Do timeouts otherwise.”įocus on the Family, the influential Christian multimedia ministry founded by child psychologist James Dobson, author of “Dare to Discipline,” draws a similar line. You’re trying to deter misbehavior, not cause injury. “You use an open hand and he’ll feel it,” Fellmeth said. “You cause that kind of injury, you’re a child abuser.”īut Fellmeth is also a parent, “and I believe there are circumstances where an openhanded whack on the fanny is advised.” He remembers one time when his 4-year-old son darted into the street and he spanked him. “When you’re causing bleeding, when you’re leaving scars, that’s a very, very obvious line that shouldn’t be crossed,” said Robert Fellmeth, a lawyer who heads the Children’s Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego. Many observers draw a distinction between what Peterson is accused of doing - hitting his son with a “switch” that left cuts, slash marks and bruises on several areas of the boy’s body - and the traditional definition of spanking: smacking a child on the bottom with an open hand. Now some are wondering if all the outrage swirling around Adrian Peterson might change the equation. Same with legislation four years later in Maryland that would have narrowed what constituted “reasonable corporal punishment.” A 2007 bill in California that would have prohibited spanking any child under the age of 4 went nowhere. Fewer than 20 states still allow it in public schools, which means the annual number of students getting paddled has dropped from about 1.5 million in 1976 to about 200,000.īut getting it abolished in private homes, in a country historically suspicious of Big Brother, is another matter. Spanking already is illegal in day-care centers in all but a couple of states. They think they turned out OK, so why not use it on their own children? That’s what keeps it going.” “People say that spanking was done to them by their parents, and they loved their parents.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |