Child Disapline/ Should you spank your child - Essay Example

One cannot deny that though rejected heatedly in theory, spanking kids as a form of enforcement still exists in many families and education institutions. Moreover, there have been multiple attempts to ground theoretically the necessity of spanking children. The source of the controversy over corporal punishment is that no one is absolutely sure if children are actually affected by it, and exactly in what way. Naturally, the problem has invoked a lot of attention on the part of psychologists. (Gershoff 2002, p. 539) Historically, spanking was an inalienable part of the upbringing process in many countries.

In the Old Sparta, children were subject to severe punishment even for the slightest misconduct so that their will is trained and they are able to become good warriors. Some tribes of North American Indians, on the other hand, allowed their children do whatever they wanted to, and brought up no less successful fighters and defenders of their land. J. Locke who wrote a lot about the issues of upbringing and highly appreciated the role of education in the process of development a personality, though considered discipline one of the main objectives of upbringing, still believed that corporal punishment is only admissible in some exceptional cases.

Corporal punishment, though Locke, can make a slave, not a gentleman. But while in a number of world countries (Italy, Germany, Sweden, Austria, Denmark etc.) people start to refuse from this type of punishment and these changes are reflected in their national legislations, parents in the US stick to the good old spanking as the most effective (in their view) and time-proven means of discipline. (Gershoff 2002, p. 539) In the USA, where formerly “free” system of upbringing was proclaimed, nowadays order in schools is maintained through quite strict means: in some schools, metal detectors are installed at the school entrance; in others security service is necessary.

Many teachers advocate the stiffening order