Violence and Children

When I was a child I was very rarely physically disciplined. Probably less than five times do I remember ever being spanked. The use of physical discipline differs with each parent depending on how the parent is going to handle certain situations. In my case I did some pretty bad things to deserve my spanking, like running away cursing at my mom when it was bath time all while drawing on the wall with a marker. In my opinion though, I do not think physical discipline should be used on children at all. After researching many scientific articles I have come to the conclusion that violence should not be used to discipline children for misbehaviors.

http://www.apa.org/pi/prevent-violence/resources/violent-behavior.aspx

In this article researchers studied the impact of physical discipline on children from the age of 10-15 year old, with 134 families participating in the study. The study's results showed many interesting results from the use or dis-use of physical discipline on adolescences.

"Adolescents who were more likely to engage in fighting, bullying, and victimization of others reported that their parents engaged in corporal punishment as a disciplining method"

This shows that physical discipline can result in the increase use of violence among peers between adolescents. This is directly resulting from parental modeling of a negative behavior, like hitting or spanking a child. This can give children the idea that this type of behavior is acceptable in every day society. Another interesting finding from this research is when parents distinctly disapprove of violence, their children are also affected but in a positive way.

"Results demonstrated that perceived parental disapproval of the use of violence was associated with more prosocial attitudes and less use of physical violence among adolescents"

These findings show that physical violence should not be used with children because of the adverse effects on children in the long run. It also shows that children learn a lot from the way their parents raise them. So when becoming a parent, taking the time to discipline the right way instead of physical violence can have a  positive impact on children  in the long run.