There is an interesting ruling out of the Sixth District Court of Appeal in California where a unanimous state appellate panel ruled that beating a child with a wooden spoon is not child abuse, even if it leaves bruises. The mother, Veronica Gonzalez, was reported for possible child abuse of her 12-year-old daughter. The daughter says that a friend “tricked” her into going to school officials about the beating. The case is Gonzalez v. Santa Clara County Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 2013 Cal. App. LEXIS 802.
Here is the facts found by the court:
Prior to the events giving rise to this matter, Mother and her husband (Father) had become gravely concerned about Daughter’s declining academic performance and alarming social tendencies. As Father put it, Daughter “had decided that she did not have to do her school or home work, repeatedly lied to both of us, [and] started showing interest in gang culture.”1 Mother declared that Daughter had become “boy crazy and started to mingle with a new type of crowd,” and that they had found pictures and text messages on her mobile phone “in reference to gangs.” They “had many discussions” with Daughter about these developments, but to no avail: “She would hear us yet continued to go down this road . . . . [S]he began saying that her favorite color is red . . . . [S]he was not doing many of her school and homework assignments and even her teachers expressed . . . annoyance with her disregard for her work. We also discovered that [Daughter] had been lying to us about completing assignments and had been hiding test[s] with low scores that were supposed to have gotten signed by us.” Daughter’s older sister (Sister) also declared that Daughter’s “interest in gangs seemed to be growing.” She “started to become very irresponsible in school by being late to classes, having really bad grades because she was doing hardly any of her school and homework, was lying to my parents about lots of things, and started hanging around wanna-be gangster kids at school.” Daughter herself declared, “I have to admit, for a long time, starting in 6th grade, I was always getting to class late, not doing my school assignments, and lying to my parents.” She acknowledged that milder disciplinary measures had failed to influence her: “When I first started doing all this, my parents grounded me many times, by taking away all my fun stuff like my iPod, my T.V., my cell phone, and I was not allowed to hang out with friends. I don’t know why that stuff didn’t work on me, but I continued to not do what I was supposed to.”
Mother described in more detail the failure of these less stringent methods of discipline: “[A]fter a few weeks of grounding when [Daughter] would get off of restriction she would do better for a short time, but then revert back to the same behavior, over and over. We would go through several sessions of groundings over several months, hoping it would finally make the difference, but grounding proved to be ineffective at setting [Daughter] back on the right path. At this point, we did not know what else to do to help [Daughter]. We talked again, and felt that the only other option out there, would be to try spanking. So the weekend before the incident in question, my husband and I sat [Daughter] down and explained to her that, since she kept lying to us repeatedly about completing assignments, she now needed to get her agenda signed by each teacher so we could be sure she was really doing all of her work. We also informed her that if she continued with this irresponsible behavior, [such as] not doing her assignments, being late to class and lying to us, she would start to receive one spank on the bottom for each thing not done. She understood the new consequences. but still chose to continue the bad behavior.”
According to the Mother, on each of the first three days of the new regime Daughter came home without having “complet[ed] her tasks.” This resulting in her being spanked by Father “with his hand, only on the buttocks, fully clothed, and in a calm manner.” (Capitalization removed.) When Mother picked Daughter up at school on Thursday, April 29, 2010, she had again failed to comply with her parents’ directives. She [*6] gave implausible excuses, a further violation of parental orders. Mother called Father “and told him that [Daughter] still wasn’t doing her work and was late again, and that he needed to come home and deal with this. He told me he wouldn’t be home until late that evening and that I needed to handle it, or else [Daughter] would not respect me or take me seriously as a parent. Because of my hand condition, he said I should just use a wooden spoon. I told him that I’d rather he just spank her when he gets home from work, but he insisted that I should handle it. I finally agreed and told [Daughter] that I would have to be the one to spank her this day and that I was going to use a wooden spoon because my hands hurt.” Father also declared that the idea of using a spoon had been his, and had arisen from the exigency of his not coming home until “very late that evening.”
Mother declared that upon arriving home, she retrieved a wooden spoon and “gave [Daughter] around five or six spanks on the bottom, one for each thing not done and for making excuses. [Daughter] was fully clothed during the spanking. She was not crying or screaming during the spanking.” (Capitalization removed.) Family members [*7] declared unanimously that spankings had been a rarity in the family, that they had only been given in response to misbehavior, that they were never given in the heat of anger, and that they were almost always given by Father, and always with an open hand.
On the next day Daughter disclosed to some friends that she had been spanked with a wooden spoon. One of them reported, or “tricked” Daughter into reporting, the matter to school authorities. An unnamed “mandated child abuse reporter[]”—manifestly a school employee—filled out a “suspected child abuse report.” (Emphasis omitted.) Under “[i]ncident [i]nformation,” the reporter wrote, “Victim says she gets ‘smack’ by parents when she is not doing what parents are expecting from her. She said Mom hits her with a wooden spoon and Dad hits her with his hand. Last time she was hit was on 4/29/10 on her botto[m] / picture was taken.”
That fact pattern set up a clear record for the court to decide whether parents can still use spoons or other objects to discipline their students. The case turned on the state definitions of abuse, which are extremely vague. Under state law, a report is “‘[s]ubstantiated'” if the conduct reported is “determined by the investigator who conducted the investigation to constitute child abuse or neglect . . . , based upon evidence that makes it more likely than not that child abuse . . . occurred.” Since neglect was not alleged, the case turned to two definitions of abuse. First is the “‘willful harming or injuring of a child,” is defined as “willfully caus[ing] or permit[ting] any child to suffer, or inflict[ing] thereon, unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering.” (Pen. Code, § 11165.3.) Second is the “‘unlawful corporal punishment or injury,'” is defined as “willfully inflict[ing] upon any child any cruel or inhuman corporal punishment or injury resulting in a traumatic condition.” (Pen. Code, § 11165.4.) There is a privilege recognized in California state however when “a reasonable person would find that punishment was necessary under the circumstances and that the . . . physical force used . . . was reasonable.” (CALCRIM No. 3405).
The panel faulted the trial court for refusing to consider such defenses by the mother. The panel held:
As we have said, a successful assertion of the parental disciplinary privilege requires three elements: (1) a genuine disciplinary motive; (2) a reasonable occasion for discipline; and (3) a disciplinary measure reasonable in kind and degree. . . .
The only question presenting any difficulty is whether the measure actually applied—spanking with a wooden spoon, with resulting bruises—was reasonable in kind and degree. To overlook as harmless the trial court’s failure to entertain the reasonable discipline privilege, it would have to appear as a matter of law either that a wooden spoon was an unreasonable means to administer the spanking, or that it was applied with excessive force.We cannot say that the use of a wooden spoon to administer a spanking necessarily exceeds the bounds of reasonable parental discipline. Although no published California decision addresses this issue, the Attorney General has concluded that “[i]t is not unlawful for a parent to spank a child for disciplinary purposes with an object other than the hand,” provided that “the punishment [is] necessary and not excessive in relation to the individual circumstances.” . . .
Nor do we think that the infliction of visible bruises automatically requires a finding that the limits of reasonable discipline were exceeded. Certainly the presence of lasting bruises or other marks may support a finding that a parent crossed the line between permissible discipline and reportable abuse. . . . However, such effects alone [do not compel a finding of child abuse.
In some countries, any corporal punishment is treated as presumptively abusive. With four kids, I have yet to spank any of them though I consider spanking to be an option. I simply have never found it necessary. Not because my kids are angels. They can at times be close to feral, but I have found other alternative forms of punishment like taking away electronics (which is akin to an amputation for kids today). I grew up in a house where spanking occurred but not very often. My father (who was abused as a child) rarely spanked the kids and refused (unlike many of the fathers in our building in Chicago) to use a belt or a switch or any object. He used his bare hand and the kid was left fully clothed (despite my putting a magazine in my pants on one occasion). He would only briefly spank us — generally at the suggestion of my mother for severely bad conduct. Indeed, if you said you were sorry or cried, he would stop. (I would generally start to wail upon approaching my father and achieved a record low level of spanking — an early recognition of the value of throwing oneself on the mercy of the court. My next older brother — Christopher — on the other hand was a hard case and would refuse to cry or ask forgiveness.). With five kids, my parents found the threat of corporal punishment to be useful, even if rarely used. They are viewed (by us) as highly progressive because it was common for friends to be beaten by belts or sticks when we were growing up.
What do you think? Should any corporal punishment be viewed as abuse today?
Source: Mercury News
Depends on the size of the spoon. If it weighs a couple pounds, not good.
OS, my brother learned the same way.
To get his daughter to quit playing with outlets, my uncle wired up a mouse and made her watch as he plugged it in (he’s an old farm boy). My cousin refused to plug or unplug any appliance until she was a teen — curling iron, you know.
Oro Lee,
I was told to not put my finger in the light socket. So naturally I did. I was five at the time. Took the bulb out of the lamp next to the couch and stuck my finger in the socket. I don’t remember exactly how I ended up on my back in the middle of the living room floor.
My mom just smiled and asked me if I wanted to try that again.
To this day, I never stuck my finger in a socket again. Edwin Guthrie would be proud. I am good at one-trial learning.
AY,
I understand what you’re saying about not understanding the full consequences to the entire family (which I assume were huge given that this went all the way to the state appellate panel) but I wonder what this 12 year old thought was going to happen.
And she still played with outlets — I had to unwire them, which is what I probably should have done in the first place.
Having raised BOTH sexes, my experience comports w/ others who have. Seldom, if ever, did our daughter need corporal punishment, as we are the heathens who believed it prudent @ times. Boys however..well, that’s an entirely different ballgame. My wife was an ARDENT feminist when we met and believed the lie that boys and girls are the same, w/ only culture making them different. Screw science, we’re going w/ ideology they said.. When feminist have boys they get their mind right on that lie QUICKLY.
I am preparing to go to Stockbridge, Massachusetts next week, to attend the Erikson Institute Fall Conference for Clinicians and Scholars, at the Austen Riggs Center.
The title of the conference is, “Perspectives on Trauma: Remembering, Forgetting, and Memorialization.”
I attended the prior conference on trauma in October, 2012, and have attended many of the Erikson Institute conferences and the prior Fall Working Conferences at Austen Riggs prior to the forming of the Erikson Institute.
I do both “clinical” and “scholarly” work in my licensed capacity as a Wisconsin Registered Professional Engineer and member of the ordained clergy.
My work in pastoral counseling is a continuation of the work my dad did as a scientist (Carleton College philosophy major, with a biology minor) and clergy member (a Congregational Christian and United Church of Christ minister). He published aspects of his work, as, for example, in Pastoral Psychology, October, 1962, pages31-37, “The Rural Minister and Counseling.”. That journal article is available through Springer as a .pdf download.
While my dad was a member of the sectarian clergy who had an undergraduate science degree, I chose to become a member of the non-sectarian clergy having both undergraduate and graduate degrees in science and applied science (engineering; specifically bioengineering).
My doctotal dissertation is on the Internet, on the Indigo web page of the University of Illinois at Chicago, the URL being:
http://hdl.handle.net/10027/8816
As of a few minutes ago, the statistical information for that URL shows more than 200 download hits. I am easy to find via Internet search engines, I have a listed phone number, anyone who has found any way to scientifically refute the core finding of my doctoral thesis and dissertation could, at least in principle, easily inform me of said refutation. I have, so far, had identically zero reports of any refutation or falsification of my thesis finding to the effect that actually-avoidable mistakes (hence also actually-avoidable accidents) are evidently actually absolute existential impossibilities, thousands of years of human social hypothesis testing to the contrary notwithstanding.
For me, the notion that people make actually-avoidable mistakes (which I find neurologically equivalent to the notion that actually-avoidable accidents happen) is a inherently a form of scientifically testable hypothesis; when a way of testing it is attained. A way of testing the hypothetical notion of avoidable mistakes or accidents may be found through testing the legal notion construct of “the reasonable person” who could have foreseen something that no actually-living person could actually have foreseen. A sufficiently careful reading of my dissertation will, I find, plausibly inform any sufficiently scientifically informed person that the legal fiction “reasonable person” is, at best, a sadly contagious and viciously harmful form of psychotic delusion when it is sincerely believed to be other than a form of psychotic delusion.
The actual demonstration of one or more actually avoidable mistakes or accidents which were not actually avoided or, the actual demonstration of one or more actually unavoidable mistakes or accidents which were not actually unavoided would, in my present view, effectively refute and/or falsify the core finding of my doctoral thesis and dissertation.
If tangible reality is purely hypothetical, I have a story of a hypothetical fruit fly (drosophila melanogaster) who learned to fly at a googolplexion times the speed of light and who, ten microseconds before I started to write these words, fully terraformed Mars so it is now fit for human habitation, doing so in 37.3 femtoseconds, gathering rocks from the asteroid belt, water from the Oort Cloud, and atmospheric gasses from Venus.Why the rocks from the asteroid belt? So that the mass and size of Mars will closely match that of Earth, so humans living on Mars do not need to adapt to gravity notably different than the gravity of Earth.
Gathering the materials may be trivial in contrast with cooling the newly formed Earth-like Mars from the molten rock state formed by that fruit fly’s work so that the radial temperature profile of the new Mars is much like that of Earth, plate tectonics included, in 37.3 femtoseconds.
Hypotheticals? I can do hypotheticals. However, perhaps the way in which I am autistic has shielded me from confusing hypotheticals that model actual impossibilities with hypotheticals that model actual possibilities.
Part way through the prior paragraph, my business phone rang. A message announced that my business qualifies for a quarter million dollar loan, and announced that I could “press 1” for more information. I pressed “1” and a living person began speaking, to the effect, “So, you are interested in a loan? Who am I speaking with?” I replied, “A Wisconsin Professional Engineer who is very good at detecting scams. Perhaps you can find someone who is vulnerable to scams.” And I put the telephone handset “on hook.”
Many years ago, I became curious about what proportion of people have learned to confuse hypotheticals that represent tangible impossibilities with hypotheticals that represent tangible possibilities. So far, I find that very nearly 98 percent of people have evidently developed a form of learned helplessness that precludes their being able to clearly distinguish hypothetical impossibilities from hypothetical possibilities.
Perhaps that is why 0.05 is a common value for statistical insignificance in the realm of frequentist statistical methods. People who are not entrained in forms of time-corrupted learning and can distinguish hypothetical impossibilities from hypothetical possibilities are at and below the frequentist statistical insignificance level of 0.02. All such people are, within the frequentist statistical camp, outliers and they and their data points are automatically discarded as not “fitting the curve.”
That “curve” (the “normal curve”) is a hypothetical in its own right, a hypothetical which gives to people much like me no right to exist.
Alas, here I am, frequentist statistics and legal fictions notwithstanding.
The use of force is always dangerous play. Both my parents had anger issue. One slapped me across the face with a belt while I was wearing a medical “immobilizing” eye patch due to a detached retina. Guess how I got the detached retina? Outside the house, my own friends would comment on how cool my parents were. I felt relief when one of them died and I guess I will when the other does.
I’ve two grown daughters. Only once did one get swatted — couldn’t get her to quit playing with the electric outlets (and, no, child proofing them didn’t help). I also raised my voice and scowled at her and sent her to her room. She was afraid of me for two years.
Oro,
Thus illustrating why this kind of issue has a huge situational/context component.
There are some really bad family dynamics at work and, absent professional help, it isn’t going to end well. The whole description is less of failed discipline and more of an ever increasing power struggle – there are underlying issues with the daughter and probably the parents that are not being addressed. What is the child finding in a gang that she isn’t finding at home or what is she escaping from that doesn’t exist in the gang? Find it, fix it. In the meantime, cognitive behavioral therapy and maybe some mindfulness exercises are vastly more likely to bring desired change than use of force.
Blouise,
Some kids use the state as an interceptor not considering the consequences that it has on the entire family….. So I can believe that she might have been tricked…. Not full well understanding the consequences….
Mike S,
From reading the facts as presented, I would be somewhat concerned that the daughter’s “I was tricked by my friends into reporting the spanking”, sounds like someone still not willing to assume responsibility for her own actions.
If it’s always someone elses’ fault then there is no need to learn … a ready-made attitude to continue self-destructive behavior.
What do I think? I think it is a case by case situation and that swatting a kid is not always child abuse. My house was much like yours JT. The option was always there, but rarely used, and in retrospect only when I really did something very wrong (usually in the name of scientific experimentation). But there’s a huge difference between giving a kid a couple of swats and beating them with a belt. My grandmother on my mother’s side (not a nice or even particularly sane woman) made that mistake once. Once. My parents came unglued over it.
As a former Child Welfare supervisor and executive I would have, given the set of facts presented, deem this to be an “unfounded” case. There are times as a parent when one is faced with a situation that can’t be handled via normal means. when investigating a case such as this one must interview the parents and children in the family. One must also discover the entire context surrounding the parent’s response to the child’s behavior. One must also be cognizant of the end game that might come into play if a child is removed from the home. Often the Foster Care System presents a poor alternative for the child.
My father used corporal punishment until I was about eight. He was a large man and he would slap me in the face once or twice. This occurred perhaps 5 or 6 times in my childhood and I found it painful, humiliating and unfair. My daughters are adults now and never once were dealt with via the use of force, since neither my wife, nor I believe in any form of physical punishment. To us as parents, we believed that a parent must be the authority for the child and to an extent on important matters we were more strict than the parents of our children’s peers. However, by being strict I don’t mean making all decisions for our children. They could dress as they pleased and wear their hair as they pleased. They were free to watch TV and movies of their choice and were completely unrestricted when it came to their personal reading. However, there was a structured bedtime, dependent upon age. As they grew there were curfews as to when they came home and discussions on what their activities would be when they went out a night. By giving them plenty of freedom within a structured environment things appear to have worked out well.
As a guidebook for how to parent there were two seminal books for me, which at this point may be out of print. Both were by Doctor Haim Ginott. One was titled “Between Parent and Child” and the other “Between Parent and Teenager”. These are to my mind the best guidebooks for parents.
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I was spanked once as a child for burning a hole in my mother’s purse with a car cigarette lighter. It was a perfect round circle and I wanted to see if it would work like my grandfather’s wood burning tools. My mother got in the car (she had been stowing groceries in the trunk) and immediately smelled the burning leather. I showed her what I had done and received a spanking when we got home for “playing with a burning object” and failing to consider the “consequences to another’s property”. I was 4 years old and received 2 swats on the bottom (fully clothed) with the hairbrush.
I don’t remember if it hurt but I never again touched a lighter or matches and the word “consequences” began to take shape in my mind.
My 3 brothers on the other hand, who were each 1 1/2 years younger than the other and a self contained gang in their own right, were spanked on a regular basis by my father at the behest of my mother … usually for being “smart-alecs”. One was stoic, one was a”dancer”, and one was a screamer … considering that they each only got one swat apiece, I thought the stoic one was smarter.
The rule is simply stated and often tough for someone else to discern. You never use corporal punishment in anger. You use a quick form of corporal punishment in immediate response to either a dangerous or willful act. You explain why it was done, let the child know you love them, and then let it go.
Corporal punishment is wrong. In our dogpac only a Sgt. or higher ranking dog can administer punishment. Wooden spoon is better than a metal spoon. Nuff said on that score. In France this kid would have been beaten with a belt and in Sicily she would have been pistol whipped. In South Dakota they use buggy whips and in N. Dakota they employ tree limbs. Then there is different strokes for different folks. Kids who lie get their mouth washed out with soap. Kids who steal get their hands whacked. And so on.
This seems reasonable under the circumstances…..
“What do you think? Should any corporal punishment be viewed as abuse today?”
No, so long as it fits the offense and the child was made well aware of all of the elements of the offense well in advance, and chose never-the-less to commit the infraction.
Children who are well loved and guided will generall seek compliance with parental guidance and parents will not need to use corporal punishment to emphasize the behavioral norms that both they and society expect.
You’re darn tootin’………. 60 years ago, when I was a little boy, my mom would pick up a wooden spoon or any other kind of kitchen tool, she could get her hands on, to hit me with….. She didn’t want to hurt her hand!