Corporal Punishment Sociology

Corporal punishment as explained by Frechette, Zoratti, and Romano (2015) is a form of discipline often defined as the “use of physical force with the intention of causing a child to experience pain, but not injury, for the purposes of correction or control of the child’s behavior.” (p.135) Corporal punishment techniques (spanking) have existed for many years and has been a permanent form of discipline when dealing with children. There are various ways that parents familiarize their child with the act of corporal punishment by spanking, slapping, shoving a child roughly, and hitting them with certain objects (e.g., belt, shoe, or book). (Frechette, Zoratti, & Romano, 2015) The majority of American public along with professionals concerned with …show more content…
Other variables include, the age of the child, the parent’s ability to control their aggression, as well as the direct connection between the child and their parents (relationship is a good or a bad one). (Oas, 2010) These particular variables are extremely important in understanding corporal punishment because when discussing proper ways to discipline a child, scholars have to take in to consideration all factors that come with corporal punishment and the act of disciplining a child in order to draw a line between corporal punishment and child abuse. Studies conducted found that conditional spanking when put up against alternative disciplinary tactics, revealed that over ten out of thirteen alternative disciplinary tactics were less preferred than conditional spanking. (Oas, 2010) Likewise, specific studies attempting to reveal potentially positive effects of corporal punishment found that using corporal punishment as a “back up technique” eventually strengthened the effectiveness of the alternatives punishments of less than physical or non-physical methods due to the child’s fear of being spanked. (Oas,