IELTS Writing Task 2

Questions: It ia important for children to learn the difference between right and wrong at an early age. Punishment is necessary to help them learn this distinction.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?

What sort of punishment should parents and teachers be allowed to use to teach good behavior to children?

My answer:

It is essential for children learn how to exhibit good behavior from a young age and corporal punishment is a way of helping them do this. While I completely disagree with this, there are alternative forms of punishment that schools and parents are permitted to practice on their children for bad behavior.

There are three main reasons why I believe physical punishment is ineffective in educating children. First, this evokes feelings of fear and shame and damages their confidence in communicating with other people or playing with friends because children think that they will get punished by their parents if they do those things without permission. In other words, using corporal punishment occasionally has been depriving kids of the socialization and thereby leaves them with mental health issues, namely autism and depression. Second, for nearly all children, parents and instructors are their role models, so, they may very well be copying what adults do. That is to say, when smacking or paddling children, adults are teaching them to use violent behavior to deal with negative things. To illustrate, in recent studies, US researchers has linked the use of corporal punishment of children to increases in delinquent and antisocial behavior.

Taking all the negative effects of physical punishment discussed above into account, school leaders and parents should use alternative methods to manage their kids. In order to achieve healthy child development, parents should promote using words instead of actions. This means when kids display bad behavior, parents should tell them this is unacceptable or dangerous which obtains long-term behavioral compliance without damaging the parent-child relationship. In addition, institutions first have clear internal regulations for students to follow. So, if they misbehave, school leaders must give sanctions proportional to the age of the pupils and the severity of the misconduct.

In conclusion, while I disagree with the view that physical punishment is needed to correct a child, adults ought to talk with their child what is wrong or right and propose suitable measures later.