Discipline becomes abuse when child sustains injuries, including cane marks: MSF

Singapore – Struggling to deal with multiple problems, such as a wife grappling with suicidal thoughts and financial woes, a man ended up abusing his children when disciplining them.

The sole breadwinner used his belt to hit his children, threatened them with a knife and pushed one child’s head against the wall when they did not do household chores to his expectations.

He has more than five children, whose ages range from toddlers to teenagers.

Ms Lee Jia Ai, deputy head of Allkin Family Service Centre@Cheng San 445, said: “When his children could not meet those expectations and communication repeatedly broke down between them, his disciplinary methods escalated and crossed the line into abuse.

“(The situation shifted) from a father trying to discipline his children to help them learn from a mistake, to a father losing control of his emotions.”

Ms Lee said that the Ministry of Social and Family Development’s (MSF) Child Protective Service (CPS) was alerted, and the children were placed in alternative care, such as with foster parents or other family members, to ensure their safety and stability.

Allkin, a social service agency, and other community groups also supported the family in various ways to address the underlying stressors the family faced.

The parents were taught appropriate parenting practices, given financial assistance and the wife was referred for mental health services to treat her mood disorder.

On Nov 5,

Minister-in-charge of Social Services Integration Desmond Lee said that excessive physical discipline of one’s children will be considered as abuse

, in announcing measures to improve safeguards in the child protection system in the wake of Megan Khung’s death.

Megan died at the age of four in February 2020

after suffering over a year of horrific abuse by her mother Foo Li Ping and the then boyfriend Wong Shi Xiang.

In responding to questions from MPs about the threshold needed for CPS to remove a child from his or her abusive family, Mr Lee had said the approach to child protection exists on a continuum.

He said that as concerns about child abuse escalate, the child protection system progressively steps in, from social workers educating parents about strategies to manage their children to state intervention in serious cases of abuse.

Mr Lee, who is also Education Minister, said: “Generally, the existing thresholds are appropriate.

“However, we will make clear that while we respect the role of parents in disciplining their children, excessive physical discipline will be considered and reported as abuse.”

In Singapore, the use of physical discipline is common.

A study by the Singapore Children’s Society and Yale-NUS College found that

almost half of the about 750 parents polled used at least one form of corporal punishment,

like spanking or hitting the child with an object, in the past year.

But when disciplinary action results in a child sustaining injuries or serious physical harm, or is likely to do so, it is considered physical abuse, an MSF spokeswoman told The Straits Times.

This could happen when a parent uses the cane several times a week with force hard enough to break a child’s skin, leaving injuries and marks, or a parent uses “great force” to push a child against a wall that may result in physical harm.

The MSF spokeswoman added: “Discipline by parents would constitute emotional harm when parents act in ways that cause the child to develop mental health conditions, become a danger to self or others, or lead to the child’s development being impaired.”

One way this can happen is when parents persistently demean their children.

She said the MSF and child protection management agencies are supported by “evidence-informed” Structured Decision Making tools for staff to assess whether the threshold for abuse has been crossed.

Social workers interviewed say they look at the nature, frequency, severity and impact of the physical discipline to assess if the punishment has crossed the line into abuse.

Ms Lin Xiaoling, director of research and advocacy at the Singapore Children’s Society, pointed out that the intent to discipline is secondary to its impact.

For example, if the physical punishment causes injuries such as bruises, broken bones and burns, it is considered abuse.

Social workers also point out that constantly demeaning, threatening, blaming or shaming the child can cause emotional harm that is as bad as physical injuries.

Ms Lee said acts of emotional harm can make a child feel unsafe, anxious and worthless, and they could develop unhealthy coping behaviour such as hurting themselves or lying to avoid punishment.

She added: “Over time, this fear and anxiety can manifest in further behavioural issues, which parents may respond to with even harsher discipline, unintentionally reinforcing an endless cycle of fear, distress and conflict.”

Pave Integrated Services senior social worker Monica Zhang has worked with a teenager whose father repeatedly compared her with her sister, and persistently put her down for not doing well in school and failing to live up to his expectations.

The father also used his belt to hit her, threw things at her and laid hands on her mother too.

“It affected her self-esteem, and she feels she is not good enough. She found it hard to concentrate, and this affected her grades,” Ms Zhang said.

“She saw how he hit her mum, so this instilled fear in her as well.”

Ms Jessica Chan, clinical director at Kampong Kapor Community Services, said one reason why physical discipline is common is because many parents were caned or physically punished by their parents when they were children, so this is an accepted practice.

However, parents can cross the thin line between physical punishment and abuse in the heat of their anger, social workers caution.

Many of the parents Ms Chan works with do not have the bandwidth to control their emotions when they discipline their children, as they are often dealing with multiple problems, such as financial, marital and health woes. So, they end up hurting their children when they cannot cope, even though this is not their intention.

Ms Lin said that their research shows that the child may stop the offending behaviour momentarily when he or she is physically punished, but physical discipline does not teach values.

She said: “Instead, children often learn to avoid punishment, rather than to understand right from wrong.”

Social workers say that with the growing awareness of child abuse issues, more parents are mindful of the potential pitfalls of physical discipline now.

Ms Lin pointed out that research has shown that physical punishment is associated with strained parent-child relationships and lower self-esteem for the child, among other negative outcomes which may persist into adulthood.