today I witnessed child abuse but don't know the family - how to report?

[WoolyMammoth55]

Is there anyone in child safeguarding etc or SS who can advise what to do?

Nutshell: at a kids party today I witnessed parents 'discipline' their unruly child in a very abusive manner - adult father trying to restrain child (no older than 7) and ended up literally kneeling on him for several minutes. Child was very upset, in pain, and sobbing for him to get off.

Mother was present and witnessed, was apologising for child's behaviour but not batting an eye at what the father was doing.

I'm ashamed that in the moment I froze - was wrangling my own kids and the situation escalated suddenly, I couldn't believe what was happening on some level and did nothing to help the child.

I can't get it out of my mind and feel distraught that I didn't intervene at the time. Genuinely sick at the thought of what's going on behind closed doors if that can happen in public at a birthday party. Definitely feel I must report.

However, I don't know this child or the family at all. Can't think of any reason to ask the party host for their info - if I did it would surely identify me once there was a report. Honestly I am a little bit scared of the violent father, if he knew I'd reported and could find out where we live...

Does anyone have any suggestions how I could help this child?

Perhaps the thing to remember about reporting is that the will not come in and just grab the child, take him away and have him fostered/adopted or arrest the parents. They will investigate and could result in the authorities doing nothing because all is ok (or as we have sometimes seen because they are overwhelmed), classing it as abuse or getting parents help. So reporting doesn't always have a terrible outcome. Sometimes for struggling parents, an official investigation may be the only way they get help because their own requests for help have been ignored

It is not your job, or any other posters job, to decide if this was abuse or not so ignore those saying it might not be as bad as it looks.

It is our job to report things like this so the professionals can decide. Report it x

I haven’t read the whole thread, kneeling isn't great but as someone who has had to restrain a child many times then it's a really fine balance. Parents aren't allowed to be taught "official" safe restraint methods as once we've done NVR we're meant to prevent every outburst.

If I tried to tight hug my child having a meltdown I'd have a broken nose. I spent years with constant injuries and no one cared.

It could be that the child has a condition and they were restraining him for his and others safety. It can look horrific I remember being trained in it for my job and recoiling at it. Until I realised it was absolutely necessary.

@hamstersarse yes doesn't it at the very least people talk to others ,

I have an autistic child who needs to be restrained to protect himself/others. He will be crying and saying ow, you're hurting me, even when I know I am 100% not using force to hurt him(he just doesnt like to be restrained), just stopping him from hurting himself/others until he can calm down. It is very distressing to me.
I can imagine if a witness saw this with no context they could imagine I was an abusive parent using force and hurting my child.

Obviously, I wouldn't be kneeling on them etc. I'm just saying that things aren't always what they seem.
I think if you're confident of the context eg the child wasn't having a meltdown hurting others/themselves, but just being 'naughty' in a normal way, I would report it.

Have you spoken to the host @WoolyMammoth55 ? They will have a bit more background.

Kneeling on anyone in order to restrain them is incredibly dangerous, more so an adult on a small child.

There have been times when I’ve restrained my autistic son, but this was done by holding him on my knee, or if necessary lying next to him holding him. Had I ever knelt on him I’d fully understand if a witness reported me to the police.
Best case scenario would be crappy parenting and some signposting to either safely restrain, or strategies to avoid having to restrain in the first place.

No child should be knelt on, ever, but it’s so depressing that where a possibly disabled child is involved it’s excused.

Kneeling on him, seriously? 😡

Even if the child was autistic and having a meltdown, what difference does that make to reporting it?

Disabled children are more at risk of abuse, not less.

If the parents are ok with doing this in front of others, then they must think that it's all fine, i.e. they need guidance with parenting. I really hope that you reporting this leads to change for that family.

I saw a grandmother beating a very young child while she walked with 2 children to school. She made no attempt to hide the violence so presumably she thought it acceptable. I did report to the school and they said they would follow up.

Your local authority website will have a
number for social services. You can still report this and give the party host details as a way of identifying the child as well as the child's first name.

Yes this..

And perhaps this MAY be thr case.... BUT IT IS NOT UP TO OP TO ASSESS..!! That's the agencies' job.!!

"I know some with ASD do well with pressure when having a meltdown, is it possible this could have been the case?"

OP do report this. As a parent of an ASD and ADHD child who has had to be restrained for there's and others safety it should not hurt the child ever. If it does it's abuse. There are techniques for restraining a child that can be used safely and will not cause harm.

I too, have had to restrain an autistic child. Kneeling on them would however be incredibly dangerous.

This is one of the things that autistic people were so appalled about in the Sia film. Normalisation of a technique that has actually killed people.

And yes, my two both responded well to pressure, in the form of a firm bear hug. Kneeling on a child is horiffic.

That may be so, but kneeling on a child is abuse, for whatever reason. report it, please, protect the child.

Intervene away, but don't expect any help or change to be forthcoming.

We have to restrain DS less than we used to, but he would say it hurts (and shouts HELP HELP HELP ME) when we are trying to stop him hurting himself or others.

We have had zero help for him or us. Workers come to the house, speak to him, he refuses to speak back, they leave. We know we are on a hair trigger a lot of the time due to having to walk on eggshells around him, plan our every move, and we get cross with him, each other, and our DD. I have been quite depressed and anxious and I can see DH getting anxious too. We have asked for help with our mental health, we have asked for respite, we have got nothing (one worker from CAHMS laughed at us).

Kneeling on them would however be incredibly dangerous.
I hadn't spotted that, and that's not how we restrain. Nevertheless, the parents may (will) have had no training in safe restraint (we asked for this and were told we can't have it because we are parents, not staff, indeed the PA agency we work with was running it and was told they can't train us because we are not staff, even though they were willing to).
And also, our DS does think it hurts, even though we don't (AFAIK, I really have no idea because I have had no training, as I say) do anything unsafe.

This.

We've also had to restrain our autistic DS many times. It's not nice for anybody, least of all DS, but we would sooner restrain him than allow him to cause himself or somebody else a serious injury.

A few examples of this are hitting his father over the head with a glass ornament and causing him to bleed, charging at baby sibling with the intent of hurting him, banging his head on the floor/doors/windows and almost knocking himself out, attempting to run into oncoming traffic, attacking us / his grandmother.

Restraint is the lesser of two evils and is for his sake along with other peoples.

Before we had a disabled child I would have been aghast witnessing a wailing child being physically restrained by caregivers.

Now.. I understand it.

His SEN school teachers are trained to apply restraint safely and painlessly when necessary. Parents are seldom given that training which results in alot of exhausted and desperate parents just trying to control the situation and keep everybody safe in the best way they can.

If you could find out a few more details (address, family name) this would be helpful. You could then contact your local MASH team at your local authority's children's social care department and report your concerns. I am a SW. At the very least they would make contact and make a home visit to investigate further.

Thanks all for the replies and advice, much appreciated.

For what it's worth, nothing I saw indicated to me that the child was being restrained for their own safety. From my POV: child was being rough with other kids and cheeky. Ignored mum's attempt to correct the behaviour verbally. Father then appeared, grabbed child roughly, wrestled to the floor and then knelt with full weight on the child for several minutes while child began to sob.

It looked to me (in hindsight) like a child who experiences/sees violence at home using those same behaviours with their peers. But I am not an expert, I don't know the family, and I could certainly be wrong.

When it happened I was managing my own DC who was in tears due to unruly child, also trying to wrangle my toddler, and generally felt paralysed by the whole situation - we had been singing happy birthday moments before and suddenly an assault was occurring and the mum was ignoring it and apologising for the behaviour of the child. The situation escalated quickly and shockingly and in the moment I froze, which I greatly regret.

I have reported the assault online while waiting on hold calling 101, which was never answered. I have given contact info for host parents and other parents who witnessed it and whose info I have. Hopefully someone will investigate and some support will be given to the child and family.

Are you really, seriously, asking OP why they didn't approach someone who was literally in the middle of the act of committing a violent offense, and give them a cheery hello and a Safe Space to explain away their actions? Ridiculous.

You would never approach someone who was violently assaulting another adult, why are children considered any less "real" victims of adult rage?