CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

[Audio] Hi, I am Chrispin John. Growing up in America, I heard about parents using corporal punishment, usually spankings, to discipline their children. This made me wonder…. wouldn't hitting your child to discipline them cause more behavioral issues? In this presentation, I will be talking about corporal punishment and how it might lead to unwanted behavioral problems in children. 22 seconds.

[Audio] What is corporal punishment? According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, " corporal punishment is a discipline method in which a supervising adult deliberately inflicts pain upon a child in response to a child's unacceptable behavior and/or inappropriate language". The most popular form of corporal punishment is spankings. Parents tend to use corporal punishment to make a child's behavior consistent with the adult's expectations..

[Audio] According to recent research, parents in America today are not using corporal punishment on their kids as much as parents from previous generations have. 50% of parents in 1993 used corporal punishment as a form of discipline, as of 2017, only 35% of parents use corporal punishment. While this may sound good to some, the fact still remains that more than one-third of parents still use corporal punishment..

[Audio] On top of the 35% of parents still using corporal punishment to discipline their kids, in America, there are still 19 states that allows teachers in public schools to legally use corporal punishment as discipline for their students. The states that allow corporal punishment in public schools include Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Texas, and Wyoming. It is also legal in all private schools to use corporal punishment as well..

[Audio] Outside of America and as of 2021, there are more than 50 countries that have deemed corporal punishment to be harmful to kids and decided to outlaw spanking in the home setting. These countries include Japan, South Africa, Nepal, France, Peru, Greece and Sweden. While this is good, many more countries have not banned corporal punishment, this includes the USA..

[Audio] Now, there are many arguments that parents give to justify the usage of corporal punishment, some of these arguments include " spanking is fine as long as it is done by loving parents", " I was spanked and I turned out Ok", and " Spanking is not abuse, it is discipline". In the next 3 slides, I want to be able to address these arguments and show how research has gone against them..

[Audio] Many parents and supporters of corporal punishment usually argue that since they were spanked and turned out fine that corporal punishment is an effective way to discipline children. The problem with this argument is that people do things they should not do and they turn out to be fine this does not mean to keep doing that said bad thing. There are many people who smoke and never had much health problems, but one would not suggest to keep smoking as we know it increases the risk for things such as lung cancer..

[Audio] Another argument that Parents and supports of corporal punishment tend to give is that spanking is not abuse, rather its just discipline. While many of these same parents and supports of corporal punishment would agree that a husband hitting their spouse is violent, these parents do not see them hitting their kids to be violent, thus not abuse. But, we do know that from recent research that the effects of corporal punishment is very similar to the effects on the brain that we tend to see due to severe abuse and domestic violence..

[Audio] One of the most used arguments by parents and supporters of corporal punishment is that the combination of parental warmth and corporal punishment negates any possible harm to the child, thus why they continue to use corporal punishment. But there has been past research that looks to see if parental warmth moderates the potential harms of corporeal punishment, and many of these found that the harms of corporal punishment persists even after taking parental warmth in to account..

[Audio] I have talked about what corporal punishment is, the common arguments to justify corporal punishment, how prevalent corporal punishment is, where corporal punishment is still legal in America and the countries that have outlawed corporal punishment, but what about the actual effects corporal punishment has on the development of children?.

[Audio] There has been more than 50 years of research on possible pros and cons of using corporal punishment, more specifically spankings, to discipline children. A group of researchers from The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Michigan decided to do a meta-analysis on these 50 years of research and found that the only pro of corporal punishment was immediate compliance, but there were many cons tat outweighed that one pro..

[Audio] The cons that the meta-analysis found that heavily outweighed the one pro of corporal punishment included lower academic performance, aggressive behavior, anti-social behavior, a more negative relationship with parents, lower self-esteem and mental health issues. So while the meta-analysis found that there was a consistent positive of corporal punishment, which was immediate compliance, there are many detrimental effects that outweigh the one positive of corporal punishment..

[Audio] We know that from past research, corporal punishment has many negatives for the development of children, but what about how this may effect the adult life of these children? Do the negatives of corporal punishment persist all the way into adult hood? The answer is yes, the meta-analysis I mentioned before also found that parents who had a history of spanking in their childhoods reported a having more mental health problems, anti-social attitudes and also reported more positive attitudes toward the usage of violence against kids to discipline them..

[Audio] Piggybacking off the negatives of corporal punishment found not only in children but in adults, we also know from research that there is a link between being spanked as a child and perpetrating relationship violence later in life. This link persisted even after accounting for contributing factors such as sex, age, parental education, ethnicity and childhood abuse..

[Audio] So we know about the link between corporal punishment and relationship violence later on in life, but what crime? Since corporal punishment can lead to aggressive behavior in kids, could there be a link between corporal punishment and criminal behavior? The answer is yes, there has been research done that found a link between corporal punishment in childhood and criminal behavior..

[Audio] As mentioned before, there is a link between corporal punishment being used on a child and criminal behavior. Research done by Murray Straus, who is the co-director of University of New Hampshire Family Research Lab, found that kids who are spanked as children were more likely to engage in criminal behavior compared to kids who were not spanked. He also found that this link still persists even if the parents were general loving and warm..

[Audio] Now, much of the research today on corporal punishment is done in the western world, but what about on the other side of the world in Asia? Not much studies have been done on the effects of corporal punishment on the youth in Asian populations. Thankfully, some researchers wanted to change that. Four Japanese researchers did a study on how spanking may effect the child development of Japanese youth, and what they found is very similar to what many studies in the west found..

[Audio] This study done by the four Japanese researchers looked at kids who were not spanked, kids who were occasionally spanked and kids who were frequently spanked. They found that kids who were occasionally spanked shown higher amounts of behavioral problems compared to the kids who were not spanked. And kids who ere frequently spanked shown even higher amounts of behavioral problems compared to kids who were not spanked. This study shows that the negative effects of corporal punishment is not just in the western world, but can also be found on the other side of the world..

[Audio] Taking all of what I said in the previous slides, the ultimate take away is that corporal punishment likely leads to a cycle of family violence. A child is spanked, this leads to the child believing that violence is a good way to deal with problems, this then leads to them perpetuating family violence themselves. This all then can lead to generations of family violence..

[Audio] When it comes to how I feel about the corporal punishment, I believe that it is a very dangerous way of trying to discipline kids. I believe that there are more effective ways of disciplining kids such as taking away privileges and time outs. I also believe that positive reinforcement may be a much better way to teach children compared to using any kind of punishment..