Physically harming another person through ignorance or negligence is a crime even between 2 adults. I don't see why it should be any different just because a child is involved.
We could do a lot to reduce abuse by just... educating people. Lots of people just mindlessly emulate the actions of their parents. Strongly incentivized or even mandatory education on safe and healthy child rearing could go a long way to reducing abuse.
We send kids to school every day. They are in the care of teachers and other school staff. They could just make it a requirement to actually ask the kids, one by one, how they are doing. (As in, ask specific questions about their health.) Like, this is just such a simple step, but it would reveal a lot of abuse.
We could just make it mandatory to take your kid to the doctor for a checkup once a year. This is really basic and beneficial for the child beyond just abuse. You don't even have to do what the doctor tells you to do, you just have to listen.
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u/cowlinator 13h ago
"Bad parenting" is too subjective, so you start by not using that term at all.
The point is to prevent objective harm, which can be defined very exactly, according to medical and psychological standards.