Again, barring additional information, I’m going with what I know of a switching.
A switch is limber and it bends, so as I try to imagine how an inner thigh can be struck, the only thing that makes sense is that a switch to the outer leg then had the end of the switch wrap around the leg. The very nature of a switch is that it is a slender, limber outer branch.
I really can’t think of any other way than a wrap around to hit an inner thigh.
I agree with your comments about the physical nature of using a tree branch to hit a child. However, that makes it all the more incumbent on the assailant to be extraordinarily careful to limit the scope of the assault. Else, it is merely wanton cruelty.
It is clear that boy was stripped or nearly so when the tree branch was applied to him. If one is familiar with the action of a tree branch when using it to commit assault, and one is NOT trying to commit child abuse, one might have the child uncover only his rear end, rather than the entirely of his legs, arms, etc.
To fail to take these protective actions suggests that the punishment was meted out as an act of unthinking rage rather than a carefully-considered punishment of limited duration and harm. If this is the case, then Mr. Peterson is guilty of a form of child abuse that ranges more toward child endangerment, failing to provide a safe environment during the punishment.
If he was fully aware of the potential effects, and was NOT acting out of rage, but rather was engaged in a premeditated beating of a nearly-naked four year-old, that he had constructive knowledge that he would injure the boy across his entire body, including his genitalia, this suggests that perhaps Mr. Peterson is a hardened sadist who might be best served by a sufficiently-long prison sentence that he will not be released until the boy is old enough and strong enough to fight back when his father next assaults him.
Beating a four year-old pretty much across his entire body is not appropriate discipline. Sorry, but this just falls into the category of, "Things a Two-Hundred Lb-Plus Man Doesn't Do to a Four Year-Old."
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