Prevention of child abuse resulting from physical punishment: An education programme for parents.

摘要

This research study placed emphasis on the prevention of physical child abuse. The parents, who are the key adults to bring up their children, are the target audience because they are not only the earliest ones to get along with their children but also the ones who spend the largest amount of time on them. The majority of parents are involved in physical child abuse cases when they bring up their children, especially when they adopt physical punishment as a method of managing and teaching them. In other words, parents resort to physical child abuse in circumstances with positive intention (teaching children). They might not intend to harm children but the children suffer harm in "daily" managerial and teaching process. To prevent children from abuse in such circumstances, the initial step we should take is to intervene in how parents opt for methods of bring up children. While doing this, in the first place, we should recognise the distinctive features of the parents who always adopt physical punishment to manage and teach children. Parents who possess these features are more likely the high-risk physical child abusers. To identify the high-risk ones among a large number of parents, a set of reliable tools of measurement should be used to identify the potential abusers. The first objective of this research study was to examine the suitability of Milner (1986, 1990, 1994)'s Child Abuse Potential Inventory (CAPI, Chinese translation is the System for the Potential Risk of Child Abuse), in identifying potential physical child abusers among the parents of local primary school students. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)