punishment leads to passive-aggressive problems and rebelliousness at adolescence. Parents who control behaviors with hostility and restrictiveness increase the level of antisocial aggression in their children (Baumrind, 2003). Although punishment may reduce aggression, the parental authority increases prosocial aggression in school and in other social setting. Children who receive corporal punishment are more likely to develop physical abuse than children who are encouraged and instructed. At adolescents, these children respond to anger reactions through conflict. Children also develop poor mental health problems such as depression and anxiety and these leads to aggression and antisocial behaviors including perpetration of violence and abuse (Baumrind, 2003).
The approaches, the best practices or the way forward toward reducing corporal punishment include adhering to principles of child behavior and development which offers guidelines to constructive discipline. According to Baumrind (2003), freedom or allowing children’s trust in services is importance since children will gain the ability to make choices and accept responsibilities with respect to the order of things. Through freedom, children will create requisite skills and be able to choose course of actions that meet the gratifying stimulation. In order to reduce corporal punishment, parents should allow their children to choose actions where the child will base subsequent choices. Less guiding inducing methods and indirect threats will increase right chosen actions and responsibility. Freedom will give children the opportunity to create conscious choices and responsible behaviors (Baumrind, 2003)
References
Baumrind D. (2003). Effects of authoritative parental control in child behavior. Child Development . EBSCO PUBLISHING. Retrieved from: http://persweb.wabash.edu/facstaff/hortonr/articles%20for%20class/baumrind.pdf
Thomas, A., Chess, S., & Birch, H. G. (1968). Temperament and behavior disorders in children. New York:
Univ. Press.
Eshleman J. Ross & Bulcroft A. Richard. (2010). The family. 12th edition. Pearson Higher Education
