A Fine Line Exists

A fine line exists between punishment and abuse. Corporal punishment taken too far is a type of physical abuse and should not be allowed. How to know when the spanks, slaps, and shaking is too abusive can be a hard task so corporal punishment should be avoided all together. Parents should use other means of discipline to raise their children.

Cynthia Vance, doctor of psychology at Piedmont College said that positive reinforcement is the most effective type of operant conditioning in terms of how quickly and effectively children learn. With positive reinforcement, a stimulus is presented to the child, which results in an increase in behavior. Telling children they will be awarded a sticker if they are quiet is an example of positive reinforcement because it is rewarding the good things the children do as opposed to punishing them for the wrong things they do. In corporal punishment, a stimulus is still presented but it is degrading, not rewarding, and results in a decrease in behavior. In this case, children are always being scolded for what they do wrong but never praised for their good behavior. This is not an effective means for which to raise a child.

According to an online article entitled Educated Parenting by Dr. Kerby T. Alvy posted on January 26, 2006, corporal punishment does get immediate results but it also has long-term consequences. Alvy states these long-term consequences include children becoming more aggressive outside the home and becoming abusive with their own children and spouses when they become adults.

Alvy’s ideas are more than theories. According to an apa online website, Dr. Elizabeth Thompson Gershoff, of the National Center for Child Poverty at Columbia University in Washington, conducted a large-scale meta-analysis that looked at both the positive and negative behaviors associated with corporal punishment. The American Psychology Association published Gershoff’s findings in the Psychological Bulletin in 2002. Her meta-analysis of 62 years of collected data found that the more often and more harshly a child is hit, the more likely he or she is to be aggressive or to have mental health problems.

Personally, I feel like a very disciplined child who knows right from wrong. I have no recollection of ever being hit or physically harmed as a type of punishment. I definitely believe some punishment is needed for a child to be disciplined, but I think other, more positive, strategies should be used besides physical harm. Again, a fine line exists between punishment and abuse and that line should never come close to being crossed.