Presenting Professional Advice in Developmental Psychology – Corporal Punishment

I agree with the opinion that corporal punishment is an outdated technique of punishment that has no substantial influence in changing behavior or correcting situations. Corporal punishment has been used in the past a punishment technique whereby kids are subjected to physical pain as a way of guiding them to do the correct things that are required of them. I was once a victim of corporal punishment and I cannot say that it helped me transform my behavior. Instead it instilled fear in me with basically no reason for the same.

Inflicting physical pain in kids does not instill rationale in a child. Instead it trains the child’s mind to believe that mistakes are bad in all circumstances which is not true (Donald, 2010). People are supposed to learn from mistakes. Life is diverse and mistakes are inevitable. I believe that mistakes are the best ways that one can learn from. However, some may argue that kids have no rationale to ascertain right or wrong. That may be true, but it does not justify corporal punishment for mistakes. There are other logical methods of correcting situations. Telling a child the right thing repeatedly can be used a correction technique or guiding to do the right things.

Harsh punishments do not improve behavior or academic performance. More often than not, corporal punishments always results to hate. Children may develop hate towards their teachers and this is not the reason for which punishment is meant. Punishment is meant to instill discipline and discipline is a state of mind. In this regard, other methods such as social guidance are better methods of instilling good behavior in children as opposed to corporal punishment.

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