Reply #12: When I was a social worker ..

[Maat]

we used to counsel parents not to use an instrument to discipline. They tend to leave marks or bruises (injury), and a parent crosses the line, many times, into physical abuse when that parent injures the child. In other words, physical abuse can be substantiated, and the social worker who investigates will not only be called upon to substantiate the abuse, but authorities will have to weigh whether or not the child has to be taken into protective custody. If the child is taken into protective custody, then starts a miserable, horrifying court process.

We used to counsel, that if a parent felt compelled to use physical discipline, to spank over clothing (hopefully over a diaper), using an open palm.

I'm no lawyer, and no longer in mental health/social-services, but, to me, spanking is never worth it. It simply teaches the child that violence, although perhaps mild, is o.k., and it rarely stops the behavior in question.

Parents who use physical discipline should investigate the law before they do so.

Please, no flames. It is just my two cents' worth.

California is VERY strict when it comes to enforcing those laws; they are strictly enforced, I should say. This is not the place for them to be selling this device.

I wonder if the device is being discussed in certain hardright fundamentalist churches; I have a neighbor that allegedly spanked her child using a wooden spoon.