Posted on 09/12/2014 7:42:44 PM PDT by xzins
An arrest warrant was issued Friday in Texas for Minnesota Vikings star running back Adrian Peterson after he was indicted on a child abuse charge for using a branch to spank his son. He won't play in Sunday's game against the New England Patriots.
The Vikings said they had deactivated Peterson for Sunday's game Friday evening, just after his lawyer and the Montgomery County sheriff's office confirmed he was
Read Adrian Peterson's lawyer Rusty Hardin's statement in full below:
Adrian Peterson has been informed that he was indicted by a grand jury in Montgomery County, Texas for Injury to a Child. The charged conduct involves using a switch to spank his son. This indictment follows Adrian’s full cooperation with authorities who have been looking into this matter. Adrian is a loving father who used his judgment as a parent to discipline his son. He used the same kind of discipline with his child that he experienced as a child growing up in east Texas. Adrian has never hidden from what happened. He has cooperated fully with authorities and voluntarily testified before the grand jury for several hours. Adrian will address the charges with the same respect and responsiveness he has brought to this inquiry from its beginning. It is important to remember that Adrian never intended to harm his son and deeply regrets the unintentional injury.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcwashington.com ...
Discipline is not punishment.
Define those terms, since they seem important to you.
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Johnny, I think what 1010RD said there is the ONLY thing he/she has posted on this thread that I can agree to, as everything else has been red herrings and delusional.
Discipline is what has been taught to millions of military personnel as well as children. It teaches a person to follow the rules.
Punishment is what a person must undergo for violating the rules.
As a boy, I used to get severe beatings from my mother with a switch. She would beat me until she was physically unable to go further. Those pictures are NOT from a controlled switching, they are from an out of control person.
The punishment administered to my son (due to my experiences) was a measured paddling with no more than 3 licks. As a child he only received on paddling consisting of 3 whacks. Most were a single whack and very few, 2.
I made it a point NEVER to punish him when I was extremely mad and before each punishment he was made to understand exactly why the punishment was applied.
He was generally a very behaved son and few punishments were administered. He also learned that bad behavior met with physical pain. In essence he learned if you break the law you get an unpleasant experience.
Later in life the same thing applies (unless you are a minority) that punishment will surely follow a violation of the law.
A spanking is one thing, a beating with a switch is a vicious act that is meant to harm and in many cases bring blood and leave scars. It is flat out wrong.
I spanked my kids and they knew why they were getting a licking too. Had nothing to do with parental failure, but it sure did on self-control I controlled the paddle...
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Just reminded me.... The Vice Principal at my high school had a paddle about 3 feet long. It was a 1x4 made from hardwood and had numerous holes in the blade.
I experienced that paddle several times during my 3 years there. He would just make you remove your wallet, lean over a couple of feet from a filing cabinet and place your hands on the cabinet. The swats on the butt would raise welts where the holes were. He would then sit and talk about responsibility, discipline, the future, etc., for a few minutes and provide encouragement for improvement.
He had been a Navy Commander on a destroyer during WWII, and that man did a lot to teach me to respect him and rules. He later was moved to Principal at a new high school.
In today’s nanny state, with all their PC rules, that fine man would probably be fired and jailed for actually helping many of us rowdy teens to become successful citizens.
They described cuts and bruises on the child's back and the back of his legs along with defensive wounds to his hands and arms - sound like he got a bit more "zealous" than appropriate with a 4-year old.
The Bible tells us that "He who spares the rod, hates his son", but there's a difference between discipline and an overcooked beating.
if the child was damaged to that extent it wasn’t a switch as I would define a switch.
:) ((((Hugs))))
The evidence is not unequivocal. What is unequivocal is that research shows that both rewards and punishments are effective.
That’s some weird stuff.
The ‘whoopin room’ is probably a distorted view of the instruction that punishment be between the parent(s) and the child...after reflection and after discussion with the child about the reasons for the punishment.
“A sheep dog who bites or grips is a bad sheep dog. I doubt a normal sheepherder ever “set the dogs” on the sheep. They simply let their dogs herd the sheep. That’s normal and requires no physical contact from the dog. The rubber hose is indicative of a impatient rancher.”
You assume the sheep will obey the dog. If so, fine. And if a child obeys the parent, fine.
But range sheep WILL refuse to obey a dog, then then the dog must enforce its will with its teeth. Not all sheep live in pastures and are worked with daily. Range sheep may need a dog to be aggressive.
It is even more true of cattle. The idea that herd dogs never ever need to bite is a myth. A dog who will not use its teeth to enforce its will has no control over the rougher animals.
So it is with kids. Some kids are born pretty willing. Some are not.
And yes, a rancher can be impatient when he has a lot of sheep to load to meet a deadline...just as a parent can need to meet deadlines that a child cannot understand.
“Sitting down and reading the Bible won’t do it, but living the Bible will.”
Part of living the Bible s following its advice.
“Do not hold back discipline from the child,
Although you strike him with the rod, he will not die.
You shall strike him with the rod
And rescue his soul from Sheol.”
I don’t think “strike him with the rod” means anything other than what it says. You are ignoring the plain text to create an interpretation no one else holds.
Further, when a kid will not stay out of a road or stop when told to stop, there is no time to teach & live and feel fuzzy about him. You must enforce your will, or lose. If you lose, you greatly increase the chance that ultimately the kid will lose.
“Why the Sheol reference? Matthew Henry gets it right again. This is a spiritual issue.”
Indeed. A kid who knows no discipline, who refuses to obey his parents, is heading to hell. It is the parent’s job to save him from a life of destruction. That includes enforcing the rules.
It twists the plain meaning of scripture beyond recognition to pretend that the Bible does not teach corporal punishment. You can reject it if you wish, but the Bible clearly endorses it.
“Utterly different context at 26. The entire chapter isn’t about children, but fools.”
So “rod” means “rod” when it is talking about fools, but means the Bible when talking about kids? Sorry. I’m not buying what you are selling.
We’re not talking about a non-parewnt punishing your child. We’re talking about a parent punishing his own child. So, of course, if my child came home from someplace with relatives and had received a serious punishment, I’d be all over it.
However, in Peterson’s case we’re talking about a parent, a switching, and the leaving of welts.
I would again say that those welts would not rise and break immediately, and I’d repeat that a switchin’ happens so fast that you’ve got 10 swings with that small limber switch in a matter of seconds.
So, should it be criminal? Nope. Does it require counseling and re-education? Yep. Should the re-education be required by law? Yes. .
But it’s not a felony. A felony is a crime punishable by imprisonment. I believe that’s way out of line. I’m sure there’s a misdeameanor in there someplace in the legal code that actually fits and is appropriate for requiring parenting re-education.
There were four of us. The oldest and the youngest got beat pretty regularly. I once needed to take a baseball bat away from my mother before she started beating my younger sister.
The middle two, my brother and myself, got hit, but not as frequently.
The oldest and youngest struggled greatly in life: failed marriages (the oldest was divorced three times); failed out of college; failure to establish long-term career or job stability; bankruptcies; loss of religious faith; homelessness; mental illness; and, in the case of my older brother, early death. Their children range from not-quite-successful to parasitic.
Conversely, my brother and I, the lightly-beaten ones, both finished college, are married to our first brides, moderately successful careers, home ownership, successful children, with the usual bumps, bruises, setbacks, and speed bumps of life along the way.
My wife and I never hit our children at all. Just didn’t find the need. They were strictly disciplined. Our friends would always say how mean a dad I was. We had no cable, no video games, no XBox, no Nintendo, no Gameboy. They got to watch 30 minutes of TV per day when they were young. We homeschooled, and pretty vigorously. Neighbors questioned whether we were child abusers.
But all the friends and neighbors would also comment about how well-behaved my sons were, how smart, how respectful, how charming.
Now, they’re both at college and prospering. I can’t say they’d have turned out better if I’d hit them when they were young.
see #250
“I have had success with hundreds of children whose parents said they were out of control or wouldn’t listen.”
Unless you’ve been very busy in the bedroom, you have not raised hundreds of kids as a parent. The role of a parent is very different from a teacher. The same rules do not apply.
“I’ve never needed to punish a child with hitting of any kind.”
I have. Kids like and need clear rules, and to know they are not in control. Like a horse, they thrive when the know someone tougher than them is taking care of life and protecting them. That is when they are safe to enjoy life.
You can try talking to two year olds if you wish. I’ve met some who would respond to talk. Many more do not. Horses for courses, and choose the discipline that works with your individual child.
We never found the need to hit our kids, either.
Your post cracked me up. Brought back similar memories.
Even though I think more kids should get ‘switched’ these days, I think he went a little over the top. My parents used a plastic spatula with holes in it and boy did it sting. All Mom had to do to settle us down was look at it. When she grabbed it we ALL settled down because we didn’t know if she was getting ready to flip breakfast or us. LOL There were five of us and we were pretty well behaved, not like most kids now.
This was also back in the day when you got paddled in school if you needed it. The way that worked at our house was that if we got paddled at school, we got paddled when we got home. It was safer to be good and be respectful. It eventually becomes a habit.
We had four kids, raised them with strong discipline and believe in doing so to this day; none of our kids was spanked more than a half a dozen times in their lives, and none was ever spanked after age ten. They didn't need to be spanked any more (never used a switch, didn't have to), because they knew their boundaries, and knew their parents were serious about our love for them.
All of them are strong, independent adults, living productive lives.
A few years ago, my wife (nearing retirement) was at her mom’s. Her mom is 80 or so, and was playing around with a willow branch that had come off their tree, just swishing it around. She was playing and said my wife had missed a few swats she should have had and swung it at her and just happened to hit her with it. We’re talking an 80 year old woman with bad eyes. My wife says it wasn’t a hard swing and wasn’t intentional. It raised a welt and that welt broke open and showed red.
Now, is that a felony? Of course not, you’d say. And you’d be right.
But the ability of a switch to raise a welt is what makes me think Peterson didn’t have any abusive intent in mind. He was mirroring what he had learned as a child. You punish with a switch.
These guys are freakish strong and don’t know how different they are.
Is it a felony? Prison??? Nope, it’s some kind of intervention level offense (a misdemeanor?) that should get child services involved and should get Peterson into required parenting and/or anger classes.
See #258
According to what I read yesterday, this kid was not merely swatted with a stick, he was beaten to a pulp. He had bloody welts all over his body and face.
If that is accurate, then it IS a felony. And he should do hard time for it.
Apparently this was done in anger by a guy who could kill you with one punch.
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