One of the most important responsibilities of elders is disciplining children. Some people claim that smacking children is the most effective method of ensuring discipline. This essay will argue why physical punishment is absolutely unacceptable for children despite some benefits.
Many parents resort to physically punishing their children to instill well behavior. They believe that the failure to properly disciplining their children will derail them from building a successful academic life and career. They think indiscipline will lead their children to cause trouble for their teachers and other kids at school. There have been numerous instances where ill-mannered students dropped out of school only to be involved in various crimes, drug addiction, vandalism and other illegal activities, as they were not trained to respect the social boundaries and laws at an early age. This fear bolsters the parent’s mentality towards the necessity of physical punishment to reinforce discipline in their children.
Although parents’ concern for their children’s future is logical and understandable, smacking as a means of disciplining them is in no way a long-term solution. Children who grow up under the fear of getting punished may tend to be more socially awkward and have difficulty in thinking out of the box in any problematic situation, since they are only told to follow rules when growing up. Another problem is that some elders are not good at controlling the extent of physical punishment. Children who experience uncontrolled physical abuse fail to develop any genuine connection with their parents and show reluctance towards taking care of them in their old age. For example, many senile parents in Bangladesh have to seek shelter from government as their grown up children don’t want to take their responsibility out of contempt. Thus, smacking children can be a temporary solution to disciplining children but it may not show a fruitful effect in the long run.
This essay argued that the idea of physically punishing children is not a wise and permanent method of nurturing discipline in them. So I strongly disagree that smacking children is the best method of disciplining them despite its few short-term advantages.