Corporal Punishment
Raising Children with Corporal Punishment
By James Smith
With my head hung between my knees, I sat on my bed dreading the sound of my dad’s beat up, old pickup truck rumbling down the dirt road to our house. I was caught smoking cigarettes with my friend Chuck, and I sat waiting for the punishment that followed. At that time, I honestly wished Mom had dealt with me instead of Dad. Being the deviant child that I was, I knew what was coming. First, I’d get the lecture from Mom as Dad would listen while making that disappointed face. It would end with a spanking from Dad’s large, worn-out leather belt. And that’s just the way it happened. Chuck had it easier; he just received a week of grounding. Funny thing, though, even though Chuck’s parents and my parents were non-smokers, Chuck smokes a minimum of a pack of cigarettes a day now, whereas I have never smoked a cigarette since then. Looking back, I wouldn’t change a single thing about that experience or the others that accompanied my mistakes. I learned valuable lessons about right and wrong and accepting the consequences of my actions. A major controversy in American society today is the debate on the use of corporal punishment by parents for disciplining their children. The use of corporal punishment has both supporters and opponents with opinions, statistics, and evidence for their views on the issue. I believe there is a big difference in a reasonable use of force for discipline and child abuse. Having experienced corporal punishment in my own upbringing and seeing how it has affected my life, I support the reasonable use of corporal punishment by parents in disciplining their children. The reasonable use of corporal punishment is permitted in all 50 of the United States. According to a poll taken by ABC News in November 2002, 50% of parents in the United States spank their children (Crandall). In my own poll, which I ran on Facebook for one week, 100% of all persons taking the poll were
By James Smith
With my head hung between my knees, I sat on my bed dreading the sound of my dad’s beat up, old pickup truck rumbling down the dirt road to our house. I was caught smoking cigarettes with my friend Chuck, and I sat waiting for the punishment that followed. At that time, I honestly wished Mom had dealt with me instead of Dad. Being the deviant child that I was, I knew what was coming. First, I’d get the lecture from Mom as Dad would listen while making that disappointed face. It would end with a spanking from Dad’s large, worn-out leather belt. And that’s just the way it happened. Chuck had it easier; he just received a week of grounding. Funny thing, though, even though Chuck’s parents and my parents were non-smokers, Chuck smokes a minimum of a pack of cigarettes a day now, whereas I have never smoked a cigarette since then. Looking back, I wouldn’t change a single thing about that experience or the others that accompanied my mistakes. I learned valuable lessons about right and wrong and accepting the consequences of my actions. A major controversy in American society today is the debate on the use of corporal punishment by parents for disciplining their children. The use of corporal punishment has both supporters and opponents with opinions, statistics, and evidence for their views on the issue. I believe there is a big difference in a reasonable use of force for discipline and child abuse. Having experienced corporal punishment in my own upbringing and seeing how it has affected my life, I support the reasonable use of corporal punishment by parents in disciplining their children. The reasonable use of corporal punishment is permitted in all 50 of the United States. According to a poll taken by ABC News in November 2002, 50% of parents in the United States spank their children (Crandall). In my own poll, which I ran on Facebook for one week, 100% of all persons taking the poll were