Should Parents Use Physical Punishment

Parents like to say “well my parents hit me, and I turned out okay”. Some people smoke cigarettes and live to be 100 but that doesn't subtract from the findings that smoking is likely to lead to an early death. Keeping this in mind, people came to realize that physical punishment is a rough, atrocious, unacceptable means of punishment that should be banned for its appalling, horrifying effects. While physical punishment might work at the time, parents should not use physical punishments as a parenting strategy because it causes trauma, no evidence says it's effective, and It teaches your child to use physical aggression to solve their problems.

Some parents claim that the only way for their children to behave properly is through physical discipline but, physical punishment is known to cause trauma when it comes to kids.

This makes sense because “violence never fixies anything”. It’s easy to refuse the fact that your child could be experiencing trauma. Nonetheless, in “What’s the Best Way to Discipline My Child?” by Healthchildren.org, the author explains what could cause your child to be traumatized. The author disclosed that “Research shows spanking, slapping and other forms of physical punishment don't work well to correct a child's behavior. The same holds for yelling at or shaming a child. Beyond being ineffective, harsh physical and verbal punishments can also damage a child's long-term physical and mental health”. This proves that physical punishment is not the way to motivating your child into doing the right thing. It also elaborates on the fact that spanking is not the only form of physical punishment, and it isn't the only thing that can cause trauma. Habits like “screaming at or, shaming” your child could also cause them to be traumatized. This doesn't disappear, it carries on in adulthood and, can altar into a lowered self-esteem. It also causes separation between the child and the parent, which I experienced in real life. Therefore, it is obvious that physical punishment is still being used by parents widely, yet this idea can be easily opposed due to the physical harm that the child is exposed to, and how this creates children to fear their parents rather than loving them.

Around the world, 59 countries have banned the physical punishment of children in all settings, including at home. This proves that “ Physical punishment doesn’t work to get kids to comply, so parents think they have to keep escalating it”. This leaves your child to frighten or scared of you as a parent. For instance, a 9-year-old boy named Emrik Osuna was beaten by his stepmother with a frying pan, wooden spoons, and a back scratcher as a punishment. These are all common tools that parents use to punish their kids, except the frying pan. However these punishments did not work so they were escalated to the point where she was starving the child, the child was later taken to the hospital and, unfortunately, did not survive. “his father and stepmother from Meridian, Idaho remain behind bars on unimaginable charges”, stated by abc7 news. There are also little to no studies proving that physical punishment works, however, ones are proving that it doesn't work. For instance “APA”, “health children” and, “NCBI” all advise parents not to use physical punishment because it doesn't work. However, there are some benefits. for example, “It's the quickest way to make a positive behavior change", “Also a small dose, like a rare occasional spank, is not going to make a difference most of the time”.

Children mimic and follow in the footsteps of their parents. When you hit them as a punishment, they will do the same when they’re upset, which can cause anger issues. Researchers from Tulane University found that children who are spanked frequently at age 3 are more likely to show aggressive behavior by the time they're 5 than kids who are not.