Should Children Be Punished With Physical Punishment
Should Children Be Punished With Physical Punishment
It is generally believed that children are punished because adults want to teach them something. The whole purpose of punishment, in the case of children, is intended to change their behaviour. Adults generally think that they should do whatever it takes to get children to behave in an acceptable way. In order to get the children to behave thus, adults often punish them physically—that is, through causing pain.
It is my opinion that physical punishment of children is an over reaction and can never be justified. First of all, it is a very thin line between punishment and abuse of children. They have been to many cases where adults, claiming that they intend to “reform” their children end up abusing them. Children have been burn and whipped senseless and in many other ways treated like enemies. We all know that once an adult loses his temper, he is liable to forget that what he has before him or her is a child who has committed a wrong, usually out of not understanding, and not a crime.
Emotional scars are left on children who are disciplined with pain. Many criminals that we read about have turned out to be those who had been abused as children. They become immune pain and to feelings for others. So what the adults does to a child when he is punishing him, physically. Is actually helping to create a criminal—unless he, the adult, is in control and he is able to punish without overdoing it. This, we know, cannot be guaranteed. Since there is no way to control this, it is best that children be punished in other ways.
The caring parent can think of many ways of punishing a child without hurting their children. For example, children can be stopped from watching their favourite programmes on television, or perhaps be grounded for fixed periods of time or stopped from playing. Rules can be laid down and the punishments meted out as a consequences of breaking the rules
Parents who really love their children will not want to cause them physical pain. They can think of other methods of punishment. This is my opinion.