Witnessing abuse of children

[PosieParker]

I've been reading a fair few threads recently about adults who witness parents being vile to children and do nothing about it. I have on a number of occasions phoned the police when children/babies don't have car seats, reported a woman who smacked, what looked like, her granddaughter and shoved here in a van with no seats, confronted a woman that threatened to smack her dds face (she was uber rough and the little girl was about six) she also threatened the little girl with her father when she got home, the list goes on. I have never been hit although threatened.

Am I unreasonable to think it's just me who speaks out?

Most people don't intervene because they are worried about themselves and getting abuse not because they think it will make it worse for the child, that comes later when they want to make themselves feel better.

Besides my 'abuse' term was used for some of the cases on here, perhaps 'children being abused' would have been better.

"UP TO two children die from child abuse or neglect every week in Britain, and many more go unrecorded, according to a report by the NSPCC" Independent.,

I like the way you single mine out.

whats your answer on impersonating, thats just as bad so you need to be reported.

you cannot pretend to be in higher authority if you are not, that absurd

Fair play to PP for having the bollocks to step in and do what she thinks was right at, presumably a level of risk to herself. I'm not sure I would always be able to do that. Too few people (including myself) act on the courage of their convictions.

That being said PP, I'm not sure that it is generally the best or most sensible thing to do for two reasons.

Firstly, as many have said, it is only a snapshot. It may feel like it suggests more, and it might, but you've just got no way of knowing in that instant. That means there is a real risk you misunderstand the situation, either in whole or in terms of severity. It is very different to seeing a child in these type of situations repeatedly.

Secondly, intervening yourself may make the situation worse for the child as you're not in any position to follow up. It could just simply inflame a tiny incident into something much bigger or, at worst, where a child really is being abused, lead to far worse treatment out of your sight. The point is that because you can't follow up (and they know that) your intervention may make things worse rather than better.

On the other hand, I do think it is obviously fair to intervene where there is a real risk of harm to a child (e.g. one poster said about a parent holding their kid underwater). But I suspect in reality, the number of times you see a situation like this are few and far between.

A very good point SF. But PP just sounds like she's on a bit of a crusade, and tbh I'd rather spend my time improving my own behaviour than worrying about everybody else's. If everyone did what she did there might possibly be less effing and blinding and slapping of small toddlers but there might also be a lot more misunderstandings and instances of concerned do-gooder types getting hit in the street.

And the car seat thing is a step too far. That's the police's job.

ES....The car seat thing is too far? WFT? My school friend was killed not having a seat belt, how is reporting a criminal offence to the Police going to far. A bit of a crusade with 4/5 confrontations in at least 8 years?

How do you write the reg down? if you are driving

So what if PP is on a crusade? A crusade to stop children being mistreated? Why shouldn't she be?

PP has raised three situations where she intervenes - when she sees abuse, neglect, or disregard of child safety.

Amazed that at least half the people in this thread seem to think that is unreasonable. The child can't help themselves. The authorities need to get involved, and THEY can decide if it was a one-off "bad day" incident or something more serious.

Ridiculous to accuse her of unwarranted interference. She cares and she has the balls to do something about it.

Good for you PP.

I was having a hard time with DD and judgy people today, then she was crying/tantrumming about something and a smartass teenage boy said "Jeezo" to wind me up. I said to myself "little shit", about him and a woman walking past gasped and tutted as she thought I was saying it to DD for crying.

It wasn't a good thing to say in front of DD, I admit, but I was at end of tether, she doesn't understand and I am soo not abusive to her..although that woman thought I was..would be mortified if she called police.

I find this thread and your actions posey, deeply worrying. You have said you experienced/witnessed abuse in your childhood I wonder if this is influencing your reactions/over reactions.As so many have said what you are witnessing is a brief moment you have no knowledge of the surrounding circumstances. Have you ever considered the repercussions of your actions, thought about the impact a visit from the police/ social worker could have on a possibly already stressed parent? Also while I have a strict no hitting policy (have been known to growl and shriek! but not obscenities yet!) I would not feel in the position to class a slap as abuse. I was raised by wonderful, loving parents but i was smacked on occassion, not beaten, battered or abused, like most children raised in the 70s and still in many other countries, i was smacked when I really overstepped the mark. One of the best bits of advice my dad gave me is there is no right way to bring up a child just your way,(obviously he was excluding battering/abusing your child) people have many different ways of raising children, is a possibly one off public smack worse than a perfectly publicly presentable childhood, marked by coldness and indifference but no common raised voices or smacks, where would your reporting stop?. Your comment re different fathers smacks of snobbery to me. Am glad you don't appear to live in London the met couldn't cope

I feel absolutly awful reading this thread I suffer with very severe depression and have sometimes lost my temper with DD while out and about and shouted at her or growled. I feel awful afterwards and do try and explain to her but I never realised people would think I was abusing her just for that one time they see of us.

DD is a happy friendly very intelligent child as any of her teachers would tell you shes not abused in anyway shes truly very loving and she trys to understand that Mummys not well and sometimes that makes Mummy angry but to think all these people could me thinking that I'm hurting my daughter or abusing her in some way is heartbreaking to me. I'm doing the best I can do. I never threaten violence but I have used "Wait til I tell your Dad" because sometimes I just can't cope with it all. I'm seeing a therapist who has no concerns at all about my Daughter as she has told me if she did she would inform me before reporting to SS. Please don't judge everyone on this little piece of them you see you don't know whats going on behind closed doors. Thats where abuse will happen nine times out of ten where no one can see it.

Reporting and confronting are two seperate things- as Altinkum says, the confrontation can often put the child at greater risk.

If you see something which worries you, report to police/SS and let them do their job, ie ascertain whether or not abuse has taken/is taking place. Sometimes they will get it wrong. It doesn't mean that you have to do their job for them.

SS Leave children with verbally abusive parents who also hit and slap, because they couldn't possibly cope with the number of children they'd have to remove.

The parent/s being alcoholic/addicts (not in recovery) isn't in itself considered enough of a reason to remove children.

It's incredibly sad that children grow up with this level of aggression directed at them, and not really surprising when they grow up to become aggressive verbally abusive teens.

This is exactly my problem with your crusade Posie. It doesn't matter how many or how few times you have intervened, everything you have posted on here sounds like you are always keeping an eye out for children without seatbelts because it is something that terrifies you personally. I am genuinely very very sorry about your friend and the tragic accident but you are taking your own personal experience and transposing it on to other people. You are taking just one or two of the 25 billion dangers that are present in the world we live in and homing in on it, making it your business to jump in and point out where other people are making mistakes. When you have small children, even when you think you have every base covered there are still things you forget, sometimes important things. I consider myself paranoid about car and physical safety in general but there have been a couple of times when I've forgotten to strap my children until halfway down the road because both of them were kicking off at the same time and I had to get them into the car in a tight space with horns honking etc. etc.

Posie is taking a lot of unwarranted flak here.

It is because onlookers feel so shy and are so unwilling to challenge abusive behaviour and speech that it continues. The idea that 'everyone can have a bad day, so give a woman growling at her small child, pulling her by the scruff of her neck the benefit of the doubt' is ridiculous in the extreme. I think Posie's judgement of this woman and the child's situation was borne out by the woman's defiant and unashamed reaction. People who feel entitled to treat their children badly will do so in public when many more lines have been crossed at home.

We have all had bad days. How many of us have done what Posie witnessed? An onlooker can form a decent impression of what's going on from just a few minutes of observation. An onlooker really should feel empowered to speak up. It might make all the difference to the child just to hear someone speak up. It might give someone else food for thought.

Riven, I think it would probably be obvious to anyone that your situation was out of the ordinary. But the carseat situation is like the broken taillights or the other vehicular violations that give the police a reasonable reason to pull someone over. It's often part of a pattern of scoff-law or even criminal behaviour to have no regard for the 'small' regulations about road use or passenger safety. Quite a few drivers pulled over initially for some minor violation are found to be in involved in something more significant once a few questions are asked or a visual inspection of the car is made.

"Posie is taking a lot of unwarranted flak here.

It is because onlookers feel so shy and are so unwilling to challenge abusive behaviour and speech that it continues. The idea that 'everyone can have a bad day, so give a woman growling at her small child, pulling her by the scruff of her neck the benefit of the doubt' is ridiculous in the extreme."

I agree with this- my last post sounded unintentionally harsh.

I think reporting is to be encouraged, but confronting is not. You can do a lot of damage by confronting.

Maybe if SS were backed up more by a generally disapproving and unafraid to tell it like it is society there would be fewer cases to deal with?

Where are the statistical studies to prove that?

(BTW, here's a study from the US on abuse, that backs up SomeGuy's (?) assertion from earlier in the thread wrt step-parents/ unrelated adults in the household and risk.

I don't think SS can do anything Altinkum, that's my point. They can only try to intervene in the worst few percent of cases. The vast majority of children that are neglected and/or verbally abused are too well cared for (comparatively) to come under SS remit.

I don't know what could make a difference. I suspect that most of the parents doing the screeching and making threats had the same dished out to them as children. A percentage of their children will adopt the same behaviour when they become parents. I wonder if you, with SS experience, can think of anything that could make a difference.

What's the difference between those who experience it as children and make sure they don't do it to their own children and those who get caught in the cycle and see it as an acceptable way to behave.