Although estimates of incidence differ widely from study to study and across years over the past two decades (Gil, 1970; Kempe, 1973; Gelles, 1979), it is clear that serious physical abuse of children is a widespread problem in this country. Regardless of the wide variety of estimates available, child abuse rates are alarmingly high. During 1980, nearly 800,000 reports of child maltreatment were documented in this country (National Analysis of Official Child Neglect and Abuse Reporting, 1981); in addition, the same study revealed more than 400 documented fatalities.

Although these figures may seem startling for a highly educated, affluent, youth-oriented nation like ours, such data only scratch the surface of parental violence toward children. As argued by Parke and Lewis (1981), official estimates undoubtedly underestimate the extent of actual parental abusiveness. A number of interview and survey studies indicate that it is indeed normative for parents to employ physical coercion and physical assault in managing their children. Stark and McEvoy (1970) estimated that more than 90% of parents either consistently use or occasionally resort to spanking or other types of physical punishment. On the basis of a recent and careful self-report study using a national probability sample, Gelles (1979) estimated that between 275,00 and 750,000 children were beaten by their parents in 1975 and that nearly 50,000 children were threatened with a deadly weapon by their parents during the same 1-year period.