Is Spanking Child Abuse?
Pengming Sun
Dustin Meinke
Composition II
June 23, 2015
Is Spanking Child Abuse?
A child is the hope of his or her family. Energetic and cute, a child always brings fresh vitality to an ordinary family. Parents are eager to provide them with a safe and beneficial environment. When I am walking in the street and see babies, my heart is filled with blissfulness and contentment without any special reasons. Probably it is because I regard them as powerful strength. I think most people have the same feeling as me. However, while we perceive the delighted picture of children, few people would perceive another picture, that is, children are crying endlessly as a result of punishments by their parents. The most common punishment made by parents is spanking, which is ambiguous to be child abuse. Spanking is not uncommon. It is just because its ambiguity that parents think that they will not be found guilty if doing this. In order to protect the rights of children, it is necessary to make this issue clear. After exploring many criteria of what can be regarded as child abuse, I find that spanking meets the requisite criteria for being considered child abuse.
To make this question clearly, I will use the definition of child abuse in the free dictionary:
Child abuse is the physical, sexual or emotional maltreatment or neglect of a child or children.（the free dictionary）
From this definition, I would like to put forward three criteria of child abuse. First and foremost, child abuse is physical maltreatment. Secondly, child abuse causes children to suffer from emotional problems. Thirdly, child abuse is the neglect of a child’s development and his or her psychological harm.
Spanking is a form of corporal punishment consisting of striking the buttocks of another person to cause temporary pain (Peterson). Evidently, spanking is the direct hurt to child’s body. It is a kind of physical maltreatment for children. Therefore, it meets the first criteria of child abuse. Parents who support spanking may argue that it is an effective way to draw their children’s attention and force them to follow their guides. But compared with the injuries caused by spanking, why don’t we find other effective ways to make children listen? Children are naïve and innocent in their heart. Sometimes they become naughty just because they want to testify what they can do and what they cannot do, or to test how much their parents can tolerate them. They do not so stubborn like adults who have determined their position. Using a tricky way to persuade them is a good idea when they are naughty. It is unnecessary to spank them and cause negative influence on them.
The second criteria of child abuse indicates that children who suffer from child abuse often have emotional problems. Have you ever seen a child who is spanked is happy and acts as a child who is not spanked? Absolutely not. Through children’s reaction around me, I find that most children who are spanked are in the blue all day long. Some of them reject to eat anything.They are very upset and keep weeping. They do not like meet friends and lose the happy and careless time. It is evident that they have confronted with emotional problems and be hostile to everything near them. If such occasion happens once, then it is ok. If the fact that they are spanked is frequent, then it is dangerous. In the long run, the potential risk is immeasurable. It is likely that they will suffer from depression. How can we be so hardhearted to see the innocent children to meet with such dangerous situation?