Spanking Your Child

669 Words3 Pages
Growing up, I do not remember getting too many spankings, but, I can still here the crack my Dad would give my younger brother and sister. I felt so bad for them, especially if he left a mark. I would want to go console them as soon as he left, but was forbidden to do so. In 2009, a Duke University study published in Child Development concluded that spanking has detrimental effects on the behavior and mental development of children. The researchers found children who were spanked as 1-year-olds tended to behave more aggressively at age 2, and didn’t perform as well as other children on a test measuring thinking skills at age 3. Children’s Hospital Boston’s Jayne Singer, PhD, clinical director of the Child and Parent Program and a clinical psychologist for the Brazelton Touchpoints Center says, “The results of the study make sense. Spanking a child does show the child that the parent is bigger and stronger and can take control of the child. But, it doesn’t show the child how to learn to develop control of themselves. Spanking may stop the child then and there, but there’s a cost emotionally and cognitively to a child, and over the long run, it doesn’t usually lead to the child learning not to repeat the behavior that resulted in the spanking in the first place. It can also lead to the child learning to behave because of fear, not because of respect. (Cantu) Spanking a child results in them being afraid, and that hitting is the way you handle conflict. Instead, send a message to your child such as, “I love you and I can’t let you do that.” Children can learn best by mimicking their parents’ ability to control themselves, and parents can be models by using calm, firm and neutral discipline” (Cantu). Spanking is a form of abuse that people tend to turn a blind eye to. Besides, imagine how confusing it is for a child to be punished with a spanking for hitting another
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