Somewhat surprised

susiestar

Roll With It
Once in awhile I get bored and watch Cops on www.hulu.com. Today is one of those days.

One of the incidents is a call about a mother and son fighting. They are in Lee County Florida.

The teenage son is put in cuffs and the squad car as they try to figure out what went on. By his own admission he had a camera, didn't know if it was his, he was gone for 2 days, came home with the camera in his pocket. Mom asked for it, found it in his pocket, etc...

You all know THAT drill.

The officer SHOCKED me. According to this officer the fight falls under the domestic abuse statute for FL. A parent has the right to discipline a child in whatever way. The child cannot hit, push, shove, etc... the parent. PERIOD.

In MY state I have the legal RESPONSIBILITY to use corporal punishment with my kids. It is actually stated that way and has been enforced in my county (usually with parents who let their kids run wild with-o making any attempt to change their behaviors - corporal punishment or otherwise).

However, my state does not even RECOGNIZE that a child can abuse a parent. I have been told this by officers at just about every level and by two judges. It is NOT considered domestic violence/abuse for my son to hurt me. It is for him to hurt a sibling, but not a parent.

I was kind of surprised to hear this officer tell the mom not to get too upset, that her son made a CHOICE to put hands on her, that he sure didn't have to push her, or get her on the ground and put his hand on her throat.

It was nice to hear that SOMEWHERE the law is recognizing that some kids abuse parents. It is also nice to hear that they understand that as a parent you have to discipline a child, even though often it doesn't have to be physical. (All this mom did was try to get her camera out of his pocket when he refused to admit he had it and she could SEE it. Shades of about a million fights we have all had with our difficult children, isn't it?)

Coming from a state where the judge and officer refused to write any sort of incident report up when I was attacked by Wiz, it is nice to hear that parents SOMEWHERE have more resources under the law.

Does it surprise any of you to find the situation I described in the show falls under domestic abuse?
 

susiestar

Roll With It
As long as it is parent-child it is ONLY domestic abuse if the parent is hitting the child. It might be written up as domestic violence if a child hits a parent, but it will not be prosecuted unless the situation involved severe injury or death. I don't know why. We went through it with Wiz at several ages, the last being when I refused to let him live here. Even then, with clear marks on me (giant bruise in my chest/upper abdomen area from a head-butt, plus bruises on my back that all showed up about a week after the "incident" ) I ran a very HIGH risk of facing abandonment charges, child endangerment charges (because he would have no where to go if I hadn't called the cops - even though I DID call them), AND losing custody of both thank you and Jess. The judge even wondered, out loud, if maybe I should leave the home and husband could live there with all 3 kids. It was so outrageous that even my mother objected to that because it simply was making a bad situation worse.

It is reassuring to me to hear that in places where the rest of you live it is considered domestic violence for a child to hit a parent. My state really IS backward in some ways. (Like having a law that says parents are supposed to use corporal punishment - the wording of the statute says that a belt of a certain size can be used as long as the marks don't last more than a specified amt of time!!!!!)

Heck, here a battered spouse can refuse to press charges and nothing is done. It seems to have changed in other areas so that if an officer sees injuries or marks that are from domestic violence the state/city/county presses charges whether the victim wants it or not.

As of 2 years ago I was still the ONLY person in our area that the dv center had as a client who was there because their child abused them.
 

klmno

Active Member
When difficult child pulled the knife on me it was first written as attempted malicious wounding ( a felony) but after I assured the prosecuting attny that difficult child did not actually try to hurt me although he had me in a position where he surely could have killed me or hurt me, they lowered it to assault (a misdemeanor). I thought it should have been written as domestic assault, hoping that would lead to help for him in this area but since that term never came up at all in his case, I assume they don't recognize a juvenile as being able to have problems in this area here.
 

Mattsmom277

Active Member
Here in Canada, if a child of legal age to be criminally charged (12 and up), if a parent calls police after being physically assaulted by their child, that child is arrested for assault.
I remember during my foster care off/on years, I was briefly home with my bipolar (unmedicated and out of control) mother. My brother had started a fight with me. It got ugly. My brother hurt me pretty badly. My mother entered the room and came up and shook me (I was crying and screaming for her to help me) and told me to "get a grip, it didn't hurt". I had in fact, before her eyes, been bodily flung across the room into a large cabinet, hit the corner mid back and crumpled to the floor. No clue I had violence in me, I reached up and slapped my mothers face (open handed slap across her cheek) and screamed at her "Get a grip, it didn't hurt". And ran upstairs, grabbed a get away bag I always had stashed in my closet and took off out of the house. I was found by police 3 days later hiding in my friends basement and arrested for assaulting my mother. Quite frankly, regardless of how or why it all happened, I deserved it. I had assaulted her. I was 13, so of arrestable age. Ironically, my brother who was 15 at the time, was not charged for assaulting me. It was considered a normal sibling problem.

The world is a strange place. I believe that once a person is old enough to charged with a offense, any physical attack on anybody at all should be illegal and should be prosecuted. I find it sad that so many parents out there cower in silence. I guess its right up there with all the kids out there who cower in silence. :(

(PS. I swear I've never slapped a person again!!!)
 
Top