On the childs end, parental corporal-punishment behaviors are relatively likely to lead to functional impairment if the child experiences fundamental attachment insecurity (indicated by overdependence, avoidance, or dissociative behaviors), if the child indicates a strong fear of being alone with the parent, or if the child communicates feeling hated or rejected by the parent. The requirement of a disciplinary motive is inherent in the allowance, see. When mild corporal punishment is administered calmly for teaching purposes, the child is likely to understand the parents positive intent, whereas when it is administered harshly, inconsistently, and angrily, the child is more likely to interpret the act as rejection and to react with anxiety and increased deviant behavior over time.181, Third, cross-cultural studies across the world have shown that the cultural normativeness of corporal punishment alters the impact that it has on a child.182 If a corporal-punishment behavior is relatively common in a culture (such as mild spanking with a bare hand one to three times across the buttocks, as in the United States), then the child is more likely to understand its teaching value and is less likely to develop adverse reactions than if the corporal-punishment behavior is highly unusual (such as placing hot pepper on a childs tongue, which is unusual in the United States but more common in other cultures). The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the In contrast, basing the normativeness finding on the parents particular community would assure that the finding is consistent with the childs point of viewand thus a better predictor of functional impairmentbut only so long as the child is too young to be or does not choose to be a member of the broader community and a beneficiary of its different norms. WebStudies indicate that more than 90 percent of young children and 33-50 percent of adolescents receive physical discipline. Childrens Bureau, U.S. Dept Health & Human Serv. In turn, institutional treatment of and outcomes for children and families are often inconsistent.2. In contemporary American society, which values both parental autonomy and healthy child development, it makes good policy sense to respect parents decisions about disciplining their children and to permit intervention in the family only when children are harmed or in jeopardy of harm. If you beat him with the rod you will save his life from Sheol (soul from hell Authorized KJV). Shaken Baby Syndrome: Rotational Cranial Injuries Technical Report. Epub 2009 May 21. This single rule, in turn, would potentially reduce the number of incidents in which children were injured in the disciplinary setting and, correspondingly, the number of interventions by the state in the family. The corporal punishment subscale consisted of 3 items and included questions such as "His parents should slap him when he has done something wrong." In exercising the discretion required for this evaluation, one frontline investigator in Kansas explained her feeling that a childs fear of a parent is an important factor that should be taken seriously.85 In contrast, some investigators think the fear of being punished is insufficient.86 One North Carolina CPS supervisor in a rural county hesitated to consider fear a good indicator of abuse.87 She explained by describing her experience with corporal punishment growing up: When I was a child and my daddy said I was going to get beat when I got home, I was certainly scared and fearful of going home, but this is not abuse.88 A particularly provocative example of the relevance of personal and professional perspectives involves social workers views of the relevance of family privacy and parents rights to the maltreatment determination. 39 For example, the District of Columbias statute provides that abuse does not include discipline administered by a parent, guardian, or custodian to his or her child; provided, that the discipline is reasonable in manner and moderate in degree and otherwise does not constitute cruelty.40 The statute then provides an illustrative list of specific acts that are unacceptable forms of discipline for purposes of the exception. According to the Committee, this mostly involves hitting (smacking, slapping, spanking) children with a hand or implement (whip, stick, belt, shoe, wooden spoon or similar) but it can also involve, for example, kicking, shaking or throwing children, scratching, pinching, biting, pulling hair or boxing ears, forcing children to stay in uncomfortable positions, burning, scalding or forced ingestion. Evidence shows corporal punishment increases childrens behavioural problems over time and has no positive outcomes. FOIA Dimensions of physical punishment and their associations with College students (N = 1,136) provided retrospective self-reports regarding their history of aggression and levels of exposure to childhood corporal punishment and maltreatment experiences. This discretion is attributable both to the broad and imprecise language found in most statutory definitions of physical abuse and to the fact that judges are free either to be guided by92 or to disregard unreasonable agency interpretations of that language.93 Ultimately, because of this broad discretion, but also probably because of their different disciplinary orientation, judges have developed their own approaches to drawing the line between reasonable physical discipline and unlawful physical abuse. Others reflect a rejection of existing practices or the development of alternatives that better conform to the premises underlying the corporal-punishment exception and the scientific evidence that supports the resolution of individual cases. Dodge Kenneth, McLoyd VC, Lansford Jennifer E. The Cultural Context of Physically Disciplining Children. 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. McKinley Jesse. Large variations across countries and regions show the potential for prevention. One reason for these differences is that the child is likely to interpret the parents actions differently in these various contexts. In particular, three negative effects of the status quo beg for at least a periodic reevaluation of the prospects for more-precise tools to make this distinction.6 We have already noted two of these effects: the laws failure to fulfill its expressive function (or the laws signaling problems) and inconsistent case outcomes. Although trial courts may be more likely than appellate courts to render decisions favorable to CPS because of their ongoing working relationship with its professionals, both trial and appellate courts retain wide discretion in determining whether an act of physical discipline constitutes unlawful physical abuse. Corporal Punishment and the Cultural Defense. Although it would be simpler if detrimental corporal-punishment behaviors could be defined by specific behaviors, research studies indicate that the behavior itself is less prognostic than the behavior in its context. This ambiguity has been rationalized primarily on the ground that the state needs flexible definitions to ensure that it can act to protect children from maltreatment in whatever form it may appear. Psychometric properties of the Violent Experiences Questionnaire. Inclusion in an NLM database does not imply endorsement of, or agreement with, Parents can no longer lease their childrens services out to others for the duration of their childhoods, nor choose whether or not to school them, nor impose what in some cases once amounted to a parentally inflicted death penalty for disrespect and other important transgressions.145 The boundaries of family privacy are now drawn at a point that balances parents interests and rights with those of children and the state. 2008). Corporal punishment itself is more common in the South than the North, among African American families than European American families, and among lower socioeconomic-status families than middle- and higher-status families.220 Also, religious cultural groups may encourage or discourage specific practices, creating the possibility that a parent will find the use of a corporal-punishment practice to be normative within a narrow religious culture even though it is unusual in the broader society. For example, Iowas definition provides that [c]hild abuse or abuse means any non-accidental physical injury, or injury which is at variance with the history given of it, suffered by a child as the result of the acts or omissions of a person responsible for the care of the child.25 In contrast, other states enumerate within their definitions specific injuries or acts that constitute physical abuse or otherwise expand on the definition of physical harm or physical injury. Thus, current law fails to give useful guidance to its intended audience, and it provides for inconsistent case outcomes and an unacceptable risk of both false-positive and false-negative errors. As one court pointed out, an object may create a barrier between the parent and child and prevent the parent from realizing how hard he is striking the child.105 Uncontrolled, forceful striking or the use of an object to strike a child also might increase the risk of severe injury if the child squirms or otherwise moves as the discipline is being administered.106 Interestingly, there is some evidence that parents choose to discipline with an object instead of a hand because they believe doing so is less harmful to the child. Children with disabilities are more likely to be physically punished than those without disabilities. Differentiating corporal punishment from physical abuse in the A nonaccidental physical assault on a child is child abuse unless it is privileged or excused. 2003 May-Jun;17(3):126-32. doi: 10.1067/mph.2003.18. Both CPS and the courts ought to consider all relevant evidence as they make findings in individual cases, including but not limited to reliable scientific evidence.