“Tired Mothers Find That Spanking Takes Less Time Than Reasoning And Penetrates Sooner To The Seat Of Memory.” — Will Durant.

A mother of two children, one born in 2007 and the other in 2010, disciplined the children “by making them do chores, by scolding them verbally, by denying them privileges. . . and by threatening to spank them. On rare occasions when these techniques did not work, she would spank the children on the buttocks with her bare hand or with a sandal. . . The spankings were not hard enough to leave marks or bruises.” Social services representatives filed a petition in juvenile court alleging the mother inflicted serious physical harm. The juvenile court sustained the allegation, reasoning that hitting children with shoes is physical abuse and not a proper form of discipline. In reversing the court’s jurisdictional finding based upon physical abuse, the Court of Appeal majority stated: “Because the court did not consider the genuineness, necessity or reasonableness of mother’s use of spanking as a disciplinary measure, the juvenile court’s seemingly blanket rule is inconsistent with the law.” The matter was remanded for further proceedings for the court to examine whether the mother’s conduct falls within her right to reasonably discipline her children. The dissenting Justice stated the juvenile court was in the best position to decide whether “these young children were at risk of serious physical harm at the hands of their overworked, single mother,” and that substantial evidence supports the juvenile court’s decision.  (In re D.M. (Cal. App. Second Dist., Div. 2; November 24, 2015) 242 Cal.App.4th 634.)