Legal Question in Family Law in Mississippi
Corporal punishment
What are the laws concerning corporal punishment when you can no longer give your child a ''time out''?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Corporal punishment
No abuse or neglect. That certainly includes no punishment that would probably result in grevious injury (i.e. broken bones, injured or damaged organs or brain). It can also include what would probably be considered outragious conduct based on community norms. Practically, child protection workers are expanding the definition of abuse by becoming involved in non-grevious injury cases and applying their own subjective standards to probationary agreements. So maybe it would be useful to learn what they consider to be acceptable corporal punishment. However, if you want to avoid the possibility of having to explain your actions to them, consider limiting actions to rare, minimal corporal punishment and continue to rely chiefly on noncorporal punishment. Possibly consider other valid behavior modification techniques suggested in parenting books written by experts.