Texas Beating Video Turns Attention to Countries that Ban Spanking

Thursday, November 10th, 2011

In the wake of a 2004 video of a Texas judge beating his teenage daughter with a belt, which received huge YouTube circulation last week, the national conversation about parents using physical means of discipline on their children has risen to fever pitch.

Hillary Adams, now 23, learned last week that the statute of limitations had expired on charges of abuse or judicial misconduct against her father.  She had uploaded the video in hopes that her father would be remorseful for her behavior and reconcile their relationship.

CNN.com published a report today about Sweden, which in 1979 became the first country to outlaw corporal punishment by parents.  Today, 30 countries have similar laws.  From the article:

No countries in North America ban physical punishment by parents, but there’s a perennial debate about the line between discipline and abuse, and who’s allowed to administer it. It flared again last week after millions watched a seven-minute YouTube video from 2004 that showed a Texas judge cursing at his teen daughter and beating her with a belt.

While there are laws against child abuse, it’s legal in all 50 states for parents to hit their children, and for schools in 19 states to physically punish kids. About 80% of American parents said they’ve hit their young children, and about 100,000 kids are paddled in U.S. schools every year, researchers said.

Kids are still hit with hands, belts, switches and paddles, said Elizabeth Gershoff , an associate professor of human development and family sciences at University of Texas, despite research that shows it doesn’t model or teach behavior parents are looking for, that it damages trust between parent and children and that it can lead to increased aggression.

Although more parents are trying a variety of disciplinary measures, corporal punishment isn’t going away, and some researchers argue that it shouldn’t. It’s effective for gaining immediate compliance from young children, and is unlikely to have long-term negative effects, they said. More powerfully, it’s hard to stop a discipline technique that’s been passed down through generations.

(image via: http://www.principalspage.com/)

‘Hot Sauce Mom’ Alaska Woman Convicted of Child Abuse

Wednesday, August 24th, 2011

Jessica Beagley of Anchorage Alaska was convicted Tuesday of misdemeanor child abuse charges after she squirted hot sauce into the mouth of her 7-year-old adopted son as a punishment for misbehaving and lying in school.  According to The Huffington Post, prosecutors also charged that she made the boy stand in a cold shower as a punishment, and that both actions were taken as a ploy to get onto a segment of the “Dr. Phil” television show called “Mommy Confessions.”  The show aired in November 2010.  From The Huffington Post:

Beagley…submitted audition videos in which she yelled at the boy, but producers said they needed to see her actually punishing her son, the prosecutor said.

That’s when Beagley got the video camera ready, made sure there was enough hot sauce on the shelf in the bathroom and recruited her 10-year-old daughter to shoot the video, Franklin said. Days later, she was headed to Los Angeles to tape the show that first aired on Nov. 17, 2010.

The boy and his twin brother were both adopted from Russia by Beagley and her husband in 2008.  Defense attorneys argued that she had reached out to the “Dr. Phil” show for help, and that she is not a child abuser.

The maximum sentence will be one year in jail, a $10,000 fine and up to 10 years of probation.  Beagley will be sentenced Monday, August 29.