In a family, each parent has to come to the decision of how to discipline their children. There are many different approaches that a parent can take when it comes to disciplining a child; grounding, spanking, time out and I am sure there are more.
My mother gave me the idea of making this the basis of my column when she informed me that according to Murray Straus, University of New Hampshire professor, children in the U.S. who were spanked had lower IQs by 2.8 to five points, than those who were not spanked.
I know that 2.8 to five points is not very much when it comes to an IQ, but it does show that spanking does have an affect. My mother has never spanked any of her children, including myself and we have all turned out just fine.
To let all you parents out there in on a little secret, as an older child of 10-14, grounding for me was much more of a punishment than any other. At that time I would have rather been spanked than grounded.
I am not saying that all parents that spank are bad parents, not at all. I can honestly say that at least 90 percent of all my friends have been spanked as children and their parents are great parents, but I do believe that when a parent spanks their child, it is a quick reaction of anger. When a parent gets upset with their child and is forced to act quickly they often go for the spanking approach.
A valid point that my mother made to me was that children that are too young to reason with will not understand why they are being spanked, it will just hurt their feelings, and if a child is old enough to understand then why not reason with them?
I believe that any child can be reasoned with one way or another and I am just asking parents to take a step back and see what emotional affects you could be causing your child in the long run.
No I am not a parent. I do not have a child, but I do believe that I know how human beings should be treated.
I cannot hit my significant other every time I believe he or she has done something wrong, it is against the law. So please tell me how it is right to harm a child if you believe that they have done wrong?
The thing that bothers me the most is that some adults will not even hit their animals when they do something wrong, but they will spank or slap their children as an act of discipline. Isn’t that a bit contradictory?
For every problem I believe there is a solution, and the solution should never have to be upheld physically. I just want parents to see that there might be an alternative approach they could take while punishing their children.
