Our culture has divergent views concerning childrearing. Some conservative people in society have also been critical regarding permissive parenting, but many campaign for spanking and corporal punishment as a way of disciplining the children. On the other hand, corporal punishment has gradually been termed as an aspect of child abuse and is punished by the present child protection law. A recent national study projected that 94 percent of American parents to 4 and 5-year-olds spanked their children frequently (Temple et al., 2018; Holden, Wright, & Sendek, 2018) . Even with the presence of this, there is a growing trend for nations to prohibit corporal punishment by parents through the introduction of family law or criminal law. It is amidst the different positions that the paper investigates the current controversy concerning corporal punishment in childrearing concerning the historical origins of this debate.
Corporal punishment is the aspect of parents using force to punish their children for any wrongs they have done. The teachers do the same to their students for any wrongdoing. The proponents of corporal punishment indicate that it is significant as it gives power back to parents and instructors. That power has been lost as children or students are the ones in control in most countries today since they cannot be easily punished (Gershoff, 2017). Parents find it difficult to correct children, as the present punishments being advocated for have no intimidation power. If they had the potential to intimidate the children, then they could have equally been alternative corrective measures (Font & Gershoff, 2017) . Therefore, deterring corporal punishment historically leaves the parents and teachers at a powerless position so that they cannot chastise a child and prevent their bad behaviors at the same time. Some child development specialists support that little non-abusive spanking or physical punishment to the student is not harmful but helpful. The child grows to be socially responsible and develops good behavior that may go with them for a lifetime.
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The historical side against corporal punishment indicates that it causes lots of injuries and trauma to the child in an unnecessary manner. Many parents and teachers after spanking the children leave visible marks and bruises on their bodies. Corporal punishment also creates mental stress to susceptible students, which may go along with them until their old age. From this point of view, therefore, corporal punishment may not have achieved correcting of bad behaviors in the children but rather causing more harm and hampering their development. Such harms as indicated can directly leave lifelong mental distress in someone's life, which could have been corrected using an alternative corrective measure.
Furthermore, some studies have determined that corporal punishment does not influence children away from their bad behavior. The studies reveal that behavior-altering effects are trauma being exposed in the outside (Gershoff, 2017; Holden et al., 2018). Consequently, the child or student may develop serious cases of low confidence and low self-esteem. Thus, people in this category argue that no pain should be inflicted on the child as such may injure them both physically and mentally. However, other scholars have determined that limited non-abusive physical punishment when regulated or done well may cause a child to grow responsibly. On the contrast, a child that is not punished and corrected when he does wrong may end up being irresponsible and their future will attract more offenses that may lead them even into jail (Font & Gershoff, 2017) . The main deal should be not to allow canning and spanning to be the only form of punishments that the child is subjected to when they offend, but alternatives such as giving them an extra task or manual work may be helpful. Even talking to the child about the right things to do in life, as well as the things to avoid can be instrumental in correcting any wrong behaviors that they are demonstrating.
Corporal punishment is a worthwhile option to suspension as a way of chastening the child. Some children do not like to be in school. As such, they would look for occasions of suspension so that they can be sent home. A suspension from school would be to them a reward instead of the intended purpose, which is punishment (Temple et al., 2018). Holden et al. (2018) support that embracing corporal punishment makes the students stay in school, and at the same time, they are corrected equitably. In essence, corporal punishment may not be taken as a reward the same way the student may do to the issue of suspension.
On the other hand, corporal punishment should not be encouraged since there is a risk of teachers and parents abusing it. The risk of abuse of this type of punishment in the classroom is high, especially when the teachers are not held responsible for their actions. However, teachers have different approaches in how they deliver corporal punishment to their students. The difference could be in terms of sexes or intensities, with a 120-pound female teacher able to deliver a lesser corporal punishment than a 250-pound male teacher could (Gershoff, 2017). This amounts to an uneven framework whereby the harshness if the punishment greatly has to do with luck. Some teachers are known and feared for painfully spanking a child. Such tendencies are unfair to the students and increase the chances for the teachers or parents to abuse their powers.
A student that has been harshly treated by the teachers, forces parents to leave the workplaces and collect their children to hospital or home again. Those actions interfere with the school schedule and that of the parent who leaves their workplaces without planning. Consistent call-outs may even threaten the jobs that the parents hold, as they will be considered unreliable (Font & Gershoff, 2017) . Parents would rather leave their jobs than see their children suffer. This can technically cause a great sense of damage for the family. Banning of corporal punishment prevents such from occurring since it removes the trust from the hands of the teachers.
Parents may not be willing to put their trust on teachers for their students. There are fears of sexual abuse and other types of exploitations when the teachers are trusted so much. Again, such behaviors of teachers indicate a mishap in their development (Holden et al., 2018). Parents are rightly worried particularly in the current times because of such abuses that come up. Abuse may also present themselves in different ways (Font & Gershoff, 2017) . It has been reported increasingly how a male teacher touch the private parts of the female students and give excuses for such actions. Therefore, what corporal punishment does is to give a chance for such forms of exploitations such as sexual abuse happening to students.
In conclusion, there are many arguments for and against corporal punishment that have developed lately. Either way of the debate presents practical aspects and possible flaws of any system that has been adopted. Certainly, corporal punishment is flawed in its extreme forms and such cases, superior options to correct such as suspension and community service may be viable. That is, more interest should be in offering punishment without inflicting injury or any form of abuse to the child. On the other hand, little corporal punishment on the children for wrongdoing may be helpful. The child may come out as a more responsible citizen that is accountable for their actions .
References
Font, S. A., & Gershoff, E. T. (2017). Contextual factors associated with the use of corporal punishment in US public schools. Children and youth services review , 79 , 408.
Gershoff, E. T. (2017). School corporal punishment in global perspective: prevalence, outcomes, and efforts at intervention. Psychology, health & medicine , 22 (sup1), 224-239.
Holden, G. W., Wright, K. L., & Sendek, D. D. (2018). History of and Progress in the Movement to End Corporal Punishment in the United States. In Corporal Punishment of Children (pp. 293-320). Brill Nijhoff.
Temple, J. R., Choi, H. J., Reuter, T., Wolfe, D., Taylor, C. A., Madigan, S., & Scott, L. E. (2018). Childhood corporal punishment and future perpetration of physical dating violence. The Journal of pediatrics , 194 , 233-237.
