Adrian Peterson, age 29, 8-time running back for the National Football League (NFL) team Minnesota Vikings has been convicted with child abuse charges for an incident in which while punishing his four year old son, Adrian Peterson, JR., for fighting with is brothers over a game he initially left scratches and bruises on his son's legs, back, ankles, buttock, and scrotum. (Smith).
Peterson according to National Broadcasting Company (NBC) Sports said that he did it to punish the child for pushing another one of Peterson's children while they were playing a video game. The report says Peterson grabbed a tree branch, removed the leaves and struck the 4-year-old repeatedly. In most instances like this one, I believe that this would have just been blown off of everyone's shoulder due to the fact that punishing your children is not against the law. This incident was not out in public for anyone to see, it happened on Peterson's own private property, it is his child and he does have rights to whip him if necessary. With Adrian being an already large male standing six foot one inch and weighing two hundred and seventeen pounds and his background of being an aggressive football player does stand against him in the fact that his son is only four-years-old. However whoever says that a four year old should not be punished in such a way has either never been around or had children of their own. If Adrian would have let his son go on pushing on his siblings without punishment he would be led to believe that it would be alright to do in the future. I believe that if you don't take control of your children when they are younger (such as Adrian did) then they will grow up to become trouble makers and possibly end up in our prison system, which seems to be growing more and more every year. .
According to the NBC sports Adrian Peterson did own up to his responsibilities. There is proof that after the incident he had allegedly texted the child's mother and informed her that he "felt bad after the fact when he notice the switch was wrapping around hitting I [sic] thigh Got him in nuts once I noticed.
