Is physical punishment justifiable?

[zheer]

My dad inflicted pain when he hit me, it wasn't just for show.

  One of my friends witnessed his father beat his mother and thats just as bad.

[mycrabface]

Greetings

This is a hypothetical situation, but I am sure it is the likes of which that tends to occur quite often and of course, results vary from person to person depending on the situation. However in this case, the situation is as follows: Say a younger member of your family is involved in a particular habit that is perhaps damaging to the family, house, annoying, or whatever the reason, and you are trying to get the family member to stop that action, but to no avail. Logic doesn't help, as the younger family member persists on doing said action and the fact that it annoys you just spurs him or her on. The action can be anything such as not turning off faucet water or not closing the door when entering or exiting. You try to speak rationally to the sibling, but that doesn't work. I am greatly against any forms of physical punishment, but such a scenario makes me doubt my beliefs to some extent. Is physical punishment therefore moral? A punishment as such would establish proper respect and obedience, and will support proper habits that would help the younger family member in the future. However, as is known, physical punishment can also harbor more negative consequences as well.

What are your opinions?

Physical punishment is moral. Its for people who don't behave. Even the law uses physical punishment! But over-stepping the line would be considered physical abuse. (There is a difference between spanking and beating).

[pianolearner]

  One of my friends witnessed his father beat his mother and thats just as bad.

I know exactly what he witnessed. There were a few times where I had to stand between my mum and dad and actually hold his arms.

[jlh]

I know exactly what he witnessed. There were a few times where I had to stand between my mum and dad and actually hold his arms.

As did I...  It's a frightening experience for any teenager. 

[jlh]

My dad inflicted pain when he hit me, it wasn't just for show.

I have many stories I could tell about being on the receiving end of a solid spanking.  My dad used a leather belt mostly -- I had to touch the ground with my hands before he would strike my bottom.  Once a wooden souvenir paddle was broken on me.  My mom had us kids cut our own "switches" from the maple tree in the front lawn, and if they weren't thin enough (thin ones sting more) she would make us cut a different one.

Yes, many stories indeed... and I'm a better person because they cared enough to do that.  I hated them for it sometimes growing up, but then once I had grown, I see how spoiled and selfish other people are who I know weren't spanked as a child.  Kids don't learn unless they have something to make them learn. 

[pianistimo]

my dad never 'beat' my mom.  occasionally he would tease her about spanking her.  they rarely if ever used spanking on my bro and i when i was older.  i only remember when i was very young and attempting to be a bad influence on my brother.  for instance, i got into trouble teaching him how to smoke pick up sticks.  i had never smoked in my life - but my grandfather smoked and thought it was cool at the time.  i thought that the spanking was a little misplaced since they had never said it was something they would spank for.  but, then again - because of that one timed spanking - cigarettes never had the same appeal.

[ahinton]

On one occasion and one only, I was given the strap that was used in Scottish schools at the time (I must have been about seven years of age at the time). I was told why I would get it beforehand and that the part of my anatomy to be struck with this leather implement was my right hand. Being right-handed, I had little difficulty in grabbing the wretched thing when it hit that hand, so I took hold of it and administered precisely the same treatment to the teacher who had just administered it to me, with as near equal a use of force as I could manage. That teacher then asked me what I thought that I might have learnt from this and I replied that I felt that it achieved nothing of any use or benefit to either of us so was a pointless exercise. I was never strapped again. I still believe the same today.

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

Very interesting debate.

One of the best on pianostreets for a while.

Thal

[imbetter]

If somebody uses physical punishment toward a child for misbehaving, it doesn't make the child learn to respect the person, it just makes them hate the person and whoever says physical punishment is justifiable obviously suffered from it as a child *cough* thalbergmad *cough*

[thalbergmad]

If somebody uses physical punishment toward a child for misbehaving, it doesn't make the child learn to respect the person, it just makes them hate the person and whoever says physical punishment is justifiable obviously suffered from it as a child *cough* thalbergmad *cough*

Yes i did get spankings as a child, but it did not make me hate my mother.

I think you could probably do with a few beatings.

It might keep the lying and bragging down.

Thal

[timothy42b]

I have many stories I could tell about being on the receiving end of a solid spanking. 

Kind of a catch-22 there. 

If you had to be beaten many times, it must not have worked very well.  And your punishment was pretty severe, too, so if it was going to work it should have. 

Either you didn't deserve it that many times, and it was useless;  or you did deserve it, and it didn't help, so it was useless.

I'm sorry.  In my view you were abused.  If you'd said you were punished once, and never misbehaved again, it might have made sense.  But not this way. 

[pianolearner]

Kind of a catch-22 there. 

If you had to be beaten many times, it must not have worked very well.  And your punishment was pretty severe, too, so if it was going to work it should have. 

Either you didn't deserve it that many times, and it was useless;  or you did deserve it, and it didn't help, so it was useless.

I'm sorry.  In my view you were abused.  If you'd said you were punished once, and never misbehaved again, it might have made sense.  But not this way. 

I think that the problem with parent’s who think a solid spanking is necessary to correct bad behaviour is that they only look at the end result and not the psychological implications. They will see that a child will never do whatever it was they did to “deserve” a spanking. I think Prometheus presented a very good argument. In the case of my parents, they felt that if a child was “bad” it was because they weren’t hit with a big enough stick. My parents didn’t actually have a very good definition for bad. Breaking something like a window accidentally was bad, accidentally spilling something in the kitchen was bad. So you can see, it is quite easy to see why a child can keep getting spanked to correct “bad” behaviour.

Oh, and if you are wondering, I hated my dad from a very early age. He is dead and buried and I still harbour deep feelings of resentment.