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

[Kira4]

I was at an airport this morning and there was a mum behind me speaking (imo) quite harshly to her kids. It made me really uncomfortable and I really wanted to say something but chickened out I’m ashamed to say.

A few years ago I saw something similar in a restaurant and my ex husband persuaded me not to say anything but it bothered me for ages afterwards that we didn’t (not that I’d have known what to say).
On the flight today, a man did later challenge the mum and I felt it escalated things and made it more upsetting for the children. None of the cabin crew or anything got involved and most people kept their heads down.

Does anyone have any good advice for dealing with these situations in a way that won’t escalate them but also won’t leave me feeling guilty for not saying or doing something?

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.

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

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 🤣

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.

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?

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?

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.

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.

Did you report her? That’s terrifying

I’d like to think it was the crew as they’d have their information. I was a bit surprised they didn’t get involved at all but maybe they were taking notes etc to report

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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

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.

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.

Yes I think it must have been.

I never suggested asking the child anything. I'm just questioning why people seem to have a stronger urge to sympathise with and justify the actions of the parent (the aggressor in this situation) when I really don't think the instinct would be the same in a scenario with two adults (especially where one was much bigger and stronger and the other was frightened).

I think it's easy for you to be judgemental when you don't know the build up to that one small moment you saw. They could have been right vile naughty little so and sos and she could have been at the end of her tether - airports and getting on holiday is bloody stressful at the best of times without adding unruly kids in the mix and some snotty holier than thou looking down their nose at her

Kill her with kindness. Sympathise at how stressful it dealing with tired kids in am airport but compliment her on her well behaved kids.

Like you say challenging her could make it worse for the kids.

I don't have a solution OP, but I have been in similar situations over the years and felt like shit for not doing anything, but also been afraid of making things worse.

I think you can tell whether it is a "cut them some slack" situation or a "something is not right here, this feels bad" situation. Sometimes it is easier to pretend it is the former when we know it is the latter because that allows us to see ourselves as tolerant and balanced adults rather than people who don't know what to do when we see abusive parenting, and this is hopefully where the "mind your own business" responses are coming from.

Has anyone ever made a citizens’ arrest in this kind of situation? Is that still a thing?

10 years ago I saw a woman berating her child in a park. Her husband looked really awkward and scared of her. Her poor kid just wanted to sit at the side and run his fingers through dirt (he was about 3 or 4) and she was really annoyed with him for not wanting to go on the equipment. I still think about him and wonder how he is getting on. I am not sure if I should have said anything I was quite a new parent myself at the time. His dad looked lovely, I hope he managed to stick up for his kid.