I’ve been following this question since it was posted.
I do not agree with corporal punishment for children, at home or in the school. I agree with the many who stated it does not teach the child anything but to fear their elders and authority figures. Am I saying this punishment will emotionally mess up every child? No, of course not. Their are many people who’ve been spanked/whipped as children and turned out fine (at least they seem fine).
We are into the 21st century. I don’t see why so many people are still smacking their kids. We should know better by now, shouldn’t we? I understand there are some very unruly children. I empathize with parents who just don’t know what to do any more. I wish there were more visible/available education methods for disciplining children through the media and communities. Usually, parents don’t look into them until there is a problem. By that time, the problem child has a very set and routine way of life in the family home (making it that much harder to change methods of discipline). This is why I think all parents should be required to take parenting classes before the child is born. It would be even more useful if classes were required at every stage of the child’s development. In addition, some variation of these classes/information should be taught to anyone working with children (including teachers). I understand the financial strain on the education system. So I am not sure how this would be implemented. But I can think of a few cuts in frivolous government spending that could drastically help the education system.
I’m not sure where my personal experience fits into the question. Corporal punishment was used excessively in my childhood home…but so were other harsh discipline methods – more so abuse. To try and answer more clearly, I’ll separate the obvious abuse from the corporal punishment. This type of punishment, on it’s own, taught me nothing but to fear anyone bigger, louder and more powerful than I. I never remembered the actual reasons for being punished. I only remember the pain and fear. I learnt nothing useful to take into adulthood from this. Perhaps it is because I rarely misbehaved as a child? I usually did not understand why I was in trouble. I was told but it didn’t make sense to me. At school, I was also very well-behaved and quiet. We did not have corporal punishment in school. There were a few incidences though. Those situations were dealt with but no teacher was ever fired for such behaviour. If these things happened now, they would almost certainly be fired on the spot (and possibly charged). This shows a slow change in punishment standards in our society…especially regarding children in the home and at school.
So, again… No. Corporal punishment should be done away with by now. These children are just that, children. Why should any adult be smacking these little people around? How can we justify an adult physically disciplining a child, who is much smaller and weaker than them? We are supposed to me more mature than that, aren’t we? I am not saying that parents who spank their kids should be hulled off to jail or humiliated. I’m saying there needs to be a change in how discipline is viewed and understood, by the average parent. I believe that change is happening. It’s slow, but it’s happening.