Child Abuse

[mcgillianaire]

A man in Manchester was arrested last night and given an official police caution for slapping his 13-year-old daughter (the first time he had ever physically hit her). He hit her after she banged a neighbour's window. Immediately afterwards the daughter called the police. The father has quit his football coaching and community work because the caution could prevent him working with vulnerable children. The daughter has since apologised for getting her father in trouble and agreed she deserved the slap...

[Poll #1241699]

Comments

[loganberrybunny.livejournal.com]

My answer is actually "no, but there are circumstances in which it is defensible". For example, I would never suggest that a parent be punished for slapping a child's hand away from a hot stove or broken bottle. I also think the girl's reaction of calling the police in this case was wildly over the top.

However, I would like to see smacking outlawed, and I have little time for the oft-heard argument that such a law would be "political correctness gone mad" or similar. More than half of EU countries (14 out of 27) now have just such a law, and their societies have not collapsed in ruins. We should follow.

[lctrc-gtr-dde.livejournal.com]

Depends on what you mean by 'hit'. If it constitutes assault, then generally no.

[aldehyde.livejournal.com]

depending on what 'hitting' actually consists of. the situation you described is perfectly fine to me. but if the dad had resorted to beating the daughter violently, i would categorise it as abuse, and that WOULDN'T be okay.

man, this daughter is a major douche bag. her dad's life is effectively ruined with something like this on his record.

[brinker.livejournal.com]

I agree with those who have said calling the police and him losing his job is seriously overreacting.

One thing I have to disagree with, though, is the claim that it was the first time he'd ever hit her. There is no way that's possible. Now, certainly some parents raise their kids and never hit them. That's not a question. But I find it exceedingly hard to believe that he's gone through 22 yrs of raising 4 kids (his oldest is 22) and never slap any of them... and then to suddenly slap a kid over banging on a window?!? If he genuinely had never hit any of his kids, why on earth would he suddenly forget his 22 yr old parenting skills over something so trivial?

That said, I think there are certainly times when parents have a right to hit kids. However, far too many parents don't really know when those times are and aren't in order to raise kids properly. Those times also tend to have passed long before a kid hits their teens...

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

>For example, I would never suggest that a parent be punished for slapping a child's hand away from a hot stove or broken bottle.
Fair enough.

>However, I would like to see smacking outlawed
Do you think such a law would create a problem when parents are accused of smacking their children when trying to slap a child's/teenager's hand away from a hot stove?

>More than half of EU countries (14 out of 27) now have just such a law
Thanks for that stat. I'm really looking forward to learning such stuff when my course begins next month!

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Where would you draw the line?

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

>...and that WOULDN'T be okay
Fair enough.

>her dad's life is effectively ruined with something like this on his record.
Hear, hear! Really sad eh...

[vingt.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault

[lctrc-gtr-dde.livejournal.com]

There is no line. There are far too many facotrs to define a 'line'. It needs to be examined on a case by case basis.

In New Zealand "Assault means the act of intentionally applying or attempting to apply force to the person of another, directly or indirectly, or threatening by any act or gesture to apply such force to the person of another, if the person making the threat has, or causes the other to believe on reasonable grounds that he has, present ability to effect his purpose; and to assault has a corresponding meaning."

After the fact, the police and courts system can hopefully determine if it was assault or not.

Before the fact, you can only have 'rules of thumb' (not necesarily literally).

For example, violence is probably the wrong path. If volunatrily for whatever reason (punishment for example) or out of anger or frustration you carry out an act that is primarily designed to injure or cause pain (as opposed to say, rugby tackling a child to prevent her from bieng hit by a bus), then that's probably the wrong path. However just because it's the wrong path doesn't mean it should be illegal - it may however be reported to the police who can proceed as they wish.

I would say use of any force that is greater than which is available to the victim/recipient, is cause for concern.

[loganberrybunny.livejournal.com]

Do you think such a law would create a problem when parents are accused of smacking their children when trying to slap a child's/teenager's hand away from a hot stove?

I think there would have to be defences built into the law, but I rather take that as a given. We should study what has happened in countries which have introduced such laws and take lessons from those. There would doubtless be occasional silly court cases, but that happens with most laws.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

>One thing I have to disagree with
I see what you're saying but I don't think it's completely unbelieveable. I don't think the actual act of banging on the window was what bothered the father, as much as it being the latest in a series of incidents that the girl had been doing to annoy him. The window banging was the straw that broke the camel's back. He also says that none of the other kids ever gave him this sorta trouble. Might be hard to believe, but unless proven otherwise I don't think you can disagree so easily with the claim.

>I think there are certainly times when parents have a right to hit kids.
I'd be curious to read when they do have the right...

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

True.

[brinker.livejournal.com]

but unless proven otherwise I don't think you can disagree so easily with the claim.

It's true that none of us, or any judge, is going to be able to definitively determine whether it's the first time or not. I think it's pretty safe to assume that the entire family is all going to insist that he never did it before, though, given what's at stake.

The window banging was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I imagine you're right that it was a "last straw" type thing. But still, people parent in a certain manner. If they never hit their kids... it's unlikely that they ever will. If they do occasionally/rarely (which is what I expect he does) then they're more likely to.

>I think there are certainly times when parents have a right to hit kids.
I'd be curious to read when they do have the right...

I suppose I should clarify what I mean by hitting. I don't have a problem with an occasional spanking... spankings being defined as open handed, not on the face or any part of the body that can be easily injured, not hard enough to cause undue/lingering pain, etc., etc., etc. As for what kind of circumstances? Hard to list off a string of them. I got a spanking for throwing our cats in the pool to have swimming races. I think that's fair. I'd say certainly anything that harms/hurts someone.... such as throwing rocks at cars, kicking parents (or anyone), stuff like that....