A pediatrician at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is circulating a survey about opinions about child abuse. Professionals in various disciplines of the child protection field were asked to say whether we think it is the norm in our communities to use certain methods on various age children usually, occasionally, rarely or never. It didn't include the one that turned out to me to be the Number 1 Truly Shocking Thing NOT to do to Your Child.
But first the list:
Top 10 Discipline Methods Not to Use on your Child
Number 10 - Pinching
Number 9 - Kicking
Number 8 - Hot peppers in mouth as punishment
Number 7 - Calling child names such as stupid, ugly or useless
Number 6 - Hitting on the buttocks with an object such as a belt or switch
Number 5 - Slapping child on the face or the back of the head
Number 4 - Hitting child elsewhere than on the buttocks with an object such as a belt, hairbrush or stick
Number 3 - Shaking
Number 2 - Beating (that is hitting over and over again with an object or fist)
and the number 1 Truly Shocking Thing NOT to do to Your Child ...
... TASING.
That's right, I saw an article about a woman who called the police on her 10 year old daughter who curled up on the floor rather than take a shower at bed time. AND THEN the mother gave the officer permission to use his taser on the child if he thought it was necessary. See the November 19, 2009, Associated Press article from Ozark, Arkansas, here.
The girl's father, who reportedly "does not have custody", described the child as having "emotional problems."
The Mayor wants the State Police or FBI to investigate and said:
People here feel like that he made a mistake in using a Taser, and maybe he did, but we will not know until we get an impartial investigation.
Really? Really? The town has to have an independent investigation to determine whether a child having a tantrum at home needs to be shocked into submission?
See also my Guest Commentary on the bill that was then pending in the Massachusetts state legislature to ban corporal punishment in the December 13, 2007, Arlington Advocate.
1 comment:
There is an interesting paradigm shift in parenting. Older parents (40s)may still resort to a belt on the buttocks whereas younger parents would generally eschew this form of discipline. Where this becomes difficult is when a parent, after progressive discipline fails, goes "old school" and then the Department becomes involved. I have found that some judge's will return custody if the belt was not used excessively injure the child and it was part and parcel of some form of progressive discipline.
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