Should Parents Be Allowed To Spank Children

Whether or not a parent should discipline their children using the method of spanking is an issue that always seems to be in debate and up for discussion in each and every family in all of society. Any form of spanking can be considered abuse or the only way we can reach a child in terms of making them understand something. There are several points that come up when arguing the issue of spanking. In this essay I am going to argue why it’s a good thing to discipline a child using the method of spanking in order to show a child the difference between what’s right and what’s wrong, establish the parent’s role as a child’s protector, and to prevent simple unruliness and disobedience.

Children of a young age have little to no reasoning skills,
as we have seen through our own eyes time and time again. Whether it be a child heading for the bathroom cabinet in search of something to play with, a child “borrowing” the bottle of milk from a stranger’s child at the park, or just a child simply being disobedient and rebellious, we know that they do what they feel like doing no matter what. This is because they don’t have enough knowledge of the world which, of course, results in low reasoning skills for the child seeing as they have no experience of what the outcomes and consequences for their actions may be. Whether or not the child can communicate is also a role in the child’s reasoning process due to the fact that the parent won’t be able to tell their child to stop what they’re doing because the child will not understand. A simple and effective way to communicate such a message is through the means of spanking, or using a controlled amount of force, to convey the message that what the child is wrong.

When a parent spanks a child, that is the parent relaying the message that what the child is doing isn’t right for them to do.
Using a controlled amount of pain is often times the best way to explain to a child that what they’re doing has negative consequences and can help prevent future incidents that could endanger the child in some way because they start to get an idea of what is to come were they to do the same thing. Just the same, when we discipline a child for doing something wrong, we can reward them when they listen and respect our authority. This shows them that what they are doing is correct and deserves merit each time they do it. This positive reinforcement can prove helpful in getting the child to start to form the habit of doing the right thing, same as how the negative reinforcement helps them stay away from doing the wrong thing.

Being a parent means that they are taking responsibility for their child’s safety and well-being. This role can be established through the method of spanking seeing as how the parent uses this controlled amount of force to keep the child from doing something wrong or potentially harmful. As a parent, they have to also take on the role as protector of a child and protect them from harmful situations. Whether they give them a stern look or spank them to show them the error of their way, sometimes we have to hurt the child in order to really help
them.

There are times when a child just being unruly and rebellious for the fun of it. We’ve all seen it before, a child breaking out in tears and screaming because they aren’t getting the toy that they want or a child just hitting a parent because they felt like it. They can deliberately test the parent’s patience to see how far they can go with what they are doing. This is a time that would warrant a spanking because they have to be shown that they can’t always get what they want and that no means no. If the parent doesn’t do anything about it, the child can grow from not only testing the patience of their parents by doing what they want, but to start doing whatever they want with other people around them seeing as how they never got disciplined in such a manner that would show them that this is not a good thing to do in order to get what they want.