Hall of fame running back Eric Dickerson is showing support for embattled Vikings star Adrian Peterson and says the team made the right decision in letting him play despite facing a child-abuse charge.

“I sent him a text,” Dickerson said in a phone interview Tuesday with the Pioneer Press. “I told him to ‘stay strong.’ ”

Dickerson was disappointed to see photos of injuries incurred when Peterson hit his 4-year-old son in May with a switch. But he said he understands where Peterson is coming from when it comes to corporal punishment because that’s how Dickerson was raised, and he said he also disciplines his children physically.

“I don’t agree with beating them until they bleed or nothing like that, but you have to discipline your children,” Dickerson said. “I believe in that. I have a 9-year-old daughter. I whup her. … I have a 2-year old boy. I spank him (by hand). … I spank (the girl) with a belt. I don’t have time to go out and get a switch off a tree.”

Peterson was indicted in Texas last week on a felony charge of injuring a child. He was deactivated for last Sunday’s game against New England, but the Vikings announced Monday that he would play Sunday at New Orleans.

Peterson has admitted he hit his son with a tree branch. He said in a statement Monday, “I have to live with the fact that when I disciplined my son the way I was disciplined as a child, I caused an injury that I never intended or thought would happen.”

Dickerson has met Peterson three times, and his hometown of Sealy, Texas, is three hours from where Peterson grew up in Palestine, Texas. In 2012, the Minnesota running back challenged Dickerson’s 1984 single-season NFL rushing record 2,105 yards before falling eight yards short.

“I think they made the right move,” Dickerson said of the Vikings reinstating Peterson. “Let it play itself out and let it go through the judicial system, and then you make the decision on what you want to do. … Every parent raises his children differently. He maybe went a little too far, but I just feel that you have to have some discipline.

“(Some former players) on television are making him out to be a villain like they lived this perfect life. … You don’t take a man off the field if he’s innocent until proven guilty … I’m sure (Peterson is) sorry. It would be different if he said, ‘I’m glad I whupped him and I’d whup him again.’ ”

Dickerson, 54, played in the NFL from 1983-93. He believes there are cultural differences when it comes to corporal punishment.

“I’d say black parents discipline their kids in a different way,” Dickerson said. “We’re not going to sit and talk to you or give you a timeout or going to ground you or take your computer away. We just don’t do that. That’s not our way. That’s just different. It’s the way you are raised.

“I was raised in a way that they spank you and tell you that they love you, but you’re not going to do this. My mother said, “I could whup you now or they could whup you in jail later.’ It got me in line. … I’m from the South, Texas, so I’m accustomed to it.”

Dickerson said his mother, Viola, who is now deceased, administered some harsh beatings.

“I got whippings with switches, belts, extension cords, and it didn’t bother me,” Dickerson said. “I got so many whuppings, it was amazing. I had welts like that (in the photos of Peterson’s 4-year-old son). I had the welts with the extension cord, they were the worst. I had them on the back of my leg and my back. But I love my mother. Did I want them to put me in a foster home? Most definitely not.

“When I was about 15, she got a shotgun. She didn’t point it at me but she said, ‘I’ll kill you.’ That was just how you raised your children in my household. It was about respect.”

Dickerson, who lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Penny, said he believes he never has gone too far in disciplining his children. He said he also has a daughter, 27, whom he said he “only had to whip her one time and she got it.”

Dickerson said he hasn’t used corporal punishment on his 9-year-old in about a year, so he believes she is “getting it.”

“I have a belt in my bedroom just in case,” Dickerson said. “She knows where the belts are just in case she acts up. I keep one in the bedroom and one in the kitchen.”

Dickerson said he has never used anything but his hand on his 2-year-old.

“I spank him,” Dickerson said. “I hit him on his bottom. Of course, I do when he’s bad. … I started slapping him on his hand when he was about 1-1/2.”

Dickerson believes corporal punishment can be a positive in raising a child.

“Everybody raises their kids differently,” Dickerson said. “Some parents never spank their kids and they never discipline them, but I believe later on they will have problems with them. You have to discipline them. If kids do what they want, they’re going to run amok. When they get older, they’re going to do what they want to do.

“I feel bad for (Peterson), I feel bad for the mother and I feel bad for the (4-year-old) boy. But one day when he’s 15 or 16, or when he’s 12 or 13, he’ll understand what’s going on. I’m sure he loves his dad. I’m sure Adrian loves him.”

Follow Chris Tomasson at twitter.com/christomasson.