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Original poster

Would you ever intervene with mother scolding child?

31 replies

Gigwidow · 12/07/2025 20:33

Busy seaside town late this afternoon, walking along seafront with young DD. Woman in front of us starts absolutely TEARING STRIPS off her son (probably about 11/12) she stopped in the middle of the pavement absolutely screaming at him “I’m going to seriously punish you when we get home”, “you have f*ck all Respect for me” “I’m going to punish you big time” ….going on and on, the poor lad looked really embarrassed and was trying to quietly pacify her, but this made her worse.

As we were slowly walking along, she kept overtaking us ranting, and stopping in the middle of the pavement to rant some more at the boy. The threats got more and more menacing- “I’m gonna punish you so bad, you’re seriously gonna regret this” on and on effing this and that, poor kid.

His misdemeanour? As far as I could tell he reached into her bag to get his water bottle without asking.

Not sure what happened in the end as they disappeared into a big group but my question is, would you ever intervene with a mother scolding her child? She wasn’t physically assaulting him but it was verging on verbal abuse and on face value, seemed completely out of line, but there could be more to the story? Would you have said/done something? If so, what?

OP posts:

Squishymallows · 12/07/2025 20:34

Ah man that’s so hard I don’t know what I would do

treetop122 · 12/07/2025 20:36

Difficult situation. Nothing physical. If you were to have said something, what would you say?
very hard to judge on a snapshot. But a horrible situation.

Coffeeishot · 12/07/2025 21:39

Sounds awful but maybe the water was her last nerve, I saw a woman frog march her son along a street today she was so angry at him I felt sorry for him, but sadly I wouldn't intervene

SummerEve · 12/07/2025 21:43

Yes I would, and have done before when a woman hit her child in a supermarket.

Usernamenotavailable19 · 12/07/2025 21:47

I feel so sorry for the boy hearing that. Hopefully they were empty threats from his mother

ItDoesntHaveToBeASnowman · 12/07/2025 21:50

No. I wouldn’t. You know nothing about them, his behaviour or what their day has been like.

Parents need to be putting fear of consequences into their kids (without any violence or abuse). There isn’t enough of that any more.

Hatty65 · 12/07/2025 21:54

No, because the only thing you would probably achieve is to make her take it out even worse on him when they got home. A person like that is not going to have a lightbulb moment where they think, 'Goodness, my behaviour was so appalling that a stranger stepped in - I should be ashamed of myself and be super to my child when I get home'.

Let's be honest. If you had said anything you'd have been given a mouthful of abuse and she's likely to have hammered him once she got home for 'showing her up in public'.

Leenart · 12/07/2025 21:58

No I wouldn't. None of my business.

WhichOneIsPosher · 12/07/2025 21:59

A long time ago I witnessed a woman grab her son by the neck of his t-shirt and yank him roughly towards her before yelling in his face. Didn't intervene as I was only late teens at the time and she was a scary looking hard faced ned

WhichOneIsPosher · 12/07/2025 22:00

SummerEve · 12/07/2025 21:43

Yes I would, and have done before when a woman hit her child in a supermarket.

What did the woman say?

Superfoodie123 · 12/07/2025 22:00

I saw a mother scream at her 7 or 8 year old "shut the fuck up. I've had enough' really aggressively on my way to work the other day as I passed them and I'm still so disappointed in myself for not shaming her for it. Nothing the child could have done would have made it OK for her to speak like that

Gustavo1 · 12/07/2025 22:02

I think parenting that makes others uncomfortable should be reported. If you have an approximate time and location, cvtv might be available. Nothing harmful to the family will come of it if it’s not deemed necessary.

Personally, I believe that if what’s going on outside of the home borders on the uncomfortable, what’s going on behind closed doors could be unthinkable

cherriescherri · 12/07/2025 22:03

Thing is, if you do say something two things could happen;

they could be violent towards you
they could be so angry/embarrassed that someone said something they could really take it out on the child at home and make things ten times worse.

It is horrid though, I was around it the other week and I felt so horrid I had to walk away so I wasn’t able to hear it. It made me feel so sad.

Jacobs4 · 12/07/2025 22:05

There are some truly horrendous parents out there, it is excruciating to witness it. I have tried to diffuse situations lots of times by making commiserating noises at the irate parent about how us parents get so wound up, don’t we, hopefully one day we’ll look back and laugh… etc..to try to break that tension. Sometimes they appreciate the sympathy, sometimes they don’t.
generally speaking I’m not in favour of society maintaining silence in the face of abuse. Tricky though it is, for sure, to know what to say that can break it up.

SummerEve · 12/07/2025 22:25

WhichOneIsPosher · 12/07/2025 22:00

What did the woman say?

Show quote history

She didn’t say anything and looked shocked I had confronted her

breakdown98765 · 12/07/2025 22:30

I saw a woman absolutely loosing her shit at her maybe 3-year-old daughter. She then said ‘you better not had pissed yourself…’ and the poor kid was just saying sorry.

I was 18, just started uni and I stood there staring at this woman but I always kick myself that I never intervened.

I often think about it. I hope that little girl was ok.

mindingmyown37 · 12/07/2025 22:42

It’s a bit of a gray area I think, he could have been problematic all day and hit her last nerve. I’ve lost my shit at the kids albeit not in public (also never threatened them in such a way) you never know what goes on behind closed doors.

Bugahug · 13/07/2025 07:18

Its very hard as others have said you have no idea what has gone on before this took place. I think because she's threating punishment (not specified) it lead to speculation. It could be she's going to take is phone away or could be something more sinister.

Parenting is hard and I would love to say I've never lost it a bit in public but reality is that I've had days where my DD has pushed every button possible and its been overwhelming; however I think I'm more if you dont doing X you wont be getting your IPad the rest of the day or you really need to stop as I'm getting really stressed.

crackadawn · 13/07/2025 07:25

Aw that breaks my heart, we have no idea what goes on behind closed doors doors and the thought terrifies me.

I couldn't intervene because I know it would end well, but I would if I could follow them to car / home and ring the police to just tell them my concerns

ICareNothingForYourCameras · 13/07/2025 08:16

I'm not sure I would have said anything and I don't think there's anything you could do that would guarantee protect the boy after they've got home.

Could you have intervened by asking her an unrelated question eg "Can you tell me the time" "Where's the nearest cafe" etc. it could break up the flow of ranting and now she knows she's on someone's radar, she might not start again. Less likely to cause a negative reaction against you because you haven't actually criticised her in any way. If this is regular behaviour it wouldn't do much for the child, but if it's a one off during a horrible day it might help.

PeonyBulb · 13/07/2025 08:38

I have in the past taken photos of the child involved and parent

police can find the child via school photos

in my case the DS arm was being physically twisted behind his back. I asked the man to stop and he ignored me.

Lifestooshort71 · 13/07/2025 09:09

I would have done nothing for fear it would have got worse. I'd like to think if she'd touched him aggressively that I would have spoken up?

I was on the bus last week, facing a 2-yr old (?) in a buggy with father sitting behind her on phone. Her face was totally blank, worryingly so on reflection. She started bouncing het water bottle and some spilt down between her legs, he shouted at her and roughly mopped it up, catching her on the face with the cloth and his fingers. Her expression never varied. He rang the bell to get off and her mother had been sitting behind me, she hadn't intervened at all. I don't know what I should have done, that little one was used to it, I'm ashamed to have let it go 😒

RJ2025 · 13/07/2025 09:19

This is so tricky and I hate it - I always feel like I should intervene but I know it would do no good and might make things worse for the child. The worst case of this was when I was walking along the street and a woman and her toddler child were walking in the opposite direction towards me but being a toddler the child was walking a little slow and obviously not as fast as her mother - the mother yelled at her to “hurry up you fu@king ginger c@nt” it was disgusting - I turned to say something and the woman just snarled at me. I didn’t know what to do and felt powerless to do anything so I just left it. Years later I still feel bad about not doing anything -I would love to know if a complete stranger could actually do anything in situations like this, it really is very sad.

itstartedinthepeaks · 13/07/2025 09:21

The esteemed (said with a bit of irony) Sarah Ockwell Smith once laid into her children like this; I wouldn’t intervene.

Pinkdhalia · 04/08/2025 00:47

Yes if I’d heard it I’m likely to say. Enough! whatever he did doesn’t justify you going on and on at him. You need to know that’s verbal abuse and child protective services get called out for less!

a while ago I told a woman she was scaring her child the kid looked eyes wide near to tears ,I saw her tossing her daughter appx two years old forward and back side to side hitting her on her back in a pushchair she was shouting at the child cos she couldn’t find it! I told it was unnecessary to pull the child about she said I’m not! I told her I’ve stood here watching you!

I saw a schoolboy slap another boy across the face . The slapped boy looked shocked and gave a shocked smile. I said would you like someone to slap your face? Then don’t do it to someone else!
I was hit and threatened with stick by a stepfather I lived in fear so did my brother . So I hate seeing child abuse.

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