Originally posted by JS357
You are as capable as anyone to do your own internet searching on corporal punishment in the home. Anyone can trot out anecdotal evidence and studies that support one side or the other (although formal studies tend to support limitations on, or elimination of, corporal punishment.)
I assume you would agree that corporal punishment should be limited in intensity, physically and emotionally. What are your limits?
Yes I can do my own research and yes I can weigh up the arguments for and against. here is an example.
Why Should Corporal Punishment Be Banned?
Corporal punishment should be banned for the following reasons:
1. It has no place in the education of children.
2. It perpetuates the cycle of abuse.
It Has No Place in the Education of Children.
Corporal punishment is not allowed in the military, mental institutions and prisons. But it is still legal to hit students in 20 states. The research shows that children who are beaten and abused are more likely to be prone to depression, low self-esteem and suicide. The simple fact that corporal punishment as a disciplinary measure is not part of any education curriculum indicates that educators at every level know that corporal punishment has no place in the classroom. Discipline can and should be taught be example.
Most leading professional associations oppose corporal punishment in all its forms. The reason why is that they feel it causes irreparable emotional damage to young people.
It Perpetuates the Cycle of Abuse.
I learned years ago about corporal punishment from a man who was an expert in the field. I co-founded a high school in Nassau, Bahamas in 1994. As deputy director of the school, one of the first issues I had to deal with was discipline. Dr. Elliston Rahming, the owner and director of the school, was a criminologist. He had very firm views about the subject: there would be no corporal punishment of any kind. We had to find better, more effective ways than beating to enforce discipline. In the Bahamas, beating children was, and still, is an accepted disciplinary method in the home and in the school. Our solution was to develop a Code of Discipline which basically penalized unacceptable behavior according to the severity of the infraction. Everything from dress code to drugs, weapons and sexual infractions was covered. Remediation and resolution, retraining and reprogramming were the goals. Yes, we did get to the point on two or three occasions where we actually did suspend and expel students. The biggest problem we faced was breaking the cycle of abuse.
http://privateschool.about.com/cs/forteachers/a/beating.htm
It appears to me that these arguments are quite fallacious, the rhetoric inflammatory and the reasons given devoid of substance. Take the first example, it has no place in the education of children. This is presented as a fact when in reality its nothing more than an opinion. The reasons given underlining it are equally dubious. That is not practised in the military, irrelevancy. That abuse leads to depression , logical fallacy, no one is talking of abusing anyone. That it has no part in education and therefore should not be part of education is cyclical thinking. All in all a very shoddy piece of reasoning.
Again the second paragraph is equally as dubious, no serious educator uses corporal punishment to enforce discipline? its used not as a source of motivation but as a punitive measure for a serious misdemeanour that is already committed and again I doubt there is any serious evidence that a smack on the bum has had any real negative effect and the idea that it leads to a cycle of abuse I find quite ludicrous to be honest.
None of these arguments appear to me to be reasonable nor even rational and yet in Europe it illegal to administer corporal punishment in any form.
I am neither for or against it at present, I am merely trying to understand the rationale.