Essay - Spanking Perhaps No Topic Generates as Much Heated Debate Among...

Spanking

Perhaps no topic generates as much heated debate among parents and child development experts ***** corporal punishment. While defenders argue for the continued necessity of the practice, new research shows more clearly the benefits ***** sparing ***** rod ***** avoiding corporal ***** altogether.

These studies cite numerous reasons against ***** punishment, from increasing aggression in children to the *****'s moral repugnance. This paper, however, focuses on studies that show corporal punishment as an *****effective way ***** address misbehavior. In fact, numerous studies have *****n that practices like sp*****king or slapping do not ***** the reasons behind a child's unwanted behavi*****.

In fact, a parent who spanks a child may unwittingly reinforce a child's bad behavior.

Types of corporal punishment

Part ***** the difficulty in addressing this issue lies in the lack of a common def*****ition of spanking or corporal punishment. Some school districts, for example, equate ***** punishment with paddling and nothing else. Generally, however, corporal punishment practices like spanking are broadly defined as "hitting a child with an open h*****d without causing physical injury" (Gilbert 1997).

Aside from spanking, common forms of corporate ***** include grabbing a ***** and ***** a child with a v*****riety ***** objects (Straus and Donnelly, qtd in Spurgeon 1997).

However, the most ***** form of corporal punishment is spanking a ***** buttocks with an open hand. One survey found ***** 90 percent of adults today received this form of spanking as a child (Spurgeon *****).

Effects

***** remain divided, though, on whether such practices cause other unseen injuries.

Most ***** these studies, for example, show a positive link between spanking and anti-social ***** in *****ren. The children ***** were spanked ***** also ***** likely to lie, cheat or bully other children (Gilbert 1997).

***** study by Marjorie Gunnoe, ***** example, examined the link ***** corporal ***** ***** a child's anti-social behavior ***** tendency to get involved in school fights. After follow*****g her subjects for five years, Gunnoe ***** that ***** who received corporal punishment at home also reported a gre*****er incidence of fighting *****t schools (*****, qtd in Gilbert 1997). This ***** is thus consistent ***** the prevailing ********** ***** in the long run, corporal punishment is counterproductive.

*****, Gunnoe's results were ***** affected by factors like age, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. The opposite effect w***** observed ***** toddlers and African-American children. Gunnoe expla*****s the anomalous result by ********** that p*****nts ***** do not practice corporal punishment in these instances fail to employ other disciplinary techniques as well, ********** in undisciplined and largely unsupervised children.

Experts have also theorized on why, despite conventional wisdom, spanking instead encourages aggressive behavior. Parents who spank want to encourage good behavior in their ***** by instilling a fear of *****. However, the more common result is that the child learns to deal with conflicts through physical violence (Larzelere, qtd in Spurgeon 1997). As a result, *****ren ***** are spanked may get into more fights when the encounter conflicts in the playground.

***** motives of parents who spank