The Psychological Effects Of Corporal Punishment In Children

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The Effects of Corporal Punishment in Children
Doris A. Garcia
Houston Community College
Professor: Dr. Matt Webster The Effects of Corporal Punishment in Children
Should physical means of punishment be an option to discipline our children when they are misbehaving? The use of corporal punishment to discipline children remains one of the last holdouts of old-fashioned childrearing in the United States (Gershoff, 2010). Corporal punishment (or also known as physical punishment) is defined as the use of physical force towards a child for the purpose of controlling the child’s behavior, and is often used as a punishment (Rimal & Pokharel, 2014). It is inflicted on the child’s body with the intention of causing some degree of pain or discomfort (Cashmore & de Haas, 1995). Over the course of the years, corporal punishment has been controversially spoken about whether if it’s an effective or barbaric method of discipline to raise a child. According to Elizabeth Gershoff (2010), after conducting a meta-analytic scientific research on the intended and unintended effects of corporal punishment in children she concluded that the harm from corporal punishment outweigh any benefit of immediate child compliance. The effects of corporal punishment in children are many but among them, in this essay I will solely discuss about the effects of increased aggressive behavior, mental health problems, and eroded quality of children’s relationships with their parents.
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