When a child does something wrong, many parents believe in disciplining the child through spanking or some other form of corporal punishment. But some parents hesitate to spank their child because they are unsure if it is legal. However, there are still many parents who strongly believe that when a child does something wrong, the best form of punishment to impose is a spanking. Is this illegal? What type of physical discipline is lawful? Can social workers take away your child if you use a wooden spoon to spank him or her after they disobeyed family rules?
Thousands of children have been taken from their parents because the parents decided to use an object such as a wooden spoon to impose punishment.
Some parents have even been arrested and criminally convicted for using similar punishment on their children. If you are being charged with child endangerment, an experienced attorney can argue a valid defense for you. The best defense against charges of child endangerment if you are using corporal punishment is that your conduct was not criminal, but instead was exercising reasonable discipline upon your child.
The court will review the surrounding circumstances to conclude whether the incident constitutes reasonable discipline. There is good news for parents who believe in reasonably disciplining their child. A recent Court of Appeals decision held that the parents who spanked their child on the buttocks with a wooden spoon as a form of discipline would not be charged with child abuse or child endangerment.
In this case Gonzalez v. Santa Clara Dept. H, Jan. Her parents punished her by grounding her several times but she continued to revert back to her old ways. The child told one of her classmates about the spankings. When the case went to trial, the Court of Appeals ruled that the parents have the legal right to use discipline on their child so long as the force was reasonable and the punishment was necessary. The court concluded that the use of a wooden spoon did not exceed the bounds of reasonable parental discipline.
