spank

I was just reading in the paper this morning that the spanking topic is in the news...again. Apparently people cannot decide whether or not spanking children as a form of punishment is acceptable. There were quotes from some liberal politician claiming that "spanking has no positive effects on children, and that it is borderline 'abuse', and an archaic style of punishment." It also added that kids who are spanked are less smart, and have all this emotional baggage to carry with them through the rest of there lives. And I can agree that in the hands of the wrong parent, children may be put through indecent physical harm, I do not agree that spanking should be banned altogether.

As a person who was spanked by my parents as a child, I commend them for doing now that I am an adult. I believe that kind of discepline most definatly contributes to how you function as a growing adult. As a child I was taught that when I did somthing unfavourable there is consequences that do not feel very good (spanking). As you go through life, making decisions and either reaping the benefits from them, or getting hurt by them, you are making that cognitive connection between right and wrong. I feel that I made good choices in my life, and I owe it to my parents for teaching me that there is consequences for making the wrong decision. And sometimes yes, you have to push the boundries to see what will burn you, but you learn from that. You learn how soceity functions: If I do somthing wrong, someone will find out and I will be punished.

I would love to hear these politicians alternative punishment strategies.

Time out in your room? (probably the dumbest punishment ever. its basically: "go to your room, where all your toys are, play, and forget what you did wrong.")

Taking privledges away from the child? (this works, but only for a temporary time it seems. Because you know eventually, you will give back the privledge and the cycle will repeat itself.

The truth is, people of all stages of life, young and old, respond to PHYSICAL punishment. You could acciedently touch a live wire when you are doing some work in the basement, and learning from that mistake, and turn the power off next time. There won't be too many times that you will make that mistake again. Its much like the study Dr. J.B. Watson conducted with the little boy, Albert. In the study, the boy was placed in a room with a Teddy bear, and every time the boy would touch the teddy, he would get a little zap. Time after time he would get zapped, and eventually he would not care to have the teddy anymore, because he associated it with pain. And even though this study may have different objects and characters, the outcome is similar to spanking as a consequence. You do somthing wrong, and you associate that action with the outcome: pain. You murder someone, and you should associate its outcome with going to jail for a very long time.

Physical punishment, rather then a mental punishment, is immediate and teaches children from a young age that with every bad decision they make, has an immediate consequence. I think that taking spanking out of the parents hands (no pun intended), will only hurt our growing society. People are only looking at the basic "threat", and that is that children are getting hurt. Though I do sympathize with the children that are being abused, I believe the real problem is that without punishment like spanking, children will grow up with a distorted view on how the world and society works. However, some see it the opposite way, and that spanking children is to blame for their bad behavior as an adult. The dissagreement continues...