What Is Corporal Punishment?

Corporal punishment is defined as the use of physical force for the purpose of correcting a child’s behavior. It is an act by which adults inflict pain to the child so that he or she is disciplined and the learning process is facilitated.

Corporal punishment breaches the child’s self respect, self-dignity, and physical integrity. The level and intensity of punishment varies according to the nature of the mischief and disobedience on part of the child. However, external factors like poverty, over stressed parents and teachers, underpaid teachers, unemployment etc. also play a decisive role in aggravating the physical act of punishment in the name of discipline. Slapping, pulling ears, spanking, asking children to position themselves in ridiculous postures (for example murgha), to battering the child leaving him or her physically impaired, and in worst-case scenarios, resulting in death are some of the punishments that children undergo in case their behavior becomes an issue.

Why Are Children Physically Punished?

Corporal punishment is strongly entrenched in people’s social attitudes and psychological make up. In most parts of the world, children’s behavior is rectified and corrected by physical punishments. Some common themes that figure amongst the justifications for the use of corporal punishment are:

Is Corporal Punishment Physical Abuse?

It is accepted that corporal punishment is not physical abuse. Abuse is often not a punishment that is inflicted in order to correct children’s behavior, but instead an act intended to hurt and/or dominate. But corporal punishment can take the form of physical abuse and assault in case the parent, teacher or any adult looses control over his temper and indiscriminately starts hitting the child.

The Consequences of Corporal Punishment

Ineffectiveness:

The objective behind the use of corporal punishment: discipline, increase learning capacity, character building etc., in most cases, is hardly achieved when children are exposed to it. In the short term, immediate compliance by the child after being punished can be secured but in the long run, children are harmed. Research suggests that in most cases children do not remember for what reason they were punished, and thus the purpose behind the punishment is lost. Corporal punishment does not help the child realize that the reason why he or she was punished was wrong. In case, the child is routinely subjected to this form of violence, the child develops a stubborn behavior, which further accentuates the stress on the adult as well as the physical and mental agony of the child. It is for this reason that child-parent and student-teacher relationships deteriorate. With the increase in the use of such disciplinary physical punishment, the child rather than being corrected and rectified positively, he or she becomes worse, study wise, emotionally and psychologically.

After Sweden became the first country in the world to legislate a law against all forms of corporal punishment in 1979, a research was conducted recently, comparing child rearing in Sweden with that of Canada, Iran and the Cook Island. The results were disseminated in the form of a pamphlet and showed that “mothers in the other countries found their children disobedient more often than the Swedish mothers did and considered their disobedience to be deliberate and serious…”