Corporal Punishment

It creates an overall negative impact on this crucial point in the child's life. (No Spanking Page) Children who are abused by corporal punishment suffer physically and psychologically. Abused children are at high risk of damage to the central nervous system, impaired speech, learning disorders, and emotional disturbances. (Frude) Psychologist H. Stephen Glenn said, "Corporal punishment is the least effective method [of discipline]. Punishment reinforces a failure identity. It reinforces rebellion, resistance, revenge and resentment. And, what people who spank children will learn is that it teaches more about you than it does about them that the whole goal is to crush the child. It's not dignified, and it's not respectful." Spanking can seriously injure muscles, pelvis, coccyx (tail bone), the sciatic nerve, genitals or spine. Even slapping a child's hands overtime can cause problems with broken bones, joints, blood vessels and ligaments. This can also induce a form of premature osteoarthritis. ( Straus/Herbuck) Children can develop certain psychological problems later in life as a result of spanking. Many of these relate to the fact that the buttocks are an area associated with sexual feelings. The nerves in that area are connected to the body's sexual nerve centers. Slapping or striking them can involuntarily trigger feelings of sexual pleasure, which become merged with the pain. This can cause confusion in the child's mind, which affects his expression of sexuality as an adult. Spanking can lead to masochism, a psychological disorder that causes one to receive sexual gratification from abuse or physical pain. This could also take on the form of sadism, gaining sexual pleasure from inflicting pain on others. Spanking can also cause depression and suicide in adult life. This is brought about by repressed feelings about the violence they experienced in childhood. P. Greven, a well-known author, suggests that, "depression often is a delayed response to the suppression of childhood anger.