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Child abuse scenario: You've had a super long day. A super long day with cranky kids, age 7 and 8, who are fighting over anything and everything for no apparent reason at all other than to drive you nuts. As you walk to your car in the mall parking lot with them screaming behind you, (thinking to yourself how you will never bring your kids out with you again!) you see another mother really losing her temper with a child close in age to yours. At first she's yelling. Then you hear a few curse words. She's a few cars away, so when she bends down to get something--initially you're not sure what it is. But it's her shoe! Before you know it, she is wailing on the kid with her shoe hitting him everywhere--even on his head.
Have you ever seen a parent abusing a child and not been sure what to do?
Comments (27)
I've seen a similar situation, but with a young toddler. I immediately called 911, no doubt about that.
I would not let my dd see some thing as horrible as that. I would def. run to my car to get her in as quick as humanly possible and call 911. I would not go there. 1. It could just escalate matters 2. She would probably yell mind your own business. 3. I would not want her kid to see me beat her a$$. The LO probably sees that kind of thing already.
I guess I'd really have to see it and see just how bad it was. I have nothing against a mother who hits her kids to each their own, and I don't know what the kids were doing to get that kind of treatment. With 911 by the time they got there it would probably be over with anyway and unless the kids were bruised or the parking lot had video camera's they won't catch her anyway. I might tell her "IF you going to smack your kids do it in private before somebody reports you!" I did actually do that to somebody in a parking lot when she whacked her kid on the butt for running out into the parking lot. I told her somebody could take your plate number and report you and you'll have a cps case that can get messy. She just kind of looked at me and started to explain and I stopped her and said no need to explain I'm not questioning your actions just telling you what could happen.
I have to agree with babyfat5 on this one. I would have to say something to that mother knowing full well she could turn her nastiness on me. Better me than the kid. I think warning her how it looks to other people is a good idea.
Calling 911 is great but would not stop the situation at hand in enough time. I would definately say something and I have before. Sure, they will tell you it's none of your business, but they also stop what they are doing. I saw a woman doing this in a store once. I then followed her around the store for the next 20 minutes to assure she did not do it again. Hopefully it made her aware that others would not just sit idolly by and watch the next time..
I have had more than my share of problems with my children but anyone that would use an object to hit their child needs to be stopped before they do perminant dammage. If she has that kind of reaction in public then she most likely does worse at home, telling her to keep it private is the worse thing for the child, shame on you babyfat5.
I would HAVE to start screaming, "STOP!", told my kids to get in the car, and then I'd call child protective services on her as well and make sure I had her license plate number.
Lark, I'm with you. I'm disgusted at the "keep it private" comment. She said hitting her child WITH A SHOE on his HEAD. There is never a situation in which that's okay, private or not!
It's this attitude of, "You can't do anything anyway," that sucks. YES YOU CAN and it's a hell of a lot better to TRY for a child's sake than to just resign to nothing happening without putting forth any freakin' effort. Sheesh!
I voted neither. I'd put my kids in the car and lock it to be sure they were safe...and THEN I'd walk over ot the woman and tell her to stop it.
If I was alone I might try to phyiscally stop her. But with my kids there I don't think I would risk myself getting hurt or them getting hurt. Either way my first step is to call 911.
Ditto what Rana said! This is not a spanking vs. spanking debate here...I DO have something against mothers who HIT their kids, like for example beating them with a shoe! That's disgusting and I would have ran to call 911.