The Effect of Corporal Punishment
The definition of corporal punishment is given by the Cambridge Academic Dictionary as “the physical punishment of people, especially of children, by hitting them.” The dictionary also states that this usually means when they are hit by hand or with a stick.
The American Psychological Association reports that corporal punishment is in wide use by many families in the United States. However, they also say that use of corporal punishment is controversial. There was a big study of corporal punishment made by Elizabeth Thompson Gershoff, PhD, who works at the National Center for Children in Poverty. This paper will use that study, which was based on 62 years of data and over eighty studies. …show more content…
The Huffington Post says a study made in 2011 published by Child Abuse and Neglect found that children will use corporal punishment on their friends and brothers and sisters to solve problems when they have received corporal punishment in their own life. Dr. Gershoff also studied the cycle of abuse problem. She says this form of aggression may influence the relationship with children or spouse. She adds that the problem is that children who have experienced corporal punishment think violence is legitimate. For this reason, they will use aggression in relationships with their own children and spouses. She also says that there is a strong tendency for adults who were subject to corporal punishment to use this punishment on their own …show more content…
Stacy Drury, who is a professor of psychiatry, maintains that corporal punishment is ineffective. She said this because she thinks it teaches children how to use aggression to solve problems instead of more socially acceptable methods.
Dr. Gershoff points out that there were two main effects of corporal punishment shown by the studies. One was that children immediately complied with the parent. The other main effect was that hitting was considered to be physical abuse by the parent. She is careful to say that there is a boundary between punishment and abuse. It depends on how much parents use corporal punishment, whether they are upset when they use it, and how forceful it is.
Corporal punishment also causes anti-social behavior, The Ministry of Social Development in New Zealand have written an article on The State of Research on the Effects of Physical Punishment. They say that Grogan-Kaylor performed a study in 2004 using data collected in 1998 by the United States National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, with 1,811 children in the sample. These children were mainly from low-income families. This study analyze relationship between corporal punishment and anti-social behavior. They used the Behavior Problems Index and questions about spanking. They found that the level of anti-social behavior could be predicted if the child was spanked two years ago. They said even low levels of spanking could cause an increase in anti-social