Spanking on Child's Development

The preschool years are the primary years for physical, emotional and intellectual learning. At their best, preschoolers are curious, creative and independent. At their worst, they appeared as self-centered, demanding and obstinate. This is a stage that challenged both parents and their preschoolers, because preschoolers behave to test boundaries and those behavior often perceived by parents as a never-ending test for their patience. Once parents reach their limit, shouting and spanking are the natural response in terms of behavior modification. However, swat on the bottom can be extremely harmful to children’s social and emotional and cognitive developments.

Children, especially preschoolers, explore and learn about the world through imitative play. When they see that it’s acceptable for adults to hit children, they assume it must be permissible for them to act the same toward other people. Hitting begets aggressive behaviors, resentment as well as communication breakdown between parents and their children. Here is a common scenario. A mother is standing in line at the checkout counter in a grocery store, her five years old son pulls on her leg to request a candy. When the mom says, “No”, the son answered “yes” and then starts to jump up to the candy rack. The mom grows inpatient with him and yells, “Stop, you are not getting a candy!” Her screaming doesn’t stop the son from jumping up but aggravates him into crying out loud. In frustration, the stressed mom gives the son a swift swat on the bottom. The rage of the boy erupts. He shouts “I hate you” and begin to kick his mom in the leg. The primary message conveys when the mom spanks is that she is bigger, stronger and superior than the boy and thus can inflict fear and pain if he fail to obey her order. Pain will fade away, but fear persists and usually give away to anger and hate. Ultimately, it converts into the desire to use violent themselves when frustrated. In this scenario,