What is unclear is you say your decision to call cries of abuse way overblown and reactionary was not based on outcome. Then you end your post saying that the kid was wearing safety gear and was only on a six-foot vert ramp. This implies that the potential for injury is a key to your decision of whether this is child abuse or not. Potential for injury relates to the outcome, not the act itself.
Maybe you should actually think about why you find the act itself so ok as to call cries of abuse overblown and reactionary.
What in the world are you talking about?Are you arguing that it was mental abuse?
I'm saying your logic on what constitutes abuse is completely screwy and seeing as how you and johnjohn are on the same side of this I really don't think I need to explain it any further. You can't seem to explain your point of view in any coherent way anyway, or understand a simple question.
Have you always been such a mean spirited person when people disagree with you?
My point is very clear, and I have made it multiple times, you just don't seem to understand it. The kid was never in physical danger and I don't think a little push and fall constitutes mental abuse. What is so difficult to understand about that?
Why do you think it is abuse?
And I don't like the fact that johnjohn agrees but who cares? A busted clock is still accurate twice a day.
Because I think that the level of physical danger does not determine abuse. A kid that is told that he is worthless every day is not in any physical danger, but it is abuse. Bullying, from a father to a son, is abuse. The level of actual physical damage is, IMO, a incredibly short-sighted way to view a definition of abuse, and as I have repeatedly pointed out, one that does not fit with the legal or societal definition of abuse.
What you don't get is that the level of physical danger or potential for physical injury is basically irrelevant. If the first example is not clear enough as to why, consider a kid who gets slapped in the face every time he steps out of line or does something bad. That would also not meet the criteria of being in physical danger but it is quite clearly abuse. So I simply vehemently disagree with the way you choose to define child abuse and find it inconsistent with how our society defines child abuse.
Sorry if that was unclear, but I find your reaction to this event disheartening in that it shows very little understanding of what child abuse actually is, yet you say that anyone calling it child abuse is being reactionary.
Clearly the local sheriff does not think its reactionary as he is currently investigating this man for child abuse.
And aside from legal definitions of abuse, this kid is KINDERGARTEN age. He likely looks up to his father like a God, wanting to be just like him, trusting him fully and implicitly, loving him unconditionally. He is up there essentially trying to please his dad. I'm sure he loves skating but he is also always looking for the nurturing, love and approval that a dad should give. To have that person, from behind and without warning, kick his board out from under him in front of everyone in the skatepark, humiliating him, is every bit as damaging as a punch in the face. Perhaps not physically, but to the relationship and the trust he places in the one guy he looks up to and wants to be like more than anyone in the world.
I do not want to see this kid taken from his dad. I don't think this situation warrants that or that it would be fair to the father or kid. But this dad needs to learn (which I suspect he already has) just how badly he stepped over the line and how damaging his actions were to his kid. And he needs to learn from this and grow, and become a much better father than he was in that one instant. And frankly I think an investigation based on this one incident is completely warranted to determine if this type of abuse has occurred more than once or is repeated in the home away from the public eye.
