The vagueness of abuse definitions has been consistently upheld on policy groundsspecifically on the argument that it is important for authorities to retain flexibility to call injuries as they see them given that, particularly in a diverse society, abuse might appear in unexpected forms.3 The difficulty of the definitional project has also been acknowledged. It is included here because the definition of physical abuse for purposes of juvenile-court jurisdiction defines an abused child as one endangered as defined in section 2919.22. The states rules on expert testimony are similar. Basing decisionmaking about the reasonableness of corporal punishment on a combination of parental-autonomy norms and scientific evidence about harm, as this functional-impairment test would do, is not new. Berlin LJ, et al. 6303(b)(1)(i), 6303(b)(1)(iii) (West 2001) (emphasis added). Episode 84: What Does an Effective Support System Look Like? Ct. 2004). For example, a parent may choose to use a spoon or another object to administer a spanking because doing so makes it less likely that their children will perceive hitting with hands as an acceptable way to solve problems.107 Some courts also infer something about the parents motive or intent from the parents choice of disciplinary method. Because it is the childs perspective on normativeness that matters for purposes of functional impairment, application of this rule to children in this category would be inconsistent with their welfare. When Does Discipline Become Child Abuse? The Seattle Compromise: Multicultural Sensitivity and Americanization. One in 2 children aged 617 years (732million) live in countries where corporal punishment at school is not fully prohibited. Children with disabilities are more likely to be physically punished than those without disabilities. In other cases, harm must be inferred on the basis of medical and scientific knowledge of the likely effects of a particular kind of assault. The following resources present research and literature differentiating among physical discipline, corporal punishment, and physical child abuse. Unable to load your collection due to an error, Unable to load your delegates due to an error. official website and that any information you provide is encrypted The court explained that abuse involves an injury more severe than a bruise as a result of a spanking.98 And it provided as examples of incidents and injuries that did pass muster: choking, hitting with fists and glass objects, pulling out hair, and burning.99. Telephone interview by Erin Vernon, Duke University School of Law, with a county CPS supervisor, Duplin County, N.C. (June 26, 2009) (on file with Law and Contemporary Problems, hereinafter, L & CP); telephone interview by Erin Vernon with a county CPS frontline investigator, Johnson County, Kan. (June 18, 2009) (on file with L & CP); telephone interview by Erin Vernon with a county CPS director, Fulton County, Ga. (June 25, 2009) (on file with L & CP); telephone interview by Erin Vernon with a county CPS director, Adams County, Neb. In: Rutter Michael, Tienda Marta., editors. Parental-autonomy norms reflect societys widely held view that parents have the right to raise their children as they see fit, without outside interference from the government or others. This is true whether the question is presented as a federal constitutional claim150 or as a state-law claim that itself reflects this constitutional norm.151 Finally, because federal constitutional law formally preempts all other lawsincluding government-issued regulations, policies, or protocolsinconsistent perspectives on the factors that should influence where and how the line between reasonable corporal punishment and abuse is drawn are largely irrelevant to the legal process.152, For present purposes, this means that lawyers and the judiciary will always be inclined to test CPS interventions designed to protect the welfare of the child against the right of family privacy or parental autonomy, and they will generally read child-abuse definitions and corporal-punishment exceptions through this lens. Referring to this article:Child Abuse: An Overview was written by C. J. Newton, MA, Learning Specialist and published in the Find Counseling.com (formerly TherapistFinder.net) Mental Health Journal in April, 2001.Use or reference to this article on the Internet must be accompanied by a link to the page you cite. We acknowledge that scientific expertise is not free and thus that our proposal will introduce new costs into the system. Nonabusive Spanking: Parental Liberty or Child Abuse? Frchette, Zoratti, & Romano (2015) In contrast with the nuanced and paradoxical effects of mild corporal punishment, corporal punishment that is cruel or severe has been found in multiple studies to have deleterious consequences. A parent who does not have a reasonable disciplinary motive for his or her conduct but who does not cause his or her child more than minimal harm will not be charged with child abuse. Corporal punishment is linked to a range of negative outcomes for children across countries and cultures, including physical and mental ill-health, impaired cognitive and socio-emotional development, poor educational outcomes, increased aggression and perpetration of violence. The cases suggest that courts are more inclined to classify a disciplinary measure as abuse when the act is administered against a young child or one with physical or mental disabilities.100 The courts consideration of these characteristics can be explained in two ways. For example, the Iowa Supreme Court rejected a CPS rule that reddening of the skin lasting for twenty-four hours or more is a physical injury per se. Lederman Cindy S. Healing in the Place of Last Resort: The Role of the Dependency Court Within Community-Based Efforts to Prevent Child Maltreatment. Why Some Parents Spank Their Kids Problems With Punishments Parents suspected of child abuse who believe that their conduct is appropriately protected by the corporal-punishment exception are responsible for raising this claim and for producing some supporting evidence, including specific evidence tending to show that discipline was appropriate and that the force used was reasonable in the circumstances. Although these three areas of law have some different objectives and concerns, there is merit to a jurisdictions considering adoption of a single unified rule, as doing so would send a consistent message to the relevant legal actorsincluding parents, CPS, and judgesabout the states position on corporal punishment. It cannot be concluded, for example, that six swats to the buttocks will lead to impairment but four will not, or that one swat to a two-year-old will lead to impairment but several swats to a seven-year-old will not. A: Corporal punishment is the most widespread form of violence against children. These same states oneis appropriate because it best balances the societys respect for parental autonomy and sciences findings about when children are actually harmed by corporal punishment. A parent is privileged to use physical force to discipline his or her child so long as. In other words, the law would create the fiction that the parents conduct was nonnormative when, for that child, it would be precisely the contrary. Chen Chih (Peter) L. Is There a Right Way to Discipline a Child. The risks and alternatives to physical punishment use with children. Thus, empirical studies demonstrate that corporal punishment can be helpful, unimportant, or harmful to the childs development, depending on the meaning ascribed by the child. Ashton Vicki. A review of appellate-court decisions suggests that lower-court records contain little or no information about the emotional and developmental effects of physical discipline on the child.111 Even when these effects are recognized, however, courts are still likely to give them very little weight.112 One judge has surmised that this bias is because judges in general lack the expertise to evaluate evidence related to the emotional or psychological impact of physical discipline on a child.113 Whatever the case, interviews with CPS professionals in one North Carolina county suggest that emotional- and developmental-impact evidence rarely makes it into the record notwithstanding its importance because neither the lawyers (for the state or the parents) nor the judges involved are interested in these facts; they simply want to know the circumstances in which the immediate physical injury occurred and the relevant medical details.114, Related to the circumstances in which the injury occurred, and in contrast with the practice of at least some CPS professionals, courts often consider a parents motivation for administering physical discipline when they evaluate the reasonableness of the disciplinary act. This literature distinguishes the experience of physical abuse from the experience of corporal punishment, although corporal punishment is usually graded on a continuum of severity and chronicity that ends in abuse. Empirical knowledge about changes in social norms and parenting practices is becoming more readily available and should be communicated to practitioners, lawyers, and judges regularly. Johnson Kandice K. Crime or Punishment: The Parental Corporal Punishment DefenseReasonable and Necessary, or Excused Abuse? However, the fundamental scholar, who believes in the literal inerrancy of the entire Biblical text, will resolve these by pointing out the differences of time, place and dispensation. Young Kimberlie. Canandian Found. Specifically, we suggest policy reforms that (1) preserve the traditional structure and substance of reasonable corporal-punishment exceptions to child-abuse law, both of which are themselves premised on a generous reading of parental-autonomy norms,8 and (2) require decisionmakers to take systematic and consistent account of all relevant and valid evidence, including medical and social-science evidence, that can shed light on the reasonableness of parents actions. Several states require not only a finding of physical injury but also a determination that the injury harms the child or impairs the health of the child.20 On the other hand, in Arkansas, certain intentional or knowing acts constitute abuse whether or not the child sustains physical injury. Moreover, to the extent that the law in statutes and judicial opinions is either less precise or even different from the law as it is applied by CPS, the public and parents are inevitably confused or misled. Without specific statutory guidance, CPS and the courts must decide which cultural norm to apply (from that of the society at large, the individuals actual familial or cultural frame of reference, or the norm to which the judge aspires for the society) when determining the reasonableness of a particular disciplinary incident. D.C. Code 16-2301(23)(B)(1) (2001 & Supp. Unlike the necessity standard, the reasonableness standard permits the fact-finder to defer to parents judgment so long as it is within the range of acceptable decisions. Coleman Doriane Lambelet. The paper emphasizes the need for child protection professionals to understand parents' perspectives and acknowledge the importance of parents' religious beliefs. First, the need for discipline in many instances is a judgment call whose merits cannot be established with precision, perhaps particularly by outsiders to the family. State Intervention on Behalf of Neglected Children: A Search for Realistic Standards. Dailey Anne C. Constitutional Privacy and the Just Family. Courts commonly consider such factors as whether medical treatment was required, how much pain the child experienced, and whether the injury resulted in disfigurement or impairment.94 Courts are reluctant to find that bruising alone is severe enough to constitute physical abuse.95 In fact, some courts have specifically rejected CPS rules and regulations that permit a finding of abuse when a child experiences a bruise lasting more than twenty-four hours.96 In general, courts appear more willing to find physical abuse when punishment results in multiple or very large bruises, bruises with a deep or intense color, bruises lasting a week or more, bruises that are especially painful, or bruises on a location other than the childs buttocks.97 At least some courts demand more before they are willing to find that the requisite serious injury has occurred. WebPhysical punishment (PP), also known as spanking, slapping, popping, whooping, or smacking, is defined as the use of physical force with the intention of causing a child to
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