Child Discipline

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorCollege, Undergraduate February 2008

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Spanking children as a form of discipline goes back to before Christ. Then why are so many people wresting with the issue of whether they should spank their children. Unlike generations before them, parents today have to wrestle with what their own values and traditions tell them is right, and what the state or federal law could deem as child abuse. Spanking is not a new trend; it has traditionally been the effective consequence of a child?s bad behavior. Why are so many people asking parents to reason with their children, who obviously seem to be ?testing where the new limits may be?? Stories have been passed down from the turn of the century of how the children were told while visiting relatives, that they were expected to sit in the kitchen, while the adults visited in the parlor, the children were not to speak, unless of course an adult were to speak to them first.

If you told a child today the same thing I am sure you would be laughed at. The children at the turn of the century and up until the 1970s were not only occasionally spanked, but were physically abused, such as beatings, scaldings, and burnings. Although some of these tactics may have been extreme, today you do not hear stories of how someone?s great-grandfather disrespected his elders by telling them ?he was not going to help the family economically?, or ?he didn?t feel like doing yard work today.? Those children would have been punished for the simply suggesting something as disrespectful as talking back. Parent?s today worry that their child is going to feel angry or unloved. It is no wonder that our children are confused and disrespectful.

Of the thousands of websites found that approve and disapprove of spanking, the research...