Adrian Peterson case reignites debate over spanking kids (w/video)

Felony child abuse allegations against one of the NFL’s biggest stars have reignited the age-old debate over how best to discipline unruly kids and at what point it crosses the line into counter-productive or even criminal behavior.

There are many, beyond the Texas authorities who arrested Adrian Peterson, who believe the Minnesota Vikings running back clearly crossed that line when he whipped his 4-year-old son with a small tree branch, causing visible welts on the boy’s body.

“That’s abuse,” said a woman who watched her grandchildren playing at Santa Rosa’s Howarth Park this week.

However, the woman, who declined to give her name, made a distinction between what Peterson is accused of doing and the “swats” she said she administered to her own son’s backside when he was a boy.

“It was very rare and it wasn’t impulsive. And he knew it was coming,” she said.

But Bob Deluca, who played with his sons at the park’s swing set, said corporal punishment, including spanking, is never warranted.

“I find there’s this magical thing I use that seems effective. It’s called love, respect. I have it for them, and they have it for me,” he said.

Drawing distinctions between what’s considered legal corporal punishment and illegal child abuse can be a challenge, according to parenting and child welfare experts in Sonoma County.

“It can be very difficult. It’s a gray area,” said Nick Honey, director of Sonoma County’s Family, Youth and Children’s Division.

He drew a distinction between a parent using their hands to spank their child and one who “flails out at a kid, or whacks them on the head with their fist in an out-of-control situation.”

California law defines physical abuse of a child to be when he or she has suffered, or is likely to suffer, serious physical harm “non-accidentally” at the hands of a parent or guardian.

In 2013, Sonoma County received 5,338 reports of child abuse or neglect through its dedicated hotline. Of those, 1,880 cases were deemed serious enough to warrant further investigation. The cases involved a range of suspected physical, sexual and emotional abuse, as well as neglect.

Nearly 200 children were removed from their homes last year and placed in protective care as a result of abuse.

Sonoma County Sheriff’s Sgt. Cecile Focha, who oversaw the office’s domestic violence and sexual assault cases for three years, said the injuries described on Adrian Peterson’s son constitute clear examples of abuse.

Graphic photos and a police report quoting text messages reportedly between Peterson and the boy’s mother have stirred debate online. The report includes photos of cuts on the boy’s legs and hands, and includes a text message allegedly sent to the boy’s mother in which Peterson said he felt bad for striking the boy’s genitals. Another photo from the police report shows Peterson demonstrating for officers the type of switch he is suspected of using to strike the boy.

“It’s fairly cut and dry, in my mind, when you have armed yourself with a weapon to discipline a child, especially when we’re talking about a 4-year-old versus a football player,” Focha said.

But in a statement released last week, Peterson, who has been charged with felony child abuse, said he caused an injury to his son that he never “intended or thought would happen.” He said he disciplined his son the way he was disciplined by his own parents.

“I have always believed that the way my parents disciplined me has a great deal to do with the success I have enjoyed as a man,” Peterson was quoted as saying.

Focha said some Sonoma County parents that she and her detectives dealt with made similar arguments, saying that they were simply doing what was done to them growing up.

“That doesn’t make it right,” she said. “It just makes it your history.”

She also credited laws that require doctors, teachers and others in positions of authority to report cases of suspected child abuse for instituting an objective, third-party, approach to the problem and for linking law enforcement with child protective services.

Still, it’s not always clear what constitutes abuse. Spanking a child on the buttocks, for instance, does not legally constitute physical harm to a child in California, so long as it’s “reasonable and age-appropriate” and does not result in serious injuries.

No state legislates against spanking, which 8 in 10 Americans said is sometimes appropriate as a form of punishment for kids, according to a 2013 Harris poll.

Some religions specifically endorse corporal punishment. Focus on the Family, a prominent Christian organization, offers tips on its website for how parents should administer spankings.

“When you spank, use a wooden spoon or some other appropri­ately sized paddle and flick your wrist,” the site states. “That’s all the force you need. It ought to hurt - an especially difficult goal for mothers to accept - and it’s OK if it produces a few tears and sniffles. If it doesn’t hurt, it isn’t really discipline, and ultimately it isn’t very loving because it will not be effective in modifying the child’s behavior.”

Michelle Klimek of Santa Rosa, however, is not among spanking proponents.

“It is abuse, but I feel it’s accepted in a lot of households and cultures,” said Klimek, who has a 4-year-old daughter.

Klimek said her mother used to yell a lot at her two older brothers, and so after having her own child, she took parenting classes to learn different strategies for disciplining her own daughter.

“I thought, ‘I didn’t want to be that parent who yells at their kid,’?” she said.

Some parenting experts say corporal punishment, including spanking, is a self-defeating exercise that imparts fear in children and can cause lasting physical or emotional damage.

“When you use corporal punishment, what you are creating is children who are afraid of you,” said Grace Harris, parent resources director for the California Parenting Institute in Santa Rosa, a referral agency for the county. “You have to ask yourself if you want fear from your child, or respect from your child.”

Harris recommended parents show affection to their children and praise them when they do things the desired way. She also outlined an advance warning strategy whereby parents inform their children before heading out to a park or other location that they’ll simply turn around and go home if the child acts out inappropriately.

Harris also encouraged parents to be forgiving of themselves for not always getting it right.

“Nobody is ever going to be perfect at it,” she said. “We have our own temperaments, and just like kids, we get tired and cranky. Parents have to leave themselves some latitude.”

More information about the institutes’s parenting classes is available at 585-6108. The county’s child abuse hotline can be reached at 565-4304 or (800) 870-7064.

You can reach Staff Writer Derek Moore at 521-5336 or derek.moore@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @deadlinederek.