Social Learning Theory: The Family Law Context, Essay Example

The recent enactment of new legislation regarding parental custody, where a household has one or more documented offense of domestic violence, child abuse, or drug or alcohol related offenses committed by the mother, father, guardian, and/or caregiver, will result in the removal of any child or children from the home, is the point of consideration in this essay. In its announcement of the new policy, The Department of Job and Family Services made reference to evidenced based models of enforcement which allow for application of temporary or terminal retraction of the rights of parents in response to the stated issues of incompetency. Part of the scope of this decision relates to research on the transmission of violence in social learning theory citing aggressive misconduct by children who “have parents who use similar tactics when dealing with others.”

In the United States, we argue over ethical assumptions within law’s exercise. Perhaps nowhere is this seen more frequently than in the procedural framework of family law custody cases – to the extenuating moral correctives of court ordered drug rehabilitation and mandated foster care placement (Dwyer, 1995). Rule enforcement of family law provisions in this area are obviously designed to protect the ‘rights’ of the child.

When the parents of the child, and the child by proxy as a minor, are both deemed to be without capacity to act, the court now may according to the new policy, intercede in that there is no other option. If temporary placement of the child with a custodial guardian until the parent(s) may prove reasonable evidence that they have substantiated adult capacity to the court, is perhaps the best application in support of social learning theories (Woody, 2000).

Without such interpretation, advocacy on behalf of the child may be impossible, and so too both short-term and long-term protections stemming from the child’s removal from an environment of violence. Opponents to zero-tolerance legislation where children’s rights are concerned might claim that the new policy circumvents the child’s natural right to ‘family life.’ Proponents of the new legislation, however, find redemption in the prevalence of statistical evidence which tells us that violence is self-perpetuating force that may only be extinguished by extraction of its source.

Works Cited

Dwyer D.C., et al. (1995). Domestic violence research – theoretical and practice implications for social work. Clinical Social Work Journal, 23(2), 185-198.

Woody, R.H. (2000). Child Custody: Practice Standards, Ethical Issues, and Legal Safeguards for Mental Healthprofessionals. Sarasota, FL: Professional Resource Press.