Spanking: How It Affects the Behaviour of a Child

Linggo, Hulyo 21, 2013

Blogpost 6: Foster Parents

Foster caring is a difficult job because it requires taking care of a lot of children. Foster parents are usually on their own unlike real parents that are in pair, foster parents are those single person parents. While I was searching for more topics about spanking, I came across this article about a foster parent spanking her child by a wooden spoon which later caused bruises on the child's lower body and threatened the child if she ever tells anyone about what she did. Later on the child spoke to her classmates and her teacher overheard the conversation which then called the police and confronted the foster mother. The foster parent now faces 100 days in prison and 2 years of probation. Regarding spanking, it occurred to me that foster parents have no rights to spank their child because they are not their parents by blood nor by law. They are just simply being paid to take care of children until such time when they get adopted.

An article concerning about a foster parent saying she had spanked her children but later, knew that it was not a good idea because in time she realized that there is a boundary between spanking and abuse which she failed to understand for many years of taking care of children. Soon after she began taking parenting classes and she never again laid a finger on her children.

Being a foster parent takes a lot of courage and compassion because you agreed on the terms given to you by the government and children are looking up to you to become a role model and for them to see that there are people who want to be their parent.

According to Foster Parents Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, "foster parents shall recognize that the purpose of discipline is to teach and direct the behavior of the child, and ensure that is administered in a humane and sensitive manner. Foster parents shall use disciplinary methods which are consistent with children's division policy." meaning that in a state where spanking is banned/illegal, foster parents has no rights to use corporal punishment as a means to discipline their foster children.

So in conclusion, there is always another way of applying discipline to a child without the use of corporal punishment specially, when you are just a foster parent because it is by rule that you are in no state of being to hurt that child no matter the circumstances. This should all be a lesson for everyone, abuse is different from spanking that's why we should all know how to limit our actions.

Blogpost 5: The Temptation of Spanking

In history, we have seen many cases of which spanking is involved but have we ever thought of what triggers spanking? In my recent posts, I have thought of reasons on what makes people spank their children. Is it only because of stress? Is there a need of consultation where the subject is having a mental disorder where he/she can't stop punishing his/her child? Or is there another, much worse reason why people are so tempted to spank their children. In this article I shall be focusing on the common temptations of spanking.

In the article, "Spanking: Wrong, but so tempting", by Sierra Black says that spanking a child is a means to release their anger and frustration. If one observes the naughtiness of their child one cannot just simply lecture them because it won't have an affect on the child much rather, it will only increase their devotion to do it over and over again. By doing it again and again parents will be filled up by stress because imagine parents with enough stress in their life due to everyday living has children whose constantly frustrating them with their needs and wants in life, that makes them go nuts and start spanking them no matter what. This is one of the basic temptations that parents deal with when confronting with their child.

Another individual that shares the same thought is Krista Pfeiffer, in her post entitled, "Is Spanking Bad Child Discipline?" which she reveals her thoughts when being confronted by temptation. She says that there are times when her children often makes her very frustrated but she doesn't spank them, much less, she purge all her anger and frustration inside her and keeps a moment of silence to not talk to her children until such time when she is ready to come face to face to them and give them a lecture but not spanking. She also says that a thought occurred to her during those moments of silence, "I sometimes wonder what happens to all that anger i felt the moment I wanted to spank. Does it just get stored until it eventually reveals itself in the form of gray hairs on my head and wrinkles on my face? Is it slowly eating years of my life away? I know how satisfying it can be to slam a door or throw a shoe when I'm angry. I can't help but think spanking a child who has done something wrong would bring a similar level of satisfaction." makes us all question what might happen if we can't take enough stress anymore. Will it make us spank our children into the most severed way possible?

Due to those questions I came up with the idea to search for alternative ways to release those frustrations which are the following:

Give yourself a time-out.

-meaning if you somehow feel the need to spank your child, you should take a break, try to keep your child away from you where he/she can be safe then take a moment for yourself until such time when you feel calm.

Implement logical consequences.

-meaning, you should know how to punish your child by giving them consequences for their actions rather than spanking them for misbehaviors.

Say "no" and mean it.

-when your children misbehave always try to say no to what they are doing. Use your anger tone, hawk eye and clear notes when speaking those words. Afterwards, instruct them at what will happen if they fail to do as they were told.

These are the examples of how to control your temptation or how to give away stress in a much easier state. So there we have it, follow this steps to avoid spanking your child and you will do good as a parent!

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Blogpost 4: The Benefits of Spanking

In the eyes of many, spanking is dangerous to apply for children. It has lots of bad effects on children but somehow, there is at least few things that people can benefit from spanking. As I write this post, I will be focusing on the benefits of spanking only because I intend to have equality to the given topic and It is only logical to see both sides of this topic.

In my recent posts I have mentioned a lot of negative parts when it comes to spanking and while I was doing my research, a topic took my sight away from the negative side. It was entitled, “Will Spanking Make Your Child Successful?” by the Weekstaff. The benefit of spanking only concerns those who are at age 2-6. Research shows that spanking a child within that age span makes the child more compliant at what you wanted them to do because the mental state of children within age 2-6 has not yet developed the point where they can realize all the possible reasons of spanking other than making them into a better person in the future.

According to psychology professor Dr. Marjorie Gunnoe, spanking children below the age of 6 makes them more successful in life, she questioned at least 2,600 people and a quarter of them who have not been spanked. The results was baffling because most of them who have been spanked below the age of 6 turned out to be successful in life and said that if they haven't been spanked before, they wouldn't know how to discipline themselves to become a better person. Although, the remaining people who claims that they have been spanked at the age of 6 onwards, reveals the opposite outcome. Researchers believe that the reason behind this outcome is because children at the age of 6 onwards are becoming more mature in a way where they can decide for themselves whether what they see around them is good or bad.

We often hear a lot of thoughts from the people who are against spanking but have you ever wonder what the pro-spanking people thinks of about spanking? An article about misunderstanding spanking entitled, "Why Spanking is needed?" by Paul J. Preston, says that spanking has been misunderstood as a concept of child abuse. Spanking is the state of punishment where you spank your child's bottom, however, spanking a child or inflicting damage at the parts of the body for example, the face, stomach, head, of any other parts aside from the child's bottom is NOT spanking. Also, inflicting damage until the child has bruises, marks, or even blood is not considered spanking but child abuse.

Paul J. Preston says, "Punishments have to be painful if they are to work. Remember punishments are unpleasant consequences that stop an unwanted behavior. We should not stop spanking because it is painful. On those grounds, we would never use any punishment."

This simplifies that spanking a child without brutally inflicting damage is a form of legal punishment because as he said, punishments are meant to be painful whether they are physical, mental, or emotional they are still painful, but in the contrary, parents should never abuse their rights because spanking doesn't necesarily means that you can apply whatever punishment you want to your child.

This made me realize the difference of spanking between child abuses. And it occurred to me how we developed the habit of punishing children brutally just so they will learn to behave themselves properly. Spanking is not that bad at all, although, it still depends on how parents limit their punishment on their children.

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Huwebes, Hulyo 18, 2013

Blogpost 3: Father Issues

Spanking has always been a brutal way for punishing a child specially when the one spanking you is your father. All of us are afraid of getting spanked but somehow, we're more afraid to get spanked when our father is involved. An article concerning about father's mental state when it comes to giving corporal punishment to children made me shocked about the results of their findings. The article is entitled, "Dad's Dark Side: New Fathers with Depression Spank Their Babies More" by Hans Villarica. His research shows that new fathers reported having major depression which makes them spank their children. A new study concerning about fathers depression shows that 41% out of 1,746 daddy's who were living with their one year old babies reported spanking their child due to depression.

According to the article written by Cristine Neff, new fathers feel depressed because they cannot adapt to the new environment that they are currently on to. Their baby is always crying, they don't have much sleep, they feel they're useless because they cant handle their own child. These are just fractions of what they truly feel inside and its implied in their mind that when their child grows for a year or so, they can apply corporal punishment in order for their children to obey what they say without the thought of being stressed out. Further research shows that the risk of depression rises if the father doesn't feel close to their child and/or when the father had suffered traumatic experiences in their childhood like the loss of a love one, tragic accidents, or life threatening scenarios.

Other reasons that triggers depression to fathers:

A lack of good sleep
Changes in hormones
Personal History of Depression
Poor relationship with spouse
Poor social functioning
A lack of support from others
Economical problems or limited resources
A sense of being excluded from the relationship between the mother and the baby

So in conclusion, despite the difficulties that you face when it comes to raising a child, always remember that everything you do to them reflects at what they will do when they grow older, and that corporal punishment doesn't always solve depression and stress and should not be used more frequently. Having a child is a responsibility, and even though it might be a bit difficult, we should not forget that these responsibilities are the reason why we live today.

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Martes, Hulyo 9, 2013

Blogpost 2: Dangers of Spanking

Spanking is probably the most used punishment for children around the world. Some parents still question the idea of whether it will have a positive or negative outcome to their children, but still, they tend to do it anyway. A lot of debate has been made whether spanking a child is the proper way to punish them or to lecture them but they do not see what spanking implies to children which later, will surprise a lot of parents. Let's try to put ourselves into their state, when we get spanked we express multiple feelings simultaneously, for instance, at first we often feel hurt, hurt from getting spanked. Then followed by fear, fear of getting spanked again. Then soon follows the thought of hate, hate of getting spanked by our parents. Now these feelings are very common to exist in a child because no one wants to get spanked by their parents. The only problem is that, how will the child respond to your message?

“A child doesn’t get spanked and then run out and rob a store,” said Elizabeth Gershoff, PhD, a leading researcher on physical punishment at the University of Texas at Austin.. “There are indirect changes in how the child thinks about things and feels about things.”
Researchers states that when a child gets spanked, there are various effects that parents wont be able to see until such time when their child is unable to connect with them. Such effects includes changes in behaviour. When a child gets spanked they feel anger and when that anger keeps on growing and growing, the tendency of the child being rebellious is at risk. Other effects include traumatic memories, wherein the child might have anxiety attacks and/or emotional discomfort at certain things which later will become a problem in their intellectual state of judgement. These problems will not only change your children, but also your personality towards your children.

“The studies do not discriminate well between non-abusive and overly severe types of corporal punishment,” as Robert Larzelere, PhD, an Oklahoma State University professor who studies parental discipline. “You get worse outcomes from corporal punishment than from alternative disciplinary techniques only when it is used more severely or as the primary discipline tactic.”

Research suggest that the more a child is prone to violence, the more negative traits the child would develop. When children gets pushed up to their breaking point, no matter what state your in in their life, they will inflict an aggressive emotion. For example, to parents, when you keep on spanking your child no matter how much they cry, yell, or scream just for you to stop and you still wont, they will soon have an increase of devotion to apply an alternative way of how to make you stop. Which is to fight back, and when a child fights back it means they have a full realization that they can control their parents and they will apply this realization for their own benefits.

So in my conclusion, spanking doesn't always have to be that brutal, people have to realize the proper way of treating one another because we are different people living in the same world with different capabilities. And not knowing what others have in mind, we might regret what we do to them in the future.

Martes, Hulyo 2, 2013

Blog Post 1: The Nature of Spanking

Most of us here in the

Philippines

probably had experienced being spanked by our parents. For some parents it’s one of the ways to discipline their child, but they never thought of how it would affect the behavior of their child. I have been a witness to this kind of scenario wherein a child gets spanked by his father because of his bad behavior whether in class or at home. Based on my observation, I highly object the manner of spanking a child to learn a lesson or to be better at doing something because it decreases their interest to pursue what you wanted them to pursue. One cannot simply motivate his/her child by harming them in any way; it will only result in many cases like, the increase of the child’s aggression towards the parents, morale insanity, lack of judgment, physical injuries, and traumatic memories which all leads to unhealthy physical and mental state of a person.

"Physical punishment doesn't work to get kids to comply, so parents think they have to keep escalating it. That is why it is so dangerous." said Elizabeth Gershoff, PhD, a leading researcher on physical punishment at the University of Texas at Austin. According to researchers, applying physical punishment on children will only make them comply for a short period of time due to fear or any other associated feeling of fear. While applying physical punishment for a long period of time,will not only decrease the state of fear of the child, but also increase the hate towards the one who hurts them, therefore will not work. A study published last year in Child Abuse and Neglect reveals how people think about spanking. Survey shows that people who get spanked by their parents think that it is the way of how people should be treated in order for them to be discipline, therefore its implied to do the same disciplinary method on their children once they have their own. Survey also shows that most of the reason why parents spank their child is because of stress removal. Which is very wrong due to the effects on the child.

As I was searching for more facts about spanking, I came across a website and it states how spanking affects and decreases the mental state of a child. “Spanking may reduce the brain’s grey matter, the connective tissue between brain cells. Grey matter is an integral part of the central nervous system and influences intelligent testing and learning abilities. It includes areas of the brain involved in sensory perception, speech, muscular control, emotions and memory. Supports the hypothesis that children and adolescents subjected to child abuse and neglect have less grey matter than children who have not been ill-treated.” according to Joan Durant, a professor at University of Manitoba. Furthermore, it’s been observed that families who are less fortunate tends to span their child more often. Another studies shows that boys gets spanked more than girls. In addition to my statement, spanking may also inflict emotional damage that may cause problems in the learning process of the child, therefore, instead of you trying to make your child better at doing something, your actually making them worse than you already know.

Today, there are exactly 24 countries that have banned all violence against children, most specifically, spanking. 19 are in Europe, 3 are in central and south America. Reasons that I believe should be taken consideration of when it comes to applying laws against spanking are first, we can see an alternative ways of teaching youths on how to be more responsible rather than violently force them to be one. Second, parents of our generation should be a role-model when it comes to raising their own child because what children sees in them, is what they will do for themselves. Third, children of our generation will be less prone to violence and it'll be much easier for them to realize life in the simplest form as possible and if they clearly refuse to cooperate, then let them be. Let your child know the difficulties of life on their own and more importantly, never by in their parents hands. Fourth, the state of our country might possibly have a positive outcome because the more children are well-educated due to proper raising by their parents the more our country will grow into a peaceful place.

So knowing more about spanking made me realize to think before we act, because not everything we do is for the benefit of everyone we care, sometimes our emotions blinds us into realizing a common sense to a scenario. And I'm looking forward to the future where no child has to suffer at the hands of their most trusted person in the whole world, and that all of us should know how to limit our boundaries in respect of one another as humans.

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