Court: Striking Your Child Once in Face May Be Abusive
Judges say parents go too far if the blow leaves a handprint or bruising.
A parent who strikes a child in the face hard enough to leave fingerprints and bruising has used excessive force and can be put on a list of abusive parents, a state appeals court ruled Tuesday. In their 16-page opinion, judges Victor Ashrafi and Douglas Fasciale reviewed two other cases in which a parent who slapped a teenager and another parent who struck her child on the shoulder were found not to have used excessive force. But in this case, the judges held that striking the child in the face, and with enough force to leave a mark the following morning, crossed the line. "Slapping the face of an eight-year-old child with sufficient force to leave a hand imprint and cause bruising goes 'beyond what is proper and reasonable,'" the court…
Mel Sharples
1:56 pm on Thursday, April 18, 2013
The ONLY thing slapping your kid teaches them is to slap their kid when they're an adult. That's it, that's all, nothing else. more ›