Nuances complicate this picture, however: First, mild corporal punishments do not have a uniform impact on child outcomes across all contexts and circumstances. Future functional impairment is (in all contexts) an estimate that has a probability attached to it, for example: highly likely, somewhat likely, unlikely to be impaired in a domain such as academic, mental health, or daily living. Would you like email updates of new search results? At bottom, the parental-motivation inquiry suggests that courtsunlike some CPS professionalsare not strictly focused on physical harm to the child. 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. The PubMed wordmark and PubMed logo are registered trademarks of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). 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. (June 22, 2009) (on file with L & CP); interview by Kenneth A. Nevertheless, more consistent and accurate results can be achieved if CPS and the courts have access to, understand, and use as much relevant and reliable evidence as possible. One reason for these differences is that the child is likely to interpret the parents actions differently in these various contexts. Florida courts have also rejected an agency policy requiring investigators to confirm reports of abuse when bruises are visible twenty-four hours after the discipline is administered. Courts act as a check on CPS decisions to intervene in the family. Resolving how a legislature ought to define the reference community for the purposes of establishing the normativeness of a particular manner or degree of corporal punishment is beyond the scope of this article. The INSPIRE technical package presents several effective and promising interventions, including: Theearlier such interventions occur in children's lives, the greater the benefits to the child (e.g., cognitive development, behavioural and social competence, educational attainment) and to society (e.g., reduced delinquency and crime). Ann. Before Again, functional impairment refers to short-term, long-term, or permanent impairment of emotional or physical functioning.212 Scientific evidence about which parenting behaviors lead to functional impairment supports the formal incorporation of several factors into this aspect of the reasonableness inquiry: the severity of the physical injury that results from parental conduct; whether the parents conduct is normative; the proportionality of the conduct in relation to the childs transgression; the manner in which the punishment is administered, which includes consideration of the location of the childs injuries and whether any objects were used; chronicity, meaning the frequency of the corporal punishment; and transparency and consistency, or whether the child knows the rules that will result in punishment and whether the parent administers those rules non-arbitrarily.213 Aside from the severity criterion, all of the factors force examination of the context in which the corporal punishment occurs and of the childs reaction to that context.214 Depending upon the circumstances, any one of these factors alone or two or more factors in combination might suffice to characterize parental conduct as unreasonable. Although the law today generally recognizes claims for emotional harm, its traditional concerns about frivolous and fraudulent claims and about how to limit liability in such a way that the outcome is fair also to the defendant continue to affect their viability and usefulness. Older statutory language often made this caveat express, and similar language has found its way into some judicial decisions. Studies have shown that lifetime prevalence of school corporal punishment was above 70% in Africa and Central America, past-year prevalence was above 60% in the WHO Regions of Eastern Mediterranean and South-East Asia, and past-week prevalence was above 40% in Africa and South-East Asia. Corporal punishment is the intentional use of physical force to cause bodily pain or discomfort as a penalty for unacceptable behaviour. Chadwick DL, et al. These factors influence attitudes about corporal punishment that are then associated with the use of corporal punishment within the family, the tolerance of that use by the community, the legal enforcement to protect children from, and the policies that are enacted to protect children from violence in the home. Serious harm, which is the criterion for abuse in most jurisdictions, includes not only immediately obvious physical injury but also internal brain damage and long-term psychological and cognitive disability. Because they do some important good, however, and because their contents often reflect nonnormative parenting, either in fact or aspirationally, we do not suggest that they be eliminated. 2019 Aug;94:104022. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.104022. Nonnormative corporal punishment is more likely than normative corporal punishment to result in functional impairment.215 Thus, if an incident of corporal punishment is normative, it is and ought to be less likely to result in a finding of abuse, and vice versa. This uncertainty may be based on their sense that this evidence lacks the indicia of validity necessary in judicial proceedings, or because the law traditionally struggles with claims about emotional damage, both inside and outside of the maltreatment context.228 Whatever the case, requiring relevance and validity consistent with the rules of evidence, and making clear the doctrinal contexts in which the evidence is to be presented, is essential to its acceptability and utility for these legal actors. What Is Functional Impairment? Dr. Stacey Patton, a former foster youth and child abuse survivor, delivers antispanking workshops across the country and has authored the book, Spare the Kids Why Whupping Children Won't Save Black America. Serv. Most employ the terms physical harm or physical injury.19 Additionally, many states classify as abuse acts or omissions that create a risk or substantial risk of physical injury or harm. Ark. It is designed to be used in the civil child-maltreatment context. For example, community attitudes toward corporal punishment often affect the criminal investigation, and if criminal charges are not filed, social workers must consider how such attitudes may weaken their civil maltreatment case.80 One social worker in Oregon, who has worked in both a rural county and an urban county, is particularly sensitive to community ideology and its subsequent effect on judicial decisions.81 She found that judges in urban communities are much less lenient toward parents use of corporal punishment compared with judges in rural communities. The line between reasonable corporal punishment and abuse will never be exact. Discerning functional impairment is easiest in circumstances where children are old enough to express their concerns, or else to exhibit failures or inabilities in the exercise of their daily activities. 155 Moreover, most litigants probably do not provide the basis for courts to understand how this kind of evidence might actually be compatible with the right of family privacy and parental autonomy, particularly with its boundaries. Relatedly, this standard serves to assure, to the extent possible, that the publics wisdom regarding the normative use of corporal punishment is balanced with medical and scientific knowledge of harm to the child. In others, decisionmakers may be able to compare the suspicious act or injury to one of the enumerated classes to determine if it is sufficiently similar.31 Statutes containing enumerated lists typically specify that the lists are illustrative and not exclusive, thereby reserving for decisionmakers a certain measure of discretion.32, Finally, a few states use both the abuse and neglect classifications for unlawful physical injuries to a child, sorting cases between these classifications not according to the act or omission causing the injury, but rather according to the relative degree of severity of the injury itself. Stat. Authoritarian parents are most likely to punish kids. Specifically, a decision to base normativeness on the views of the broader community would assure that all children and families are treated similarly under the law, an outcome consistent with equal-protection doctrine and the antidiscrimination norms at its foundation.222 It would also mean, however, that at least in some casesparticularly those involving younger children who are still members only of their parents worldthe maltreatment finding would be based on a larger group norm that is in fact nonnormative for the child. Ann. Discusses the signs of when parental discipline may be too excessive and cross the line into abuse and presents questions for parents to ask themselves, characteristics of abusive adults, and signs victims may show. The risks and alternatives to physical punishment use with children. Of course, regardless of the normativeness of the practice, abuse would be found on evidence of functional impairment. This inability to understand cause and effect is significant because children may become functionally impaired as a result of even moderate levels of corporal punishment that they cannot understand as being for their own good.208 Perhaps the most well-known example of the use of science in this context is SBS.209 Without a formal construct in which to argue that discipline is appropriate (reasonable or unreasonable) in the circumstances, the relevance of such evidence may not be apparent to the maltreatment inquiry. National Library of Medicine In such cases, normativeness should not be determinative. These findings support efforts to dissuade reliance on corporal punishment to manage child behavior. Please go and read the article in full. Notwithstanding efforts in some states to narrow their scope, legal definitions of abuse and neglect continue in general to be broad and vague. 2008). The De Minimis Exception. The Difference Between Discipline and Abuse, From Sticks to Flowers: Guidelines for Child Protection Professionals Working With Parents Using Scripture to Justify Corporal Punishment. official website and that any information you provide is encrypted **William McDougall Professor of Public Policy, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, and Director of the Center of Child and Family Policy, Duke University, ***J.D., Duke Law School, M.P.P., Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, Nonaccidental physical injuries children suffer at the hands of their parents occur along a continuum that ranges from mild to severe. 2023 Mar 13;10(3):545. doi: 10.3390/children10030545. 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). 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. These consequences are diversely manifested and vary across children but can be summarized as disability, or functional impairment, a term adapted from medical sciences.185 In psychiatry, a symptom such as alcohol consumption, sadness, or repetitive odd behavior is not diagnostic of a disorder unless it is accompanied by impairment in completing the tasks of daily life, such as holding down a job and maintaining relationships. Deater-Deckard Kirby, Dodge Kenneth, Sorbring Emma. 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. In some countries, almost all students report being physically punished by school staff. However, very few trial-court decisions are appealed by either party. 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 elimination of violence against children is called for in several targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development but most explicitly in Target 16.2: end abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children. Dodge Kenneth. Mechanisms in the Cycle of Violence. Our proposal for policy reform is thus based on the framework of parental autonomy and calls for scientific evidence to be introduced within this framework. First, it is the reality on the ground that parental-autonomy norms interact and even sometimes compete with medical and social-science perspectives as the line is drawn in individual cases between reasonable corporal punishment and maltreatment. 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. Corporal punishment triggers harmful psychological and physiological responses. Second, a young child or a child with a mental or emotional disability may lack the capacity to understand the purpose of the discipline or appreciate its deterrent effect.102 A spanking that has no disciplinary value because the child lacks the capacity to understand its purpose is more likely to be unreasonable or excessive. WebChild Abuse: An Overview. The .gov means its official. Consistent with this argument, policy reforms that can ameliorate the three negative effects targeted by this articlethe failure of existing law to satisfy its expressive function, inconsistent outcomes, and a risk of false-positive and false-negative findings of maltreatmentinclude changes to the structure of some child-abuse statutes and clarification of their included terms. For a useful summary of the long-standing collaboration and clash between social workers and the law in this area, see Giovannoni & Becerra. Young Kimberlie. The manner in which this is resolved theologically must be left to each minister, priest, rabbi or imam.Child Abuse Introduction | Signs of Child AbuseChild Abuse Statistics | Its Under ReportedEffects of Child Abuse on Children: Abuse GeneralEffects of Child Abuse on Children: Child Sexual AbuseInjuries to Children: Physical and Sexual AbuseEffects of Child Abuse on Adults: Childhood AbuseEffects of Child Abuse on Adults: Childhood Sexual AbuseDefinition of Physical Abuse | Signs of Physical AbuseDefinition of Sexual Abuse | Signs of Sexual AbuseDefinition of Child Neglect | Signs of Child NeglectDefinition of Emotional Abuse | Signs of Emotional AbuseAbusers | PedophilesChild Physical Abuse and Corporal PunishmentTreatment for Child AbuseCosts to SocietyConclusionsReferencesState Child Abuse LawsNationwide Crisis Line and Hotline Directory. Underlying mechanisms for racial disparities in parent-child physical and psychological aggression and child abuse risk. The enumerated injuries range from willfully inflicted sprains, dislocations, or cartilage damage to intracranial hemorrhage or injury to other internal organs.30, Definitions with a greater degree of specificity provide additional guidance to CPS workers and judges who are charged with determining whether a given act or injury constitutes physical abuse. Duhaime A, et al. Explains how Federal and State laws define Rather, we encourage their treatment as potentially contributing to rather than as automatically dispositive of the line between reasonable corporal punishment and abuse. In: Rutter Michael, Tienda Marta., editors. WebOne distinction is that physical abuse results in nonaccidental physical injury to the child, while corporal punishment may cause temporary discomfort, but should not result in Specifically, although all interviewees acknowledged CPSs responsibility to respect family privacy, including parents right to use corporal punishment to discipline their children, they also explained their view that their job is to protect children from harm, not to protect parents privacy rights. When a norm has been established by the jury over a series of cases, judges may decline in future similar cases to submit the question to another jury on the ground that the matter has been amply settled. The parents behavior per se is less significant than the meaning of the behavior as interpreted by the child.178 This meaning is determined by the family context, including chronicity of the act, the contingency of the act on the childs misbehavior, mitigating factors such as temporary stress and the childs instigation of the act, and exacerbating factors such as parents taunting and psychological abuse. One pediatrician who works with physically abused children in hospital emergency room situations has said, I do not understand that quote from Proverbs which says, If you beat him with a rod he will not die. The fact is, many do die.. When a parent meets this burden, the state is required to prove that the assault was not privileged or excused. Long-term follow-ups of children found by CPS to have been maltreated indicate that they are likely to suffer a variety of functional impairments, including an increased tendency to commit violent crime, to abuse alcohol and drugs, to acquire sexually transmitted diseases, to suffer from depression, and to victimize their own children.186 Although these studies bring the certainty that comes with identifying and following children whose physical abuse has been officially substantiated, they are complicated by the problem that the interventions accompanying official substantiation (such as removal from the home and labeling the child as abused) might be the actual adverse causal agent rather than the abuse per se. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Child Abuse Negl. 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. Punt J, et al. Associations between corporal punishment and a number of lifetime aggression indicators were examined in this study after efforts to control the potential influence of various forms of co-occurring maltreatment (parental physical abuse, childhood sexual abuse, sibling abuse, peer bullying, and observed parental violence). Whitney Stephen D, et al. Likewise, North Carolina defines an abused juvenile as [a]ny juvenile less than 18 years of age whose parent, guardian, custodian, or caretaker inflicts or allows to be inflicted upon the juvenile a serious physical injury by other than accidental means; creates or allows to be created a substantial risk of serious physical injury to the juvenile by other than accidental means, [or] uses or allows to be used upon the juvenile cruel or grossly inappropriate procedures or cruel or grossly inappropriate devices to modify behavior. N.C. Gen. Stat. Gilbert Ruth, et al. 2006). Bethesda, MD 20894, Web Policies For example, Arkansas statutory definition provides a list of intentional or knowing acts, with physical injury and without justifiable cause26 that constitute abuse, as well as a list of intentional or knowing acts, with or without physical injury27 that constitute abuse. Individualizing Justice Through Multiculturalism: The Liberals Dilemma. Babies who survive the experience with none of these consequences may still suffer cerebral palsy or mental retardation, effects that may not become evident until after age six.159 One influential study determined that seventy-two percent of known victims suffer permanent neuro-developmental abnormalities or death.160, The anatomy and long-term consequences of internal head injury due to shaking have been discovered only over the past twenty-five years. Episode 84: What Does an Effective Support System Look Like? WebDiscipline Versus Abuse. Because it is beyond the scope of this article to consider how children and parents are treated once maltreatment has been found, we do not discuss actors such as therapists and family counselors, who are also important but who are involved only after this point. The level of harm or injury necessary for an act of physical discipline to constitute abuse depends largely on each states statutory definition of abuse. Some of the following recommendations reflect existing best practices in statutory language and court or CPS practice. Childrens Bureau. Analyses focused on three hypotheses: 1) The odds of experiencing childhood physical abuse would be higher among respondents reporting frequent corporal punishment during upbringing; 2) Corporal punishment scores would predict the criterion aggression indices after control of variance associated with childhood maltreatment; 3) Aggression scores would be higher among respondents classified in the moderate and elevated corporal punishment risk groups. 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.
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