Argumentative Essay against Spanking
Spanking may be defined as a form of corporal punishment which involves the direct use of the palm to administer pain to an individual for behavior corrective purposes. It is argued that spanking children has a conclusive proportional correlation to increased psychosexual development abnormality and amplification of anti-social behavior — characterized either by aggressive and violent behavior and total social withdrawal; hence, spanking, as a corporal punishment, must be avoided. This essay seeks to discuss the different arguments against spanking children.
There are studies which say that inflicting corporal punishment against children may lead to aggressive or even criminal behavior. There are those who dispute this saying that corporal punishment is different from criminal behavior arguing that the former is legal while the latter is illegal and more severe. However, many tend to ignore the fact that corporal punishment is done to correct a behavior which one perceives to be wrong. In the same manner, most criminals who commit crimes do so for the purpose correcting a behavior.
Anti-social behavior is defined by Straus, Sugarman and Giles-Sims , in Spanking by Parents and Subsequent Anti-Social Behavior of Children, as either an increased psychological and physical aggression or withdrawal. It may either be an excessive aggression towards other members of society or the utter retreat and avoidance of any social relations. Aggressive violence has been directly attributed to spanking in a cited study by showing individuals who have been spanked are four times more likely to hurt their siblings, twice more likely to employ physical violence against other children in school and three times more likely to have hit their partners compared to individuals who have not been spanked.
Out of the same respondents of the same study cited by Straus, other individuals who were spanked but who did not display aggressively violent behavior showed three times inclination to limit social interactions, two times more likely to be bullied in school and two times more likely to allow their partners to hit them as compared to other individuals who were not spanked as children. All such behaviors are constitutive of an anti-social behavior.
Besides the development of anti-social behavior, researchers are now starting to explore the possible correlation of an abnormal psychosexual development to spanking of the buttocks in children. The main premise of such studies is that the buttocks are highly sexual body parts because of the high concentration of sexual nerve endings in them. Spanking the buttocks, hence, may lead to a certain fixation as the child may learn to derive pleasure from the painful stimulation of the buttocks; a behavior often demonstrated my sadomasochists. These sexual arousal may also lead the child to be embarrassed of the derived pleasure and lead him/her to repress the stimulation, thus, encountering problems of expressing his/her sexuality or incapacity to deprive pleasure from actual sexual stimulation (Johnson).
Although the studies provided here are admit of certain context disparities because of the hardship of controlling external factors from the study, spanking children still posts a pressing risk that hinders or affects a child’s behavior and smooth integration into society. We are already a violent society. There is no reason for us to teach young children that violence is an acceptable behavior.
Related Posts:
1. Argumentative Essay In Favor of Spanking Children
2. Argumentative Essay against Corporal Punishment
3. Corporal Punishment Research Paper
4. Research Paper on the Benefits of Spanking
No comments:
Post a Comment