Striking children for discipline

Question

Question: Those who teach children also beat them and make them stand in the “rooster” position (a punishment in which the child is made to stand bent over). How much latitude is there in this? And if someone was beaten and it later became known that he was not at fault, what is the way of making amends?

Answer

Beating and punishing children with the permission of their guardians (awliya’), out of the need of teaching, is permissible in the Shari‘a, but not beyond what the children can bear: at one time no more than three blows, and not with a stick and the like. So it is in Radd al-Muhtar, vol. 5, p. 445, shortly before (the chapter) “Ihya’ al-Mawat” (reviving dead land).

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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