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A lot of folks see that verse in the Bible, "spare the rod and spoil the child, " and they immediately
think a rod is for punishment. Is the rod for hitting or could it be that the Bible is telling us to spare the rod as
we need to gently used the rod to simply guide the children. Guide the children to do what is right. Guide
the children so they will grow up as law abiding good citizens.
Was Jesus referring to children as a
shepherd refers to his sheep? We see pictures of the shepherd standing close to his flock, with a crooked staff in his hand.
The shepherd never hit the sheep with his staff, whenever they took a wrong turn. he used the
crook of the staff to get them gently by the neck and "steered " them from the path they took if they went the wrong
direction.
This is in our opinion how parents need to treat their children. Whenever the child takes a wrong
turn, the parent should sit down with the child and explain what is wrong with this or that. And explain it in words the child
can understand. Guidance with kindness goes a long way for the childs betterment. Does beating ever teach anything but
violence?
Not only are parents responsible for the raising of their children but to the future generations
of their offsprings as well.
When a parents feel the neccessity to spank over and over and harder and harder,
it might be best to question the practice. If physical discipline was so beneficial than why is it so often repeated?
Certainly, one is not advocating a parent not be allowed to discipline a child or that a parent who slap a child's bottom
should lose custody of the child. We simply wish to provoke some thoughts on the subject. One can only do what
he or she knows to do and we hope before a child is hit in anger, the caregiver thinks.
If one feels the need to
use a belt, hairbrush, paddle, stick or other devise on another human being or to spit, pull hair, pinched, bite or kick than
for your sake seek help. That is abusive. Swearing, name calling and belittling are also abusive.
Please
love your children enough to seek help. If you are too afraid to call child protection on yourself than please call
a hotline and anonymously speak to someone.
Murder Case Tests Limits on Parents’ Right to Discipline
Published: January 20, 2008 Correction Appended During a break in the Nixzmary Brown murder trial in Brooklyn last week, Jeffrey T. Schwartz, the lawyer for Nixzmary’s stepfather, described the predicament
he said his client found himself in.  Daniel Barry for The New York Times Khadijah Charles, who raises awareness about
abuse, with an image of Nixzmary Brown. John Marshall Mantel for The New
York Times In Brooklyn, at the murder trial of Cesar Rodriguez, evidence included a cat box that Nixzmary
used as a toilet. “You don’t know you’ve crossed the line until you get accused of crossing the line,” he said. Whether
Cesar Rodriguez, who is accused of beatings and abusive behavior that killed his 7-year-old stepdaughter, could not have known
he had crossed a line is a matter for a jury to decide. He has admitted that he routinely beat Nixzmary with a belt, hit her
with his hands using “all my force,” threw her on the floor. He has admitted duct-taping her emaciated 37-pound
frame to a chair and binding her with bungee cords. But at least in a broad legal sense, Mr. Schwartz has a point. The
laws in New York State, as in the rest of the country, are vague on corporal punishment. Parents in all 50 states are
allowed to hit their children. In his opening argument, Mr. Schwartz reminded the jurors that most of them had said during
jury selection that they had been hit as children and noted that parents have widely varying styles of discipline. There
are limits, of course, on what is allowed. But out of reluctance to legislate parental conduct, state lawmakers have shied
away from getting too specific about those limits, instead letting courts consider the matter case by case. Consider
some of the cases cited in the Legal Aid Society’s training guide for its lawyers who work in New York’s Family Courts. In one case, inflicting cuts and
bruises on a child was deemed “excessive corporal punishment,” amounting to neglect, the most basic and frequently
charged form of child mistreatment. But in another case, shaking a child and causing her to hit her head on the pavement was
ruled allowable. Hitting a 9-year-old with the buckle end of a purse strap for leaving his 2-year-old sister alone in
a room was acceptable. Hitting a child with a belt for lying on the floor, kicking a table and peeling paint off a wall was
not. Leaving red marks on the face of a 13-month-old constituted neglect. Dragging an 11-year-old out of a car by the
collar, scraping his neck, and throwing him on the ground, scraping his knee, did not. In a case where a father was
charged with abuse, a more severe infraction than neglect, judges held that biting a girl on the face and arm, leaving severe
bruises, did not cross the line. In this context, the threshold for abuse was intentionally causing or risking a physical
injury that involved disfigurement or “protracted impairment of physical or emotional health.” Stephen
P. Forrester, who runs the child abuse identification training program for the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Children, said that in trying to decide whether corporal punishment has crossed the line into abuse, he advises considering
several factors. These include the severity of the beatings, the frequency of punishment (“Once or twice might
be reasonable,” Mr. Forrester said, “but 35 times is beyond the pale”), the age of the child, and the location
of the bruises. Criminal prosecutions for corporal punishment are rare, several experts said, largely because the law
grants parents a wide exception to the assault statutes. However, such parents might lose custody in Family Court, where the
main standard is the welfare of the child. In New York, parents may “use physical force,” as long as it is not
deadly, to the extent that they reasonably believe necessary “to maintain discipline or to promote the welfare”
of a child. Mr. Schwartz is arguing that Mr. Rodriguez, 29, was not acting recklessly or with “depraved indifference”
to Nixzmary’s life, as prosecutors claim in the second-degree murder charge he faces. The thrust of his defense
is that Mr. Rodriguez gave Nixzmary the same kind of discipline that Mr. Rodriguez’s father had given him, including
hitting him a lot and holding his head under cold water. This corrected Mr. Rodriguez’s waywardness and helped him grow
up to be a decent father who took Nixzmary and the other children to parks, helped them with homework, and tried things like
timeouts before resorting to hitting, Mr. Schwartz argued. Therefore, Mr. Schwartz is asking the jury to find, Mr. Rodriguez
was reasonable in using his father’s disciplinary techniques on Nixzmary, including the cold-water treatment, which
Mr. Rodriguez gave Nixzmary the night she died in January 2006. “It was done to him, and it didn’t kill
him,” Mr. Schwartz said outside the courtroom on Thursday. “How was he to know that it was something that would
cause death?” (If there were some things done to Nixzmary that were unallowable, Mr. Schwartz has said, they
were done by Nixzmary’s mother, Nixzaliz Santiago, not by Mr. Rodriguez. She will be tried separately, also on a second-degree
murder charge.) While laws in the United States are broadly permissive, a number of countries take a dimmer view of
parental corporal punishment. Twenty-three of them have passed bans on it, including, in 2007 alone, Chile, the Netherlands,
New Zealand, Spain and Venezuela, said Susan H. Bitensky, a professor at the Michigan State University College of Law. The bans tend not to be strictly enforced, Professor Bitensky said. Since Sweden passed its law in
1979, fewer than five parents have been prosecuted for moderate or light corporal punishment, she said. “These countries
are relying on the pedagogical or didactic value of these laws to make the hitting of children socially unacceptable,”
she said. But in the United States, any legislative gesture, symbolic or otherwise, aimed at blocking parents from hitting
their children is greeted with catcalls. In California last year, a bill to criminalize parental discipline involving a closed
fist, belt, electrical cord, shoe or other objects punishment was all but jeered out of the State Legislature and quickly
abandoned. An antispanking bill in Massachusetts appears headed for a similar fate. A hole in Minnesota’s laws
leaves parents who hit their children open to assault charges, said Victor Vieth, a former prosecutor who now directs the
National Child Protection Training Center, which trains investigators on child abuse cases. “But there’s
been no uproar, because no one would pursue mild forms of corporal punishment,” Mr. Vieth said. “I don’t
know of a single instance where anybody was prosecuted for a mild form of corporal punishment.” Indeed, a state appeals
court in Minnesota recently ruled that a father’s giving his 12-year-old son 36 strokes with a wooden paddle was not
even a civil offense. To draw a bright line in the law, said Martin Guggenheim, a professor at New York University School of Law, would be to cross the threshold of what the United States Supreme Court once called “the private realm of family life which the state may not enter,” and to intrude on parents’
constitutional right to raise children as they see fit. “It’s a huge challenge to draft a law that allows
parents to engage in corporal punishment, but at the same time to clarify in advance what is unacceptable, what is impermissible,”
he said. “The best we have come up with is to say that when it’s excessive, it’s impermissible.” Correction: January 25, 2008 An article on Sunday
about the legal limits of corporal punishment, an issue raised in the murder trial of Cesar Rodriguez of Brooklyn, accused
of beating his 7-year-old stepdaughter to death, referred imprecisely to a bill introduced in the California Assembly last
year. The bill, which was abandoned, would have criminalized parental discipline involving a closed fist, belt, electrical
cord, shoe or other objects, but it would not have outlawed “all corporal punishment.”
An article
on Sunday about the legal limits of corporal punishment, an issue raised in the murder trial of Cesar Rodriguez of Brooklyn,
accused of beating his 7-year-old stepdaughter to death, referred imprecisely to a bill introduced in the California Assembly
last year. The bill, which was abandoned, would have criminalized parental discipline involving a closed fist, belt, electrical
cord, shoe or other objects, but it would not have outlawed “all corporal punishment.”
United States statutes
pertaining to spanking
[Cr.]= Criminal Code, [Ci.]=Civil Code ALABAMA
Parent/guardian/person responsible for care and supervision of a minor/teacher or other person
responsible for care and supervision of a minor for a special purpose may use reasonable and appropriate physical force when
and to the extent he reasonably believes it necessary and appropriate to maintain discipline or promote welfare of the child.
Sec. 13A-3-24. [Cr.]
ALASKA
Force is justified when and to the extent reasonably necessary and appropriate to promote a child's
welfare. Parent/guardian/other person with care and supervision of child under 18 may use reasonable and appropriate non-deadly
force upon the child. Sec. 11.81.430.[Cr.]
ARIZONA
Parent/guardian may use reasonable and appropriate physical force upon the minor when and to the
extent reasonably necessary and appropriate to maintain discipline. Sec. 13-403.[Cr.]
ARKANSAS
Abuse does not include physical discipline of a child if reasonable and moderate and inflicted
by a parent or guardian for restraining or correcting a child. Listed as not reasonable or moderate for correcting or restraining:
-- Throwing, kicking, burning, biting, cutting, striking with a closed fist, shaking a child under 3, striking or other actions
which result in any non-accidental injury to a child less than 18 months, interfering with a child's breathing, threatening
a child with a deadly weapon, striking a child on the face, or any other act that is likely to cause bodily harm greater than
transient pain or minor temporary marks. [Statute says this is an illustrative and not exclusive list]. Age, size, condition
of the child, and the location of the injury and frequency or recurrence of injuries shall be considered in determining "reasonable"
or "moderate." Sec. 9-27-303(B).[Ci.] Parent/teacher/guardian/other with care and supervision of a minor may use
reasonable and appropriate physical force when and to the extent reasonably necessary to maintain discipline or promote the
welfare of the child. Sec. 5-2-605(l).[Cr.] If the belief that the force is necessary is a reckless or negligent belief, than
the above offers no defense to a crime if the culpability of that crime is proven by showing recklessness or negligence.
Justification is not available if person recklessly or negligently injured or created a substantial risk of injury to a
person. Sec. 5-2-614.[Cr.]
CALIFORNIA
Law not intended to prohibit the use of reasonable methods of parental discipline, or to prescribe
a particular method of parenting. Serious physical harm does not include reasonable and age-appropriate spanking to the buttocks
where there is no evidence of serious physical injury. Welf. and Inst. Code Sec. 300. [Ci.] Abuse includes unlawful
corporal punishment or injury. Penal Code Sec. 11165.6.[Cr.] "Unlawful corporal punishment or injury" is any
person willfully inflicting upon a child any cruel or inhuman corporal punishment or injury resulting in a traumatic
condition. Penal Code Sec. 11165.4.[Cr.]
COLORADO
Any investigation of child abuse shall take into account the child-rearing practices of the child's
culture. Child abuse and neglect does not include acts which can be reasonably construed to be a reasonable exercise of parental
discipline. Sec. 19-3-303(l).[Ci.] A continued pattern of conduct which results in cruel punishment or accumulation of injury
which results in death or serious bodily injury is child abuse. Sec. 18-6-401.[Cr.] Parent/guardian/ person with care and
supervision of minor can use reasonable and appropriate physical force, if it is reasonably necessary and appropriate to maintain
or promote welfare of child. Sec. 18-1-703.[Cr.]
CONNECTICUT
It is abuse if having control and custody of a child under sixteen (16) one cruelly or unlawfully
punishes. Sec. 53-20.[Cr.] Parent/guardian/person with care and supervision of a minor (other than a teacher) may use reasonable
physical force, when and to the extent that he reasonably believes necessary to maintain discipline or promote welfare of
minor. Sec. 53a-18.[Cr.]
DELAWARE
Force is justifiable if reasonable and moderate and by parent/guardian/foster parent/legal custodian/other
similar person responsible for care and supervision. Force must be: -- For purpose of safeguarding or promoting welfareof
child, including prevention or punishment of misconduct, and -- Intended to benefit child. Reasonable and moderate is determined
in light of: size, age, and condition of child, location, strength, and duration of force. Force is not justified if it consists
of: -- Throwing child, kicking, burning, cutting, striking with a closed fist, interfering with breathing, use of or threatened
use of deadly weapon, prolonged deprivation of sustenance or medication, any act likely to cause or causing physical injury,
disfigurement, mental distress, unnecessary degradation or substantial risk of serious physical injury or
death.
Criminal Sec. 468.[Cr.]
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Abuse includes excessive corporal punishment. Sec. 6-2101.[Ci.] Abuse includes when
a parent/guardian/custodian inflicts or fails to make reasonable efforts to prevent the infliction of physical or mental injury,
including excessive corporal punishment. Sec. 16-2301.[Ci.]
FLORIDA
"Harm" to a child occurs when the parent or other person responsible for the child's
welfare inflicts or allows to be inflicted upon the child physical, mental, or emotional injury. The following factors must
be considered in evaluating any injury: prior injuries; location; multiplicity; and type of trauma. Such injury include, but
are not limited to willful acts that produce the following specific injuries: sprains, dislocations, or cartilage damage;
bone or skull fractures; brain or spinal cord damage; intracranial hemorrhage or injury to other internal organs; asphyxiation,
suffocation, or drowning; injury resulting from the use of a deadly weapon; burns or scalding; cuts, lacerations, punctures,
or bites; permanent or temporary disfigurement; or permanent or temporary loss or impairment of a body part or function. "Willful"
refers to the intent to perform an action, not to achieve a particular result or an intent to cause an injury. Sec. 415.503.[Ci.]
GEORGIA
Physical forms of discipline may be used as long as there is no physical injury to the child.
Secs. 19-7-5/ 19-15- 1/49-5-180.[Ci.] Parent or person in loco parentis reasonably disciplining of a minor has a justification
for a criminal prosecution based on that conduct. Sec. 16-3-20.[Cr.]
HAWAII
Parent/guardian/person responsible for general care and supervision of minor/person acting at request
of above may use force if. -- employed with due regard for age and size of minor and reasonably related to purpose of safeguarding
or promoting welfare of minor, including prevention or punishment of minor's conduct, and -- not designed to cause or
known to create a risk of causing substantial bodily injury, disfigurement, extreme pain, mental
distress, or neurological
damage. Sec. 703-309.[Cr.]
IDAHO
Abuse includes physical cruelty in excess of that required for reasonable disciplinary purposes,
inflicted by a parent or other person in whom legal custody is vested. Sec. 16-2002.[Ci.]
ILLINOIS
An "abused child" includes any child whose parent/immediate family member/person responsible
for the child's welfare/individual residing in the same house/paramour of child's parent inflicts excessive corporal
punishment.
Secs. 325 5/3/ [Ci.]
INDIANA
Law does not limit right of parent/guardian/custodian to use reasonable corporal punishment when
disciplining a child. Sec. 31-34-1-15.[Ci.]
IOWA
Child endangerment includes using unreasonable force, torture, or cruelty which results in physical
injury, is intended to cause serious injury, or causes substantial mental or emotional harm. Sec. 726.6.[Cr.]
KANSAS
Abuse includes cruel and inhuman corporal punishment. Sec. 21-3609.[Cr.]
KENTUCKY
Parent/guardian/person/teacher with care and supervision of minor can use force if person believes
force necessary for welfare of child and force is not designed to cause or known to cause a substantial risk of causing death,
serious physical injury, disfigurement, extreme pain, or extreme mental distress. Sec. 503.110.[Cr.]
LOUISIANA In determining abuse the agency should take into account that an injury
may have resulted from what might be considered reasonable discipline for a child's misbehavior. Children's Code Art.
615(A).[Ci.] Parent/tutor/teacher reasonably disciplining a minor has a defense to a criminal prosecution based on that conduct.
Sec. 14:18. [Cr.]
MAINE
It is a crime for parent/guardian/other with care and custody of child to cruelly treat a child
by extreme punishment. 17A Sec. 554(1)(B-1). [Cr.]
MARYLAND
Law does not prohibit reasonable punishment by parent or stepparent, including reasonable corporal
punishment, evaluated in light of the age and condition of child. Sec. 4-501.[Ci.]
MICHIGAN
Parent/guardian/other person permitted by law, parent, or guardian can reasonably discipline
a child, including the use of reasonable force. Sec. 750.136b.[Cr.]
MINNESOTA
Parent/legal guardian/caretaker who intentionally uses unreasonable force or cruel discipline
that is excessive under the circumstances is guilty of malicious punishment. Sec. 609.377.[Cr.] Parent/legal guardian/teacher/caretaker
of child or pupil can use reasonable force to restrain or correct a child or pupil. Sec. 609.379.[Cr.]
MISSISSIPPI
Physical discipline (not to include any form of sexual abuse) performed on a child by a parent,
guardian or custodian shall only be deemed to be abuse under this paragraph when a licensed physician has determined that
physical injury has occurred. Sec. 97-5-39(2(m)). [Cr.]
MISSOURI
Discipline including spanking, administered in a reasonable manner, is not abuse. Sec. 210.110.
[Ci.] Force justified if by parent/guardian/other person with care and supervision of minor if- -- Person believes force necessary
to promote welfare of minor, and -- Force used is not designed to cause or believed to create a substantial risk of causing
death, serious physical injury, disfigurement, extreme pain, or extreme emotional distress. Sec. 563.061.[Cr.]
MONTANA
"Physical abuse" is defined as "substantial skin bruising, internal bleeding, substantial
injury to skin, subdural hematoma, intentional burns, bone fractures, extreme pain, permanent or temporary disfigurement,
impairment of
any bodily organ or function, or death if the injury or death is not accidental." Sec. 41-3-102.[Ci.]
Parent or authorized agent of parent/guardian/master/teacher is justified to use force if reasonable and necessary to restrain
or correct child. Sec. 45-3-107.[Cr.]
NEBRASKA
It is abuse to knowingly, intentionally, or negligently cause or permit a child to be cruelly
punished. Sec. 28-710.[Cr.] Parent/guardian/person responsible for care and supervision/person acting at one of the above's
request is justified to use force on a minor if for the purpose of safeguarding or promoting the welfare of minor, including
prevention or punishment of misconduct, but not designed to cause or known to create a substantial risk of causing death,
serious bodily harm, disfigurement, extreme pain, mental distress, or gross degradation. Sec. 28-1413.[Cr.] If the belief
that the force is necessary is a reckless or negligent belief, than the above offers no defense to a crime, if the culpability
of that crime is proven by showing recklessness or negligence. Justification is not available if person recklessly or negligently
injured or created a substantial risk of injury to a person. Sec. 28-1414.[Cr.]
NEVADA
Excessive corporal punishment may cause physical or mental injuries which constitute abuse. Sec.
432B.150.[Ci.] "Injury" to a child occurs when a parent/guardian/custodian inflicts or allows to be inflicted upon
a child physical, mental, or emotional injuries sustained as a result of excessive corporal punishment. Sec. 128.013.[Ci.]
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Parent/guardian/person/teacher responsible for general care and welfare of minor may use
force against minor when and to the extent that he reasonably believes it necessary to prevent or punish minor's misconduct.
No defense available for malicious or reckless use of force that creates risk of death, serious bodily injury, or substantial
pain. Sec. 627:6.[Cr.]
NEW JERSEY
Cruelty to a child includes inflicting unnecessarily severe corporal punishment upon a child.
Sec. 9:6-1.[Ci.] "Abuse" includes a parent, guardian, or other person with control or custody inflicting excessive
corporal punishment (which must be excessive to the point that the child's physical, mental, or emotional condition has
been impaired or is in imminent danger of becoming impaired as a result). Sec. 9:6-8.9.[Ci.] Person with responsibility for
care, supervision, discipline, or safety of another may use force against them if for the purpose of and to the extent necessary
to further the responsibility. Sec. 2C:3-8.[Cr.] Justification is not available if the person recklessly or negligently injures
or creates a risk of injury. Sec. 2C: 3-9.[Cr.]
NEW MEXICO
An abused child includes one who has been cruelly punished by a parent/ guardian/ custodian.
Sec.32A-1-4(B).[Ci.] Abuse includes knowingly, intentionally, or negligently permitting or causing a child to be cruelly punished.
Sec. 30-6-1.[Cr.]
NEW YORK
Neglecting a child includes unreasonably inflicting or allowing the infliction of harm or substantial
risk thereof, including excessive corporal punishment. Fam. Ct. Sec. 1012.[Ci.] Parent/guardian/other person with care and
supervision of person under 21, can use non-deadly physical force when and to the extent he reasonably believes necessary
to maintain discipline or promote welfare of person force performed upon. Penal Sec. 35:10.[Cr.]
NORTH CAROLINA
Abuse includes infliction of a serious physical injury by other than accidental means;
creating a substantial risk of such injury by other than accidental means; and using cruel or grossly inappropriate procedures
or devices to modify behavior. Juvenile Sec. 7B-101(1). [Ci.]
NORTH DAKOTA
"Harm" includes injuries sustained from excessive corporal punishment. Sec. 50-25.1-02.[Ci.]
Parent/guardian/other person responsible for care and supervision of minor/person acting at direction of the above can use
reasonable force on a minor for safeguarding or promoting his welfare, including prevention or punishment of his misconduct
and maintenance of proper discipline. Force does not have to be "necessary," but cannot create substantial risk
of death,
serious bodily injury or disfigurement, or gross degradation. Sec. 12.1-05-05.[Cr.]
OHIO
Not abuse if not prohibited under law prohibiting endangering children. "Endangering children"
is administering corporal punishment or other physical discipline, or physically restraining the child in a cruel manner or
for a prolonged period if the punishment or discipline is excessive under the circumstances and creates a substantial risk
of serious physical harm to the child. Sec. 2151.031.[Ci.] It is a criminal act to administer corporal punishment or other
physical discipline, or to physically restrain the child in a cruel manner or for a prolonged period if it is excessive under
the circumstances and creates a substantial risk of serious physical harm to the child. It is a criminal act to administer
unwarranted disciplinary measures to child if there is a substantial risk that if conduct is continued it will seriously impair
the child's health or development. Sec. 2919.22.[Cr.]
OKLAHOMA
Parents/teachers/other persons can use ordinary force as a means of discipline, including but
not limited to spanking, switching, or paddling. 21 Sec. 844.[Cr.] Criminal penalty for using unreasonable force upon a child
under 18. 10
Sec. 7115.[Cr.]
OREGON
Physical force is justified if parent/guardian/other person with the care and supervision of a
minor uses reasonable force when and to the extent the person reasonably believes necessary to maintain discipline or promote
welfare of minor. Sec. 161.205. [Cr.]
PENNSYLVANIA
Parents can use reasonable supervision and control when raising their children.23 Sec. 6302.[Ci.]
Parent/guardian/person responsible for general care and supervision/ person acting at request of the above may use force for
the purpose of safeguarding or promoting welfare of minor including the prevention or punishment of his misconduct, if the
force is not designed to cause or known to create a substantial risk of causing death, serious bodily injury, disfigurement,
extreme pain, mental distress, or gross degradation. 18 Sec. 509.[Cr.]
RHODE ISLAND
Abuse occurs when a child's physical or mental welfare is harmed or threatened by a parent
or person responsible for child's welfare, by means including excessive corporal punishment which causes physical or mental
injury or creates or allows to be created a substantial risk of physical or mental injury. Sec.40-11-2.[Ci.] Serious physical
injury is any injury, other than a serious bodily injury, arising from other than non-excessive corporal punishment. Sec.11-9-5.3.
[Cr.]
SOUTH CAROLINA
"Harm" includes excessive corporal punishment. "Harm" does not include
corporal punishment or physical discipline if- Administered by a parent or person acting in place of a parent, Perpetrated
for the sole purpose of restraining or correcting, Force is reasonable in manner and moderate in degree, There is no permanent
damage, and Behavior is not reckless or grossly negligent. Sec. 20-7-490.[Ci.]
SOUTH DAKOTA
It is abuse to cruelly punish. Sec. 26-10-1.[Cr.] Parent/guardian/teacher/school official
can use, attempt, or offer to use force if reasonable in manner and moderate in degree, and used to restrain or correct as
necessitated by misconduct or refusal to obey a lawful command. Sec.22-18-5 [Cr.]
TENNESSEE
Permits criminal charges against a parent/guardian/custodian who administers "unreasonable"
corporal punishment which causes "injury" to the child. Sec. 39-15-401 [Cr.]
TEXAS
Abuse does not include reasonable discipline by a parent/guardian/managing or possessory conservator
if child not exposed to substantial risk of harm. Family Code Sec. 261.001.[Ci.] Parent/stepparent/person standing in loco
parentis to child is justified to use non-deadly force against a child under 18 when and to degree the actor reasonably believes
necessary to discipline, or safeguard or promote child's welfare. Penal Sec. 9.61.[Cr.]
UTAH
Force is justified if used for reasonable discipline of a minor by parent/guardian/teacher /person
standing in loco parentis. Sec. 76-2-401.[Cr.]
WASHINGTON
Physical discipline is not unlawful if reasonable and moderate and inflicted by parent /teacher/guardian
for restraint or correction. Presumed unreasonable if the following are used to correct/ restrain: -- Throwing, kicking, burning,
cutting, striking with a closed fist, shaking a child under 3, interfering with breathing, threatening with a deadly weapon,
any other act likely to cause and which does cause bodily harm greater than transient pain or minor temporary marks. [Statute
says this list is illustrative and not exclusive]. Age, size,condition of child, and location of injury are all factors in
determining "reasonable" and "moderate." Sec. 9A.16.100.[Cr.]
WEST VIRGINIA
Physical injury can include that which is the result of excessive corporal punishment. Sec.
49-1-3 [Ci.]
WISCONSIN
Use of force is justified when actor's conduct is reasonable discipline of a child by a
person responsible for child's welfare. Reasonable discipline may involve only such force as a reasonable person believes
is necessary. Never reasonable to use force intended to cause great bodily harm or death, or which creates an unreasonable
risk of great bodily harm or death. Sec. 939.45.[Cr.]
WYOMING
Abuse include excessive or unreasonable corporal punishment. Sec. 14-3-202.[Ci.] A "neglected
child" includes one abused by the infliction of physical or mental injury including excessive or unreasonable corporal
punishment. Sec. 14-6-201.[Ci.] Same definition as civil abuse definition. Sec. 6-2-503.[Cr.]
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