To Spank Or Not To Spank Analysis

Cheyenn Wright
Greg Pies
EN 110
October 30, 2014
To Spank or Not to Spank

In the article, “Physical Punishment doesn’t help, it hurts” by Deborah Sendek, it covers the reasons as to why physical punishment from a parent to their child is the wrong way to handle the situation. The main reason parents use physical punishment as a way of handling bad behavior is because their parents did it to them when they were young. There is spanking and then there is abuse; where to draw the line?
When I think of the word “child”, I think of the word “innocent”, because that’s what children are, they are just young, open-minded humans that do not know the difference between right and wrong. Parents are a child’s number one idol and who they look up to
the most; someone to go to for comfort and answers to questions. Their parent’s opinion is their opinion. A child isn’t supposed to be scared of them. That’s how I felt my whole childhood; terrified of my own parents. It is a feeling that I will never want my own children to have. I understand that they didn’t know any better on how to handle the situations but it still leaves a scar to this day. In the article, Deborah states, “Children become emotionally alienated from a parent who hits them frequently”. It made me feel like I had no one to go to and I was all alone in the world with no guide to follow. I have seen many other kids be physically punished for every little thing they did “wrong”. It is heartbreaking to know that there is nothing you can do but just to accept it as a child and try to please them as much as possible. Hate is a very strong word but that’s how I feel about my grandma, who was my care taker for the majority of my child hood. I tried so hard to make her happy but she never liked me and that is hard to understand when you first come into this world.
As I grew older and learned more about the ways of life, I soon began to propose a theory about the reason why so many parents spank their children.
It is due to lack of education in raising a child and understanding the way they behave. They do not know other ways of handling it and most of all, because it is the laziest, quickest way to deal with it. People in America are lazy, and it’s usually the parents with low-income. They don’t want to take the time to talk about the reasons why what the child did was wrong. So, spanking or hitting them will “teach” them not to do it again. Except, it doesn’t actually teach them for the right reasons. I think people who become pregnant should have to take parenting classes required by law to teach them how to understand where a child’s mind-set is and how to handle it at that phase. People think that since their parents did it to them, it is the right thing to do. We have more knowledge than we did back then. We know how physical punishment affects a child now. One example would be when a certain group doesn’t believe in medicine healing people, they believe God will take care of them and then the next thing you know, the baby is dead. Just because people have done it before, doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to
do.
In conclusion, I am against physical punishment. I believe that it is a negative way to react to a child’s behavior and does nothing to improve the situation but by only harming the child either physically or emotionally. It serves no purpose but to let out your frustrations and confuse the child even more because you didn’t discuss the reasoning or explanation to them to help them understand on what they should be doing instead.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/09/opinion/sendek-corporal-punishment/