Parents Spank Their Children example essay topic

Some people think that spanking is a good way of punishing children, but some people do not condone this kind of behaviour. There are many disadvantages in spanking children that would affect their growth development. It affects their physical, emotional, and mental capabilities as they mature into adults. Spanking affects the physical growth of children by piercing them with lasting physical pain, promoting violent tendencies outside of the house, and it also leads to sexual complications later in life. Physically, it causes them pain and leaves marks and bruises on their bodies. It can be physically dangerous and lead to serious injuries.

According to Hunt, "the prevalence of lower back pain among adults in our society may well have its origins in childhood punishment". Sometimes it could result to paralysis because the nerve has been damaged through spanking and sometimes death is the result due to complications (3). Hunt continues to argue, "Hitting children teaches them to become hitters themselves". This promotes physical violence.

When children suffer hard hitting, they will imitate their parents outside the home, especially when at school. By being violent, they could hurt themselves as well as others (Hunt, 1). As well, spanking has been associated with sexual confusion in adulthood. Johnson acknowledges that "there is more to spanking than simply hitting: spanking also trespasses on one of the body's most private and sexual areas- the buttocks, which is not only the issue of physical violence but also the issue of sexual trespass" (1)".

When a child is hit on the buttocks... this kind of violent touch can be sexual ized in the child's mind not only because of a real flow of blood into the genitalia, but also because of a longing for intimacy with the parent: if painful physical touch is the only fulfillment of that longing, then this can feel good" (6) stated by Hite, a sex researcher and a socio-psychologist. The buttock often spanked by parents is considered as a sexual zone. It triggers the genitals because they were almost connected to each other. The nerve that is attached to it is as sensitive as the genitals itself.

This may result to different sexual consequences of having "difficulty experiencing sexual pleasure and intimacy" when they grow up. It might give them the concept of "pain and pleasure" that will lead them by becoming a pedophile (Johnson, 4). Spanking affects the emotional growth of children by which, they develop low self esteem, undesirable behaviour, and social behavioural problems. Emotionally, children may think they are less capable of what they can do by feeling less important. They develop a fear of joining big groups of people. Frequent spanking may lead to isolation from others that will cause the child to do poorly.

This is due to the fact that without friends in class, there is a lack of encouragement and praise, which would normally help students to achieve success. In the aspect of improving a child's behaviour, spanking never works but rather develops an undesirable attitude towards most people they encounter. Most of the time they will repeat the offence just to get noticed because they will do anything to draw attention to themselves. The more repeated the hitting, the more aggressive they become (Sharma, par 2). According to Sharma, "when parents use spanking to control and discipline the child, they spank to restrain the child, or make him or her to do something by means of physical punishment, that child in turn learns to control other children by physical aggression. They tend to hurt another children as well.

The more violently they " ve been punished at home the more aggressive they will be outside" (par 2). Anger does not just develop right away. As a child, this type of punishment works well, but as the child matures into adolescence and early adulthood, they become more rage ful and confident. This leads to bad behaviour, which must be dealt with by the parents and society (Hunt, 2). The anger that the parents show to the children, will be absorbed and when they grow up it will reflect their personality negatively.

In addition, as EPOCH-USA states on their website, spanking causes "anxiety, which causes helplessness and humiliation and often provoked anger and a desire for revenge, feelings which have usually been repressed in adulthood but may lead to depression, adult violence" (3). Spanking affects the mental growth of children because it blocks their learning progress, weakens communication with their parents, and develops the concept that loving includes hitting. Most children that are frequently spanked by their parents at home are the most distracted students in class, and they usually receive low marks in class. Holt wrote "when we make a child afraid, we stop learning dead in its tracks". It distracts them on how to learn to solve problems in a humane way. Their minds are being preoccupied with anger, hatred, revenge which "deprives them of the opportunity to learn more effective methods of solving problems at hand" (Hunt, 2).

Spanking weakens the communication between parents and the child by implanting fear into the child when around the parents. When parents spank their children, they do not give them a chance to defend themselves. Thus, spanking results as a communication barrier between the parents and the child. This also results in the parents' lack of intimate knowledge that the child possesses, which further isolates the parents from the child. It develops the concept of "loving includes hitting". It teaches the child that it is right to hit somebody as long as you love the person, and it is right to hurt someone every time they make mistakes.

As the parents serve as models for the child, "unskilled parenting often continues into the next generation" (Hunt, 3), which can be attributed to spousal abuse as well as further child abuse. Spanking could result to many disadvantages in a child's growth development whether physically, emotionally, and mentally when they become adults. Parents should find alternative in giving punishment to their children besides spanking. It's always up to the parents whether to spank their children or not.

Parents should always remember that there are consequences of every action taken..