parental discipline and child abuse are among the most controversial topics currently, and they cause serious problems for children in the United States. Child abuse essentially focuses on the child’s bad behaviors and gives the child emotional and physical harms. Forms of abuse include spanking, hitting, saying negative things and corporal punishment. In fact, parental discipline is a much more appropriate way of dealing with negative behavior than using abusive actions on the child. The line between parental discipline and child abuse is not clear. However, child abuse can be defined as people following the wrong policies to teach their children why their actions are not appropriate and the discipline puts a child at risk of harm or directly causes harm (Dugger).
The main point of this ambiguity is related to following wrong or different policies on child-rearing. In this case, parents or others should choose appropriate policies to bring up children because our children are our future. Parenting Styles Based on Parents’ Experiences
Child rearing is a sensitive and complicated issue for parents, and creates many arguments about how to properly raise their children. As it is a sensitive and complicated issue, there are many variables for parenting styles or techniques, but all these styles are based on personal experiences from our childhood. Jennifer Kogan, a writer for Washington Post, supports this idea: “We bring our experiences from our first family, or our family of origin, into our current family”. These experiences usually create parents’ own styles to raise their children, and they can be shaped with negative or positive features. Kogan offers a perfect example about this issue: “If you grew up with an anxious parent who seemed to get overwhelmed easily, you might adapt into someone who likes to take charge and has trouble asking for help. Becoming more conscious of this pattern can help you when your child starts to become more independent”. Today, many people are aware of what good parenting styles are and they often approach this issue positively to how their policies can work well to discipline their child. Results of Cultural Differences in Discipline
The Essay on Child/ parent relationship in the Little Boy Crying?
The poem, Little Boy Crying, written by Mervyn Morris is mainly about father and sons relationship. Poet shows the two main themes through this relationship; fathers love towards his child and his effort to lead his child into a right world in life. Mervyn Morris explores the child and parents relationship by using second person narration and language techniques such as allusion and emotive words. ...
North America and its schools are becoming increasingly culturally diverse. According to Tom Mclntyre and Patricia Silva, “The lack of knowledge that most educators possess regarding both child abuse and culturally different child-rearing creates fertile ground for misjudging the appropriateness of parental practices”. Teachers who adhere to the disciplinary practices of majority culture may see the culturally different practices as a child abuse. This means that use of culturally different discipline practices can create great risks for parents such as being reported for abuse to agencies. Recently, this has become a serious problem for immigrant parents who have settled in the United States. There are some differences between Chinese and American discipline styles. Yilu Zhao, writer for The New York Times, gives an excellent example: “When a Chinese immigrant mother beat her 8 year old son with a broomstick last month because he had not been doing his homework, she thought she was acting within the bounds of traditional Chinese disciplinary practices, and [sic] did not realize the trouble she was creating for her family.
The next day, when the boy’s reddish welts were seen by his teachers, his school in Rego Park, Quenns, reported the incident to the Administration for Children’s Services, the city agency that protects children. That evening, the police went to the home in Rego Park, and her three children were put in foster care. The parents were investigated for child abuse”. There is an opposite approach for child abuse; taking children away from their homes is also a form of child abuse. In this situation, services or government should give a chance for immigrant parents to get acculturated. However, many parents have disciplinary ideas but immigrant parents who settled in the United States differ from mainstream American views. In the Chinese Culture, Chinese believes that I hit you because I love you. The harder I hit you, the more, I love you (Zhao).
The Essay on Identify the various assumptions about children in early modern Europe, and analyze how these assumptions affected child-rearing practices
During early modern Europe children were treated differently throughout that time. This of course changed how their parents treated them. In the early 16th century there was a lot of sicknesses and the infant mortality rate was high. Many children died and it was normal , so when a child reached adulthood they beat the odds and were special. During that time a lot of parents thought that being ...
If people who internalize the western disciplinary culture try to approach from this point, it is impossible to accept the Chinese disciplinary practices. Already, Americans never think to discipline their child with Chinese disciplinary practices. On the other hand, many immigrant parents believe that American parents are too permissive and that children are disrespectful, but they don’t know using abusive actions on child can create much harmful behaviors and cause to they will be withdrawn and unsuccessful for their future life (Zhao).
In America, the individual is the most important. Yilu Zhao states, “American society might consider the family’s discipline to be too strong, especially if the child is hurt physically or emotionally”. It is easy to see differences if people compare two children who disciplined culturally different. Consequently, cultural differences may act on people’s policies for parental discipline and child abuse. Lawsuit and Bills
Trying to stop corporal punishment is one of the most controversial methods of child discipline, but spanking and corporal punishments are still allowed in many states. These practices are especially most prevalent in Southern States such as Florida where around 3,600 abuses were reported last year (De Nies).
Yunji De nies says, “States that allow spanking and corporal punishment: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Wyom”. (Courtesy of irregulartimes.com by Google Images)
The Essay on Corporal Punishment: an Effective Tool in Child Discipline
“For every action, there’s a reaction”, states Newton’s law of motion. This obvious truth doesn’t apply to just physics alone. It can also be applied to the human personality. When applying it to a child’s behavior, especially from a very early age, children need to be taught that their actions will have consequences. Being the sponges that they are, sometimes ...
Opponents of using spanking and corporal punishment often argue that these practices are a part of child disciplining in Southern Culture especially in the African-American communities, and they support spanking is a matter of tradition and old-fashion discipline (Parker).
According to Susan Bitensky, a writer for The New York Times, “The punishment has no real positive educational or moral effects on children. The studies instead show that physical chastisement is correlated with multiple adverse effects on children, some of which are serious and may persist into adulthood”. Another effect of behaving a child abusive is that increase the probability of the child being physically aggressive. Therefore, spanking, corporal punishment and other practices should be outlawed in every schools and other places because of children safe. What Can Be Done
As I previously stated, our children are our future. Child-rearing perfectly is the main purpose of being good parents. Advocacy group or children services should be much aware of children are in safe, and they should work on some studies which help to decrease or stop the use of abusive disciplining or punishment for the children. On the other hand, educational helps act an important role to help parents or others how to get excellent politics to apply on children. These educational helps can include some workshops or panels to teach them what a good disciplining is, and when discipline becomes abuse. In this manner, children services, states and politicians should help to increase the public awareness with bills or bans, create excellent models of parenting and give a chance for immigrant parents to adapt regular American’s discipline styles without any reports.
