When Is Corporal Punishment the Correct Way of Shaping Behavior

When is corporal punishment the correct way of shaping behavior? And the answer to this question is “NEVER”. Statistics have proven that this type of abusive have a huge negative effect on not only adults but children. I have learned in my Psychology that there are better and different ways of shaping ones behavior.

Hitting, spanking, slapping, shoving a child can cause more destruction to a child than good. A study was done on 2500 toddlers from low-income families that had experience this type of abuse. It was found that this form of punishment was correlated to mental and behavioral development. Toddlers are at age of exploring, so punishment to this degree is not shaping at all. This physical cruelty is depriving children psychologically. It has also been found that toddlers spanked at the age of one years of age tend to be more aggressive, at the age of two; they did not perform well in school and at the age of three; their test scores were extremely low. (Ireland, 2005)

Corporal punishment administered to a child can do numerous things spiritually and emotionally. It distracts children from focusing on the nature of what they did wrong in the parents eyes or the one disciplining them. Instead spanking focus on the pain inflicted thereby reducing the possibility that children will understand why their act was wrong. It reduces the chances of the situation being a learning experience, hence bringing back bad thoughts. Hitting of a child conveys humiliation and over time lowers self esteem. Corporal punishment can send a child mixed meanings of making them believe that they have to hit to get their point across. This kind of abuse can be labeled as negative reinforcement because it is all followed by discomfort or an unpleasant event. All of these circumstances can shape children behavior in a negative manner. (Ohene, 2003)

For many years physical punishment had been labeled as being the correct form of discipline. Some might ask what...