WWYD - witnessing potential child abuse in public?

[Lilwelshyrs]

Saturday - busy London cafe in the pouring rain. DH and I are sat outside under the canopy as there is nowhere to sit down inside. Next to us is a family - mum, dad ds and dd.
DH and I are chatting away when our attention is pulled to a small commotion to our right. I look round and the dad has grabbed his DS by what looks like his collar and is very aggressively telling him off for being silly in the rain. The boy has been lifted off the floor and looks very uncomfortable. He's approx 7/8 years old. Dad is saying things along the lines of "how many times do we have to tell you to stop it?". Mum just stands not looking.
Then DD sticks her leg out into a stream of water dropping down from the canopy. Dad flips and doesn't exactly shout, but instead goes right into her face and tells her off - not a simple "you don't do that - you will get wet and cold"... It was nasty. DS is crying.
My DH and I make a loud comment on how there is no need to be like that with children - we didn't intervene.
Then Mum walks away with DS and dad and DD are left in silence. DD is about 4 years old. When mum and DS come back, it's clear he's been crying. I hear him saying "dad really hurt me".
Dad sort of apologises but follows it with a "you deserved it" type of comment.

DH and I were in total shock as the family walked away.
That was Saturday afternoon and I have been wracking my brains with what I should have done.

Should I have done anything?
Things ive read say that I should alert authorities and keep the children in my sight whilst waiting for them to appear... Others say that you are supposed to say something. Frankly, I was scared of jumping in... Should I have done? I was in such shock at the time and I've never come across it in public before.

I have been on the recieving end of aggressive verbal abuse as a child - at the hands of my step father. Neither my dad or my mum stepped in out of fear. So I know what it's like.

What would you do?

If you ever witness anything similar in the future, try what the poster up thread said about being kind instead. PA comments aren't the best way to approach these things, but sometimes it's difficult to think rationally when you're faced with a situation like the one you've described.

I wouldn't necessarily call it 'child abuse'. It was clearly an abusive incident, but it doesn't mean that there is ongoing abuse at home iyswim?

I think the fact that you're so upset by the incident probably means there was a certain nastiness about it which is difficult to convey in writing(?).

All parents lose their temper from time to time. My mum threw a mug at me once during my teenage years and it was totally out of character for her (and I really did deserve it tbh!). But the fact remains that this man was in public and was still not able to behave in a more controlled manner.

The point I was making about the wife/husband scenario before is that the physical aggression is not acceptable 'just because' he's a child.

The dad's behaviour was disrespectful and he should be setting an example for his DCs. A one off incident, ok not great but if it's a one off then I doubt they'll be scarred. If it's a regular thing then the DCs are basically learning that it is ok to physically intimidate others.

I agree with the PPs about seeing it from the children's POV. Imagine how upsetting it would be to be grabbed in that manner. Again, if it's a one off then ok, it's forgivable.

I don't really understand the analogy re the car in the road. Obviously being grabbed by the arm is preferable to being hit by a moving car. That's a situation where you'd need to act instantly to avoid somebody being injured, and you could explain to your DD afterwards.

Daria, my point about the car analogy is that a child saying 'You really hurt me!' doesn't mean abuse took place.
You can explain to the child but IME most kids won't take it on board because from their perspective they're so upset about being hurt by a parent.
(In fact, I almost wonder if the fact that the child was saying 'dad really hurt me' is an indicator that this doesn't happen often and therefore that this is unlikely to be an abusive parent. Children who are abused have usually learnt to be quiet about it, sadly, because they know that protesting leads to further abuse.)

I am amazed that pp are saying that it must be abuse because the mum didnt step in.
I have often disagreed with dh parenting, I do not undermine him by telling him in front of dc. If I was this mum I would have told him what I thought of his behaviour when we were alone!

As for getting down to the 4yr olds level to chastise her, this is good parenting as its less intimidating for them.

He apologised and the dc were not afraid to tell their parents how they felt.

I would think bad parenting moment not abuse.

I just want to post in support op as I think you've had a hard time here.

I think the fact it stuck in your mind so means it was a step beyond one of those 'end of our tether' moments we've all had?

To those who are so dismissive that this could indicate abuse, I want to say, what exactly do you think verbal, emotional or physical abuse looks like? Where are you drawing the line? What exactly would the father have had to have done for you to say he is abusive? I'm not goading, I mean it seriously.

Please don't forget that emotional abuse can have far greater consequences for the child going forward than physical abuse.

This boy was picked up by clothing around the neck by an angry man who was shouting at him. The mum wasn't shocked. The young daughter had an angry man shouting in her face for a minor annoyance.

That looks like an abuse scenario to me.

Also, abused children don't always keep quiet. For one, the abuser is often unpredictable, so fine with a certain behaviour one day, snaps wildly the next. The DC don't know what it is that they are going to do that will tip the abuser over the edge. And these DC are still quite young.

Hi OP.

It IS difficult to give a script re what to say as I think gut feeling when you are there is really important.

I just know there are times I have seen this sort of thing and I think that making some sort of sympathetic noise to the parents (which doesn't judge the listening child) like: 'Oh, sometimes it can be a long day, huh? / I remember those times ' accompanied by a big smile / or a kind remark of some kind, can often defuse the situation as the parent feels 'heard' in their situation and this will defuse anger usually.

You can then smile at child and say: how are you? what have you been up to today? I am just off to cinema / home / shops' - anything as long as it is normal calm adult interaction.

It sounds weedy but it can help?

Glad you came back, OP. I've been thinking about the similar incident I wrote about upthread - in all the years that I have witnessed parents at the end of their tether and children having meltdowns, that was the only time that I had that queasy feeling that the parent had crossed a line. Not necessarily in their exact physical actions or the volume of their voice, but in the sense that they had lost all sense of proportion and that their aggression was causing fear and distress in the child.

Great post NotQuite.

NotQuite, I don't think you're goading, I think it's a very good question.

I think many, many cases of abuse would be impossible to diagnose from a single snapshot because to the bystander they can look identical to something that's part of normal parenting and you can only be certain what they are when you see the full context. However, things where you can see clearly even as a bystander that something is wrong would include (but not be limited to):
-when a parent causes actual physical harm to a child and it's clearly not accidental
-when a parent is verbally aggressive with a child and it's completely in the absence of any behavioural trigger (I witnessed this on a train once - a woman having a go at her child when he hadn't even done anything, it just came completely out of the blue.)
-when a parent is verbally aggressive to the child in a way that goes beyond the behaviour the child is supposed to have done, eg if a parent started off by telling the child off but then it escalated to them saying the child was worthless, etc.

Disproportionate reactions to minor misbehaviours are always going to be a tricky one because you don't know if it's an abusive parent or a normally good one pushed to breaking point by a series of incidents. If the latter it's obviously non-ideal parenting but not always abuse.

I do think MindReader's advice is excellent, because it supports both parties and thus avoids having to make that difficult judgement call.

he would be reprting someone shouting crossly at him to the police? What on earth crime wiould that be?

sickntired I was referring to the picking him up by his collar, not the shouting.

Fairenuff so by your reasoning we woukd not shout at an adult or tell them off, so we should not do that to a child. Well most parents by this reasoning would be known to SS and their chikd placed on the at risk register.

Aero no, as above, I was talking about the lifting him by his collar.

I'm still shocked at how many posters think that picking up child up by the collar in a temper is ok

The OP has stated that the Father wasn't shouting.

As a former CP SW (I have a long posting history, but haven't been on the board in a while), I will point out that, as people, we vary.

So our level of general "aggression" can seem more than another persons, as can other mannerisms etc. so it is impossible to judge from one incident, what the family situation/dynamics are.

In short, we all grow up in our own family, environment, area and this means that the world is populated by different personality types etc.

I live/work in a rough part of Merseyside, how people live/speak etc would be shocking to many.

The parenting isn't ideal, I have run Parenting courses, but it isn't abusive, as such.

There are a lot of people who accept that whilst their upbringing wasn't ideal, their Parents, didn't have better strategies for handling bad behaviour and a eight year old causing unneccasary damage to a pair of shoes (which may not be easily afforded) is bad behaviour.

As someone who used to come into contact with abused children daily, it's telling that the girl stuck her leg out, after the brother was chastised, that isn't usual behaviour from a child with a parent that is feared. It was a "winding up" act.

I agree that I've heard much worse emotional abuse/blackmail being used, that wouldn't probably hit most peoples/posters radar, weekly, on my travels.

The effects of which are deeper and less easy recoverable than being rough handled slightly more than what is ideal.

I just want to point out that no the father wasn't shouting but it was aggressive. It wasn't calm, it was angry and right in his children's faces :(

Thank you for everyone's responses.

I'm glad that there isn't one answer to this. I feel if faced with a situation where I felt worried for the child, I would like to think I could intervene. I think it's quite a scary experience to say something for fear of repercussions if they are particularly nasty.
I do like the sympathetic approach and perhaps I will try and think faster next time - I was in such shock at the scenario I couldn't think properly. I thought afterwards about making some kind of wet weather joke, but it was a little late.

It wasn't until my mum and I confronted my step dad that he realised what he had been doing. He even said "if I had known what it was doing to you, I'd have stopped..."! He didn't realise the impact his behaviour had on me.

Thank you for your replies. I realise it's never going to be a black and white situation but I'm glad that gut instinct helps and that im not alone in not knowing what to do when faced with that scenario (or worse).

When i see things like this i often wonder whether these parents actually like kids and also why they had them in the first place.

The parents are probably wondering the same thing at the time!