Important Parental Rights Ruling from VA Court of Appeals

Last week, the Virginia Court of Appeals rightly overturned a Circuit Court ruling on the critical issue of parents using corporal punishment to discipline their children. A three-judge panel said that the lower court was wrong to convict a mother for assault and battery for striking her 12-year-old twins with a belt to discipline them for disobeying her.   

“Virginia, like every other state, permits parents to discipline their children with corporal punishment,” the panel wrote in its ruling.

To fall within the “parental privilege” justification, “discipline must be reasonable and not excessive,” and “within the bounds of moderation and reason,” the ruling said.

The mother was convicted last year in Hanover County after using a belt to discipline her children for using a cellphone outside the hours established by their parents. Each child had a minor bruise or mark afterward, but neither was seriously injured. (Quotes and some commentary excerpted from an AP story, carried by Virginia Lawyers Weekly.)

This issue is critically important from a fundamental rights perspective. For starters, Va. Code § 1-240.1 recognizes that “A parent has a fundamental right to make decisions concerning the upbringing, education, and care of the parent's child.” That certainly includes the ability to discipline one’s child by appropriate means. Using corporal punishment for one’s minor children, and especially “spanking” them with an object such as a belt or paddle, is as old as time. Of course, a parent must be careful not to cross a line into real abuse, which the court noted.   

Moreover, for parents of religious faith, it may entail the fundamental right to religious exercise. Consider how strongly the Bible, for example, speaks about the importance of corporal punishment for children by their parents:

Proverbs 23:13-14 - Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.

Proverbs 13:24 - Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.

Proverbs 22:15 - Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.

Proverbs 29:15 - The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.

Hebrews 12:11 - For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

On the same day they had been disciplined with a belt by their mother, one of the 12-year-old twins had told a school resource officer that he didn’t feel safe going home. While it is important for children to be able to express to other adults when real physical abuse in occurring in the home, this case presents a clear example of an overreaction by officials to a claim, which clearly disfavored the fundamental rights of the parents.

Thankfully, the Virginia Court of Appeals recognized this and dismissed this mother’s criminal conviction for punishing her children in a common way that countless generations before her have done.