Reflections On The Civil Responsibility Of Parents For Punishing Their Children's Behavior

As the old saying goes,“It's the fault of the father if he doesn't educate his kid”and “A filial son comes out with a stick”.Parents' punishment and discipline of their minor children have existed since ancient times.In today's society,it is also an important part of family life for parents to punish and educate their young children,which is related to family harmony and social stability.Although punishment constitutes the content of parental guardianship duties,it may also lead to legal liability.In recent years,some cases in the society have exposed that in the process of punishing and educating children,the parents of some families utilize improper or excessive punishments,resulting in adolescents' physical and mental injury,or even death.Therefore,some parents shall bear the legal responsibility.The legal responsibility of parents to punish young children reflected in these cases is worthy of attention.This thesis focuses on the civil liability of parents' punishing young children,so as to balance the relationship between parents' punishing and educating their children and protecting and raising their children,to promote the further improvement of the relevant civil legal system,and to shape a civilized and harmonious family relation.This thesis is divided into four parts.The first part introduces the background,research status,research ideas and research methods.There are relatively few studies on parents' punishment of young children,and most of them are from the perspective of criminal law,for instance,whether the behaviour constitutes a crime.Previous researches are based on the parents' disciplinary power and research combined with practical cases from the perspective of civil law is comparatively rare.Based on some typical cases in judicial practice,this thesis introduces the behaviour of parents punishing young children and the possible civil liability into the research field of vision.Some research methods such as literature research,comparative analysis and empirical analysis are applied into discussing the civil liability of parents for punishing young children through cases.The second part is a brief introduction and summary of the cases.This part mainly lists three representative real cases in judicial practice.Through a brief introduction of the case and analysis of the judgments,related problems in parents for punishing young children,which needs to be discussed is introduced.The third part is the legal analysis of the problems caused by the cases.This thesis discusses the definition,connotation and characteristics of parents' behaviour of punishing their children,analyzes the necessity,purpose and motivation,implementation and consequences of the behaviour in detail,and probes into whether parents should bear civil liability when punishing their children.By combing the relevant legislation at home and abroad,this thesis clarifies that the punishment behaviour of parents in the cases is too excessive and further analyzes the civil liability of parents when the punishment is excessive,so as to provide inspiration for regulating the punishment behaviour of parents.The fourth part is the enlightenment of regulating parents' behaviour of punishing young children.Through the above analysis,comparing with the relevant legislation and useful experience at home and abroad,this thesis first puts forward that in the civil legal norms,parents should pay attention to the words,behaviours,and ways of punishing their children,and then clarifies the principles of parents' punishing their children,the subject of implementation,the scope of punishment,and the selection principles of punishment methods.Finally,the supervision mechanism of parents punishing young children should be improved in the civil legal norms.