perceptions of child abuse

["Sheri McMahon" <dfmcmahon1@xxxxxxx>]

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I came across something I thought was curious (but suspect it reallt isn't). 
A large survey of public perceptions of child abuse was done in ND in 2005. 
One outcome was that public perception as to frequency of abuse was much 
smaller than the official statistics, although actually fairly well in line 
with statistics of substantiated physical and sexual abuse. The part I 
thought was curious presented an assortment of scenarios with respondents 
ask to rate the abusiveness of parent behavior on a scale from 1 to 5.

Ratings were lower for the same parent behavior when the child was described 
as having acted out in some way in public, such as in a store, vs. when the 
child was described as having the same behavior in a situation not involving 
a public setting. Roughly speaking, if there was some kind of public 
misbehavior by the child, the average rating was about 2.5 for abusiveness 
of parent response, versus a little over 3 when there was no public setting 
mentioned.

It just strikes me that there is something going on here--that in a public 
setting misbehavior by a child is regarded as somewhat less tolerable, and 
somewhat more deserving of punishment--even if the punishment is still 
regarded as abusive to some degree. The report on this survey does not 
discuss this particular result or possible implications. I'm just wondering 
if this is something anybody has noticed elsewhere.

Sheri McMahon 


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