How Concerned Should We Be About Corporal Punishment as a Form of Discipline?

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Inquiry- How Concerned Should We Be about Corporal Punishment as a Form of Discipline? Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell. The physical punishment of children has long been considered an acceptable form of correction and control. Indeed, many nations of the world still advocate the use of physical punishment, also known as corporal punishment (CP), as an effective way to discipline and consequently socialise children and young adults. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has defined corporal punishment as: “[A]ny punishment in which physical force is used and intended to cause some degree of pain or discomfort, however light”. As of July 2012, only 33 of 198 states, New Zealand being one of the 33, have prohibited the use of this physical force for correction in the home.While “abusive” physical punishment of children by parents is widely regarded as being morally reprehensible, dangerous and illegal in most societies, what is less clear is whether “any” physical punishment of children is tolerable and should be legally permissible. The corporal punishment of children is a currently topical issue in New Zealand with the 2007 adoption of the “Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act 2007” that essentially provides no legal defence to parents if they are found to have smacked their child, however light, in a corrective or disciplinary manner. The law change has polarised not only families, friends and communities, but the nation as a whole. To demonstrate, a New Zealand poll conducted by UMR Research on behalf of the Office of the Children’s Commissioner found that 58% of parents felt that “there are certain circumstances where it is alright to use physical punishment with a child”. With such polarisation,

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