There is no perfect way to parent a child. Parenting styles may be divided into 4 main categories (authoritarian, authoritative, permissive indulgent and permissive indifferent) but the way each style is implemented still depends on the parents themselves (Ashford & Lecroy, 2013, 2010). Children are socialized by “parental disciplinary practices which teach them a standard they are expected to achieve in their behaviour” (Majonis, 1991). Since a young age, children have been brought up with the values and teachings of their parents; it is how they understand rules and appropriate behaviour. Since “physical punishment is a common form of child discipline” (Watkinson & Rock, 2014) around the world, we will hence concentrate on this for this paper. As social workers, we need to be mindful of this parenting style and how it is constantly evolving. Punishment that was once the norm is now banned in some of the Western countries. We need to understand why physical punishment may no longer be the common tool in disciplining and more importantly what reasons that cause some countries’ law to pass it as illegal (Watkinson & Rock, 2014). By definition, we can say parents equate discipline with punishment as a means to get the child to immediately comply in the short-term, and for the child “to comply in the future and in their absence” (Kuczynski, 1984). Through discussion and evaluation, we will provide parents with evidence if this is an effective mode of discipline.
Due to the