CAPE CORAL, Fla. -- A Cape Coral father has been arrested for child abuse.  Police said he admitted to hitting his son for misbehaving but his wife said the punishment is too harsh.

Thomas Scheurell's wife, Christine Penwell, said she's not defending what her husband did, she just thinks parenting can get frustrating and her husband was just disciplining their son.

Penwell said the bruises on her young son's back came from her husband.

"Obviously he shouldn't have whipped my child like that, our child like that," said Penwell.

Over the weekend, Penwell said their son, who is 7, was playing on a water heater in the couple's bedroom, when a pipe broke and it caused several inches of water to pour into their apartment.  Police said Thomas Scheurell, 33, told them he got angry and started hitting his son.

"All parents can get a little frustrated and angry and I just think that he had taken it a little bit further than he should have obviously because my child does have a bruise," said Penwell.

Scheurell faces a charge of felony cruelty towards a child.  The police report said Scheurell told officers "he was not sorry for hitting his son on his back and that his son is a really bad child and he's always misbehaving."  Penwell said her husband is not abusive or violent.

"Given the history that he has no prior history of any violence at all, no arrest record at all, I just feel it is a harsh punishment," said Penwell.

Scheurell is behind bars and his wife isn't sure if she'll be able to bail him out for Christmas but she believes he never should have gone to jail in the first place.

"I told my son its not your fault, its ok, sometimes parents just get upset and to be truthful about the situation and he knows that his father has never done anything like that to him before," said Penwell.

Scheurell is being held on a $1500 bond at the Lee County Jail.  He has a court date set for January 17.