The debate over corporal punishment has raged for years: is it appropriate to spank your children? While individual opinions may vary, I personally believe that corporal punishment is a tool that parents should be able to use. Children may have difficulty learning lessons if they are not associated with a memory or feedback. If a child misbehaves, he or she needs to know that what he or she did was wrong. Otherwise he will not learn any lessons and the child may continue to behave the same way. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay On the other hand, spanking could potentially have some negative side effects. A possible side effect is that it could lead to aggression. Frequent spanking could potentially cause children to try to control their interactions with others, resulting in increased physical contact with their peers. Furthermore, the vast majority of experts believe that spanking is unnecessary (Campbell) and offers little or no behavioral modification benefit. They believe there is the potential to do something wrong, perhaps out of anger, and lead to trauma and other ineffective outcomes. When I was young, my parents generally used other forms of discipline instead of spanking. Everything changed in a few minutes. I was having lunch outside with my mother when she came in to get napkins and told me to stay still. I had developed the habit of venturing out every now and then. Being a curious five year old, I decided to go all the way around the building complex where this restaurant was located. It was about two football fields long, so it took me several minutes to get around. My mother came back out and I disappeared like the wind. Several panic-filled minutes passed for her and she saw me turn the corner of the building, feeling relieved to recognize me. Once back in the car; however, it was a different story. I soon understood the gravity of my actions. Mom told me how scared she was that I had apparently disappeared. He reminded me that it was important for me to do what he said. To reinforce the point, he spanked me. I believe it was justified to use this form of punishment. I still remember that particular spanking to this day. The moral of the story is that as a child I associated inappropriate acting with spanking, and it stuck with me. Mom never spanked me because she wanted to; I simply needed the reinforcement. This story is one of the reasons why I personally believe it is okay to spank your children. If a serial killer is found guilty, does the judge politely ask him not to do it again? A criminal convicted of a crime of that degree will always receive a harsh punishment. Likewise, if a child behaves inappropriately, how can he truly know that he will never behave that way again? While this analogy seems a little extreme, it is still applicable. While spanking may seem extreme to some, it is actually an effective form of punishment. The “shock factor” is one of the main reasons it is effective (Campbell). Please note that spanking is not intended as a regular, domestic form of corporal punishment. It's meant to be more of a last resort, so the shock factor can come into play. The goal is to not harm your child. The goal is simply for your child to know that their behavior is not acceptable and they need to know why. When children have a memory associated with bad behavior, they are more likely not to reoffend. There.