Psychological Effects Of Traditional Physical Punishment
The upbringing children receive from parents or guardians during childhood can be crucial to their future behavior. Therefore, mental or physical punishment is considered unpleasant in an attempt to raise children.
Keep in mind that parenting does not require punishment, especially when we know that this can harm children.
Physical punishment in upbringing has been widely used around the world. It usually looks the same in all countries, and is always done to make it easier for the parents for themselves.
There are also mental punishments. These create damage that is less visible.
When parents harm their children mentally and physically, they think they are changing their children’s behaviors. But this instead creates the opposite effect.
The more punishment a child experiences, the more aggressive and violent it can become. The probability that the child will react negatively in the future is high.
The effects of traditional corporal punishment
Physical punishment has a very negative effect on children’s lives. For example, it can cause depression, aggression and violence.
Many parents believe that it is helpful to teach their children what “no” means. They use negative punishment to get their children to behave properly.
Physical punishment can reach different levels of abuse, and it also tends to develop violent behavior in children. The problematic effects created by this are:
- Punishment does not eliminate inappropriate behaviors, but only repel them temporarily. This does not teach children how to behave, but instead limits unwanted behaviors.
- It is detrimental to the relationship between parents and children. Usually the child distances himself from the parent who punishes him or her because he or she creates fear and dissatisfaction.
- It causes aggressive behavior and evokes various negative emotions. It does not benefit the child’s personality and its emotional development.
- Punishment can affect a person for life, especially when performed unnecessarily. Sometimes parents punish their children just to relieve their own stress.
- It can create feelings of guilt in both the child and the parents. In most cases, this is reflected in anger.
If the punishment is severe enough , it can cause enormous fear in the child. The child may want to avoid the person who punished him or her.
In short, it destroys the child’s trust in his or her parent or guardian.
The impact of punishment on the development of personality
Parents usually use punishment because they do not know any other way to correct the child’s behavior.
It is common for a parent to decide to discipline their child excessively. This in connection with inappropriate, spoiled or bad behavior, without considering any negative effects this may entail.
This type of punishment, whether mild or harsh, hinders the development of the child’s personality. It also has the opposite effect, in that the child becomes even more defiant and aggressive.
