Brookover: Adrian Peterson should get help and drop appeal

The thing that matters most is the child. That part is indisputable.

Regardless of how it was classified in a court of law, Adrian Peterson is guilty of a crime that most reasonable human beings find appalling. He used a tree branch to beat his 4-year-old son and, according to a text message he sent to his ex-wife and photographs taken by police, he inflicted visible wounds to several body parts, including the child’s testicles.

It was a disgusting act that was reduced in a Texas court to a misdemeanor reckless assault charge earlier this month after Peterson pleaded no contest. The Minnesota Vikings star running back received a $4,000 fine and 80 hours of community service. Peterson was making $734,375 a game this season and he was paid through Sunday’s game in Chicago, so no real financial harm came from the court’s decision. And the 80 hours of community service was a lot softer slap on the wrist than the bodily beating his son took from his father.

That’s why when rightfully embattled NFL commissioner Roger Goodell handed down his own punishment for Peterson’s violation of the league’s personal conduct policy Tuesday morning, there should have been no appeal from the NFL players union. Peterson neither needs nor deserves arbitration. He needs help and lots of it.

In a letter to the six-time Pro Bowl running back, Goodell informed Peterson that he had been suspended without pay for at least the remainder of the 2014 season. The commissioner had a lot more than that to say to Peterson. In his letter, Goodell described how horrifying the act was that Peterson committed, saying, among other things, that “the difference in size and strength between you and the child is significant, and your actions clearly caused physical injury to the child.”

Goodell went too far, however, when he told Peterson that he has “shown no meaningful remorse” for his actions. Really? How does the Wizard of Rog know this? Does he see all and know all? Did he not read all of Peterson’s words after he was indicted?

“My goal is always to teach my son right from wrong and that’s what I tried to do that day,” the running back said in a statement. “I accept the fact that people feel very strongly about this issue and what they think about my conduct. Regardless of what others think, however, I love my son very much and I will continue to try to become a better father and person.”

Remorse can be found in those words, and the final part of Peterson’s statement is all he should be focused on now.

There’s nothing wrong with the suspension Goodell hit Peterson with Tuesday. It just would have been better coming from someone else and without the sordid details of the commissioner’s letter to the running back. Two months ago, after mishandling the Ray Rice domestic violence situation, the commissioner promised that changes were coming to the NFL’s personal conduct policy.

“I know this will happen because we will make it happen,” he said.

Nothing has changed yet and the thing that needs to change the most is that the NFL needs a panel of disciplinarians from a variety of backgrounds to replace the commissioner’s dictatorship.

There are a lot of places for abusive parents and children of child abuse to get help. Melissa Runyon, the treatment services director of the CARES Institute in Stratford, New Jersey, and a professor of psychiatry at the Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine, emphasized how important it is that the help comes from an evidence-based program that specializes in child abuse.

The NFL ordered Peterson to meet with April Kuchuk, a clinical psychologist at New York University, by Nov. 1. The league deemed Peterson’s consultations with psychologist Cynthia Winston of Howard University as insufficient because she does not have a background in child abuse. That fact was made evident by Winston during a meeting Sunday with Kuchuk, according to the NFL’s statement.

Runyon said positive outcomes often occur from the treatment for abused children and abusive parents at the CARES Institute. She said the parents who enter the institute’s programs often were victims of child abuse themselves, which was the case with Peterson, although the running back viewed his own physical discipline as good, solid parenting.

Eventually there comes a point in the counseling when the child and the parent sit down together and begin to discuss what has transpired. Runyon said this happens with children from ages 3 and above.

“That’s when you can see the parent’s empathy because that is when the parent really hears the impact on the child,” Runyon said.

That’s the goal line that Adrian Peterson needs to try to cross right now, which is why he should tell the players union to withdraw its appeal of the NFL’s decision even though it was made by a rules dictator who needs to be removed from that position.