Would you hit someone else’s child?

[Wtfneighbour]

or their parent? Keeping this hypothetical..

if your child was being bullied and the school were not doing anything about it, the parents couldn’t care less, and a child was physically hurting your child. At what point would you intervene be it physically verbally or otherwise?

On the same note, would you hit a teacher if you had evidence they were bullying or harming your child?

has this ever been socially acceptable in your eyes? Past or present? I’ll explain why I’m asking once I’ve read your thoughts.

It’s never been ok to hit a teacher or another adult working at a school and while it clearly has happened in the past (and still happens now) there would be repercussions.

the parent could be banned from the school site (surprisingly frequent occurrence) and depending on what actually happened the parent could be charged with assault or similar.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/mar/04/school-leaders-england-wales-northern-ireland-say-parents-have-abused-them?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

If anyone was being physical with my child and not stopping when intervening in other ways, I would absolutely use force to stop them and if that meant hitting then so be it. The scenario I'm imagining is pushing them away with force, but it would be a last resort. So I guess only in self-defence if necessary, not as a retaliation.
If it was a case of none stop bullying and nobody was doing anything about it, to be honest I'm not sure what I would or wouldn't do. I wouldn't go and punch a teacher, but I'd probably tell my child to hit back. Occasionally in life I do think someone needs to get hurt / something bad needs to happen for people to actually do something about it, but that's a generalisation I'm making based on how little authorities seem to care these days when you go through the proper routes or don't kick up any fuss.

One bully deliberately pushed me in front of a car which hit me and hospitalised me. This was after years of bullying, sexual assaults and trying to get the school or his parents to deal with it.

My dad waited for him after school, got him by the throat and roared at him that he'd had enough and if he ever touched, looked at or spoke to me again, he would kill him and anyone who tried to protect him. Bully pissed himself in fear and never bothered me again. Word got around that my dad was "mental" and my problems were solved overnight. No one touched me again. We were 15 at this point. So a teen, yeah, if it was justified, I can see why an adult might be tempted to give them a taste of their own medicine.

An actual child, no. No way. If parents want to smack their own kids as discipline, it's legal so that's up to them but you don't smack someone else's. I'd physically break up a fight if I had to and be none too gentle about it but that's as far as I'd go, personally.

our grandparent historically has battered parents over bullying and has also scragged a teacher or two. Most notably having a dinner lady by the throat in the canteen. Says it was normal back then and that’s how things were handled.

Nothing about this is normal in any normal place. Not sure why you are posting OP. Do you want us to tell you your parent/grandparent was violent - yeah they were. Do you want us to tell you it was all justified if the dinner lady said "no more beans" to their child - no it wasn't.

Seriously this thread can't be real - read what I quoted abov Who thinks this is normal? who needs to be told this wasn't normal back whenever?

Like what fucking time in the world or in the UK was is it considered reasonable and legal to take a dinner lady by the throat in the canteen.

Grow up.

Obviously it wasn’t normal behaviour OP - your nan sounds like a fishwife.

The only scenario I can even conceive in which an adult might hit a child is if they were attacking you personally/or if you were watching them beat up your kid. And even then, it would be a proportionate response to their size and age that is more likely to look like a push/holding their arms, rather than hitting.

And ofc I wouldn't hit a teacher. If there was a teacher who was a bully, I would report them. Again, I'd only hit in self defense or to physically protect my child from harm.

If they were physically harming my child and nothing else has worked and my child was in danger/very distressed I’m not going to say I never would.

I'm a primary school teacher and in the early days of my career I was threatened, cornered, grabbed and yelled at by parents a handful of times. It was over issues like lost, unlabelled items of uniform, child not being given X part in nativity, sports day teams, an end of week certificate and missing dinner money respectively. Some parents at that school felt that getting physical with a meek 22-year old was absolutely fair game.

Definetly not

I was attacked by two school mums who claimed my 5 year old was bullying there's. He had fell into one of their children at PE time snd both children had banged heads ( saw by teacher who told them it was an accident ) they harassed me and intimidated me for 18 months after before they finally got bored. I was anorexic at the time, I'm 5'1 and both of these women were double the size of me.

He's just recently been diagnosed with dyspraxia 🤦‍♀️

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I have a friend whose child is always complaining about being bullied.... he isn't being bullied..... kids annoy each other and he gets really angry about it and flips. His mum is in school every other day complaining that he's being picked on.... same child has just had a 2 day in school exclusion for being violent but according to his mum he's reacting to the bullying....

No. Never.

Parents physically attacking teachers and dinner ladies absolutely was not the norm when my children were going to school in the 1990s.

It would have been classed as assault and the police would have been called and the parents arrested.

No, I'd never hit anyone, unless I or someone I love was being physically attacked by someone violent and needed to defend myself or them to survive in the moment.

What do you expect everyone to say ??? Course it’s wrong to hit anyone unless you want to be arrested jeez ! Pointless thread

Your family sound rough as toast. And not normal at all.

I work with someone like this who thinks it's justified to attack the parents for the actions of the children. She is unhinged and often makes comments that she doesn't have any mum friends. It's not a flex civilized people don't act this way.

Your grandparent is a violent scumbag.

What does scragged mean? How do you Scragg someone?

You grab them by the clothes, sometimes hair and shake/push them about. It's a shake combined with a grab.
Re dinner ladies, a parent would usually confront them outside school, people tended to be local. Back in the 70/80s I've known a few nasty ones to get threatened. If things continued, it would get physical. If you watch really old, coronation street, there were physical fights and a lot of shouting matches, that how things were. There was an abuse of power by our teachers. It was only the threat of an irate parent waiting for them, that kept them in check. Middle class people had absolute power.

Over the years I've come across families like this..they exist even now.
The only incident I had was being bullied by a much older girl..around 1976, I was around 10 and she must have been 14ish from a rough local family. She started on me not realising my DGF was in our garden and could see her hitting and pushing me egged on by her 'gang', he picked up a big stick and walked very purposefully towards her. Once she realised he was there she ran so he turned round, walked straight to her house and 'had words' with her father. He also 'had words' at work...more visits from the local plod was the result. Bullying stopped. He never raised a hand to anyone in his life so I'm sure she wouldn't have got a wallop..but she will never know.

No of course not because apart from the morals of it i don't want to be charged with assault
I'm 52 in a few weeks it was more socially acceptable to hit/ smack children in the past by parents and teachers ,I for example remember getting smacked across the legs by a teacher at primary school for dropping a crisp packet in the playground, that doesn't make it right ,but it certainly happened ime.

I think with bullies you have to verbally go for the jugular (peer to peer), and be prepared to physically take them on- why martial arts are good for kids.

With teachers you need to be polite but very firm. I haven’t engaged a child in the playground, but know people who have, and think they all are glad they did.

Your family's proper scummy.

What you describe was never normal and I went to school in the 70s early 80s when things could be a bit rough but never that rough.
A dinner lady by the throat is he insane?
If any of the above really happened.

Sounds like a rough old family. I've never known it to happen, not in my sons days at school, nor mine.

Name changed for this. My mum once picked up a child who had been bullying me and threw him into a hedge. Sounds bad, but she’d happened to be walking past the bust stop when we were dropped off and seen him push me into the road into oncoming traffic, so I think it was a reaction.
His parents came round to complain, she told them what had happened and funnily enough he got bollocked, no repercussions on her.
So, absolutely not and your grandparent sounds like they glory in the violence and aren’t a nice person, but sometimes it does happen and isn’t bad per se.