Best way to intervene when you see a parent not being very nice to their child

Sadly, asking the DC if they are ok has limitations as to what you can do. With a man hurting a woman you can encourage her to stay with you etc. You can't do that with a DC. That is why people are saying asking if the parent is ok may stop it escalating and the DC getting more abuse.

My husband intervened once when a mother was being awful to her daughter. Mother fetched her neanderthal fella who was 30 odd years younger than husband and squared up to put him in the bleep bleep hospital. Thankfully it was our local pub restaurant so the manager and the chef stepped in.

So no we're too old to take anyone on now.

"If you were worried for a woman because you saw her male partner losing it would you ask if he was OK? And assume he was only losing it with her because he was at the end of his tether and that he needed sympathy?"

I'm with @Katiemonkey15

I will ALWAYS say something. I've stopped my car before now after seeing a woman being very clearly threatened by a man in the street and yes I got a mouthful from him but I told him I had dashcam and I told her she deserved better and could get into my car. Did I help? Who knows. But I couldn't ignore it. I also spoke to my nightmare neighbour about her constant domestics and her kids screaming from 2am every Friday nights and told her I had recorded it all and was reporting her.

I'm not talking a clearly frazzled mum, I'm talking hate filled rants and it's very clear to me who is one and who is the other, I would have loved someone to step in and stop my mum from skulldragging me around as a kid but guess what? Nobody did

And guess what? Those kids grow up to think it's OK to be treated like that in their own relationships (because that's love right?) and to think that's an acceptable way to treat their own kids and the cycle continues unbroken.

Stress isn't accepted as a valid excuse for road rage, assault or verbal abuse of another adult etc so why should it be an excuse for treating a child like crap? Those parents need to learn to manage stress like adults. Their stress is not their child's problem to solve or suffer for.

The advice if you see abuse is to talk to the victim not perp. So in cases of adult on adult aggression in public you talk to the victim and ask if they are ok. It’s to signal to both victim and the attacker that this is not condoned by public bystanders.
same could apply here - if safe ask the child if they are ok. You will get a mouthful of abuse but at LEAST the child can see that other adults do not condone abusive behaviour and they are not alone.

The parent either knows how to do it better but it's under extreme stress, in which case you won't help.

Or they're always like that, in which case one person saying something won't change things.

Some families are shoutier than others, it might be that the kids still feel loved and understand their parent lets off steam that way.

A few months ago I was changing at the pool and a woman was with two small boys, one of whom was monkeying around a bit. She was getting them changed for a lesson so was probably pushed for time.

However she started telling him to behave or else she would lock him in the locker and leave him in there for a whole hour. She said variations of this several times. The poor little boy was standing crying silently.

It is one of my biggest regrets that I didn’t intervene.

Did you report her? That’s terrifying

That reminds me that a friend of my PIL smacked his child on a flight and a few days later social services turned up because someone had reported him.

The problem with doing nothing is that it implies to both the horrible adult and the dc that what is happening is ok.

I will always try to make it clear that I've seen and I'm shocked if I see adults verbally or physically abusing kids. I might say "there's no need for that" or similar. I'm well aware that the threshold for what the law will get involved with is high, but I'm not going to pretend it's ok to hit dc or call them names, even on your worst day.

If you were worried for a woman because you saw her male partner losing it would you ask if he was OK? And assume he was only losing it with her because he was at the end of his tether and that he needed sympathy?

You'd be surprised. Evil is a hard term to define but sadly the number of children who are treated cruelly on a regular basis is far from tiny. A big part of prevention is making it socially unacceptable and making safeguarding absolutely everyone in the communitys responsibility and that includes bystanders.

We wouldn't accept the excuse that he was stressed or she was driving him mad that day if a man was abusive to his wife so why are people so quick to make excuses for parents who are horrible to defenceless kids?

I think if I was worried for the child, I might ask the mum if she is okay. Parents who lose it around their children are often at the end of their tether with compounded problems. A bit of sympathy and support for them might ease the situation but criticism might make it worse. The percentage of women who are just evil, cruel parents is tiny and I suspect they rarely show their true colours in public.

Thank you for this that's so kind abd lovely of you.

My Dd cab be a bit like you explained @Kira4 she's recently been diagnosed with bipolar. She's not yet mediated. I'm not sure what effect it would have on her.

My daughter does not speak to my GS in a nice way. She snaps at him over things that are not an issue. She litterly argues like they are both teenagers. There's been times I have had a go at her and made her get off the bus. She's had strangers have a go at her as well and it causes an argument shouting etc on the bus. GS then starts crying and getting scared . Dd will sometimes call me crying down the phone that someone had a go at her because of GS. Sadly she does not tell me the whole truth.

I think approaching in a way @Newgirls has done is probably the most helpful or even a form of distraction for mum/child . If you just say are you ok. Or even something like hopefully the sun be out soon makes us feel happier etc . Or to the child wow I like your shoes. Can I have them. Just divert from the situation. Or could even share when you and your chikd had a bad day.

Rambling now 🤣

Well according to some pp’s she might have just been having a bad day 🙄 I saw her another time stood in the post office line with her little girl who was an absolute sweetheart, again speaking to her like shit saying something like ‘keep up you fucking divvy’ when the queue moved, and in a really nasty voice. The thing is we all have bad days but you CAN just tell when someone’s exasperated and at the end of their tether, and when’s someone’s just fucking nasty to their kids. These are my only two experiences of her really, and not enough according to the people on here to get involved. But getting extremely outing here, she had 6 kids, and a couple of years or so after this her eldest child committed suicide on his 13th birthday, and she got all of her kids permanently removed by ss. They were living between grandparents the last I heard. Sometimes you can tell when sometimes just a piece of shit and pure evil all the way through. I’m not sure what the solution is though when you haven’t got the evidence to get involved over potential abuse

Im shocked at the amount of people saying look the other way. My husband is a PO and has approached and followed parents out of shopping centres, restaurants etc and pulled his badge. Their tune usually changes quite quickly when they see that and if he records their car reg and reminds them there is cctv. I'm not talking about parents snapping at their kids a bit and having a bit of yell and a telling off. Roaring in children's faces, threatening them or physically hurting them is never OK no matter how stressed a parent is. If someone much bigger than you did any of those things to you and you were frightened you'd hope someone would step in and help you.

Everyone has off days and I think you need to cut the parents some slack. Maybe the kids needed a telling off? Maybe it had been a very stressful day. You don't know that families dynamics. If it's abusive (screaming obscenities in their face) or a family you see often and the kids are always treated like dirt then maybe ask if you can help- otherwise interfering is not helpful.

This is really difficult op. On two occasions dh and I have reported abusive behaviour from parents to their children, but not approached them. For me I noted their vehicle registration as the family left a supermarket and reported to the police. DH rang police as he was witnessing a very drunk father telling off his young daughter. On both occasions the police were very helpful. So I suppose then, get as much detail as you can next time, and report. As pps have pointed out, not the best plan to confront an already volatile situation, but make the relevant authorities aware if possible.

Would you judge my neighbour, when she was pushing a toddler down the street in a pushchair and hadn’t bothered to strap them in. The toddler had sort of stood up and turned round the wrong way and she snarled at her ‘if you don’t sit down I’ll slit your fucking throat’?

but also won’t leave me feeling guilty for not saying or doing something

To be blunt, it's not about you.
If someone is yelling at their kids, either they are like that all the time. In which case you'll just get abuse back. Or it's someone at the end of their rope (for whatever reason) and you saying something will make them feel even more shit.

My dad was abusive. Someone did try to intervene once. I just got it worse when we got home as it was apparently my "fault" for making him lose his temper in the first place.

Just stay out of it.

I think your concern is commendable OP but it is none of your business.
You can’t fix everyone or everything. Harsh but true.