A child abuse case went viral lately, about a nine-year-old boy in Nanjing ruthlessly beaten by his well-educated adoptive mother. Pictures of the bruises all over his body circulate on the Internet, raising fresh attention to the dangers of domestic abuse.

Follow-up media reports have revealed that the abuse was a one-off incident. Dreading school, he had lied about not doing his homework, while his adoptive mother, who had high expectations for him and pushed him to study, lost control this time. Fully aware of what kind of person her mother is, the boy even cried for getting her back after she had been detained by local police.

Violence against children takes place around the world, and it takes many forms, such as bullying, physical punishment, mental abuse, sexual harassment and even homicide. According to the findings of a UNICEF report in 2014 titled "Hidden in plain sight: A statistical analysis of violence against children," two thirds of the 1 billion children worldwide between two and 14 have been subject to regular corporal punishment by their parents or other guardians.

Even many Western countries are no exception. Statistics show that in the US, one in three children aged seven to 10 has been subjected to mild physical punishment at home.

The recent case raises people's concern about whether the protection of children's rights is deteriorating in China. Calls for more legal intervention are rising, with media and public opinion criticizing government's neglect of duty on this matter.

There is a long-running controversy about how to demarcate physical discipline over children and corporal abuse. This problem is causing many difficult situations, driving a wedge between how parents should take their roles as caregivers and educators and what they are allowed to do by law.

Although less recognized, physical discipline is still a common tool for parents. Whether physical discipline is favored or not differs in various countries. Attitudes toward physical discipline vary greatly in countries with similar background of social and economic development.

For example, in the UK, the approval rate of physical discipline has dramatically decreased from 88 percent in 1998 to 52 percent in 2007. However, in Australia, according to the UNICEF report, a study in 2005 found out that 69 percent of Australian parents believe "it is sometimes necessary to 'smack' a naughty child."

Generally speaking, physical discipline is being exercised by Chinese parents in an increasingly milder manner. Part of the reason is that the one-child policy makes the only child the apple of the family's eye. Besides, younger parents, who have received better education, are more civilized and reasonable in child-bearing. To some extent, spoiled children are much more commonplace than abused children in Chinese society.

The data might seem ghastly, showing the majority of Chinese children have been subjected to corporal punishment. But it must be noted that the intensity of physical discipline is declining.

What happened to the nine-year-old boy in Nanjing needs to be treated as an individual case.

Government intervention and legal assistance matter a lot in addressing this kind of issue, but it might be hard to carry out smoothly, because ideas like "children are the property of parents," and "caning and thrashing make a filial son" are still prevalent in Chinese society. It is reversing these ingrained thoughts that can make a better difference. These ideas are embedded in China's lengthy and burdened culture, which attaches a somewhat paranoid importance to lineage and parental authority. Influenced by this "convention," on the one hand, parents, who were raised by physical discipline, have developed a Stockholm syndrome, believing "stick parenting" should be inflicted on their children as it was on them.

On the other hand, few people want to interfere other families' internal business, particularly in terms of child education, which might be regarded as a challenge to the parents' authority over their own families.

Therefore, compared with intrusive law enforcement that might trigger a backlash and some other side effects such as over-protection of children's rights, shaking the old mind-set and stirring parents' empathy for children's wellbeing are more fundamentally constructive.