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Child Parenting Advice
Have you ever felt the need to punish your child by spanking them, but wasn't sure if that was the right thing to do? Many people find the topic of corporal punishment to be a sensitive one to say the least. Mostly because there are so many ethical issues that come into play.
Child Parenting Advice addresses these concerns by clarifying terms people commonly confuse and goes a step further by providing solutions to dealing with this issue. CPA is mainly geared towards parents with childrend 1-10 years of age but the core ideas can be used for those at all ages.
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Before figuring out whether spanking is a good or bad discipline technique, we need to know the definition of spanking and several other terms that are often confused with each other.
ABUSE[1]
Abuse is a reckless act done out of anger with the intent to cause emotional and/or physical injury to the child. That includes,but is not limited to hitting, kicking, punching, or choking repeatedly and all over the body. It is abuse when an object (with the exception of a paddle) is used to strike at the child.
CORPORAL PUNISHMENT[3]
Corporal punishment is an act of discipline. It consists of three parts: parental, judicial, school. The parental aspect, which is the one we will be focusing on, refers to both spanking and abuse. Therefore, keep in mind that any data recieved from corporal punishment studies skew the image of spanking because it includes children who have been abused
SPANKING[1]
Spanking is a mild form of physical punishment used with the intent of correcting a misbehavior. Parents who chose this method must use it with a loving and concerned attitude. They are limited to a few smacks on the buttocks, arms or hand. They are also limited to certain misbehaviors which can be found under the 'Spanking' tab.
PUNISHMENT [2]
Punishment is a method of discipline. It can be physical or psychological. Examples include:
The purpose of punishing is to correct a misbehavior and help the child differ between right and wrong.
Example
Six year old Christopher is running around the house, jumping on the couches and the tables and yanking down objects as he passes by. His parents warn him to stop immediately before he hurts himself or destroys the house. Christopher says okay and stops playing roughly. Five minutes later when his parents are not looking, he starts running round the house. This time he breaks his mother's favorite vase. When his mother finds out she:
Solution #1 (Spanking): Waits until she is calm and in control, grabs him by the arm, calmly explains why he is recieving a spanking and proceeds to smack him three times on the hand.
Solution #2 (Abusing): Grabs him by the arm and while yelling hits him 10 times on his hands, legs, face and buttocks leaving Christopher with bruises.
Spanking harms the child emotionally and psychologically
This page discusses two main arguments prevalent with the spanking debate and offers a counterargument for each one. Simply click on the title to uncover common misconceptions about spanking.
Spanking is ineffective
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When is it appropriate? [4]
When your child is old enough to speak and hear properly and can reason between right and wrong then it is time to consider spanking them for misbehaving. Children are supposed to be able to do all this at the age of...(continued)
Howto keep spanking from getting out of control
How can I be most effective?
To be effective, parents must also talk with the child before and after spanking. It is the parent's responsibility to address the misbehavior, explain why it shouldn't be done in the first place and negotiate with the child a solution to better the behavior in the future.
This video is credited to Youtube[5]
WARNING: This video contains crude language. It is not meant to offend any parties but rather to aidthe context of the video.
This is a video clip of the comedian Russell Peters on the topic of 'beating' your children. The word beating is used in the same context as spanking or punishing. Peters talks about the differences in discipline methods by foreign parents compared to American parents.
Courtesy of Academic Diagnosis
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Looking for some quick information?
Check out these websites full of advice and videos
1. This site contains a personal account of a father and his disciplining methods:
http://www.daddeeyah.com/2007/12/14/child-disciplining/
2. This website contains a health and parneting center geared towards teaching effectieve discipline tactics:
http://www.webmd.com/parenting/discipline-tactics
3. This article further addresses the difference between spanking and abuse:
http://www.sparkplugging.com/the-man-page/is-spanking-child-discipline-or-child-abuse
4. Learn about how experts discipline their children:
http://www.parents.com/big-kids/discipline- behavior/discipline/how-experts-discipline-their-children/
Check out these great books to learn more about parenting, effective discipline and spanking. Just click on the image to read a synopsis and to get price information from Amazon.
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