Child beaten

I was on my way home when I noticed a 7-8 year old child standing outside a convenience store. A older young woman was scolding him. Suddenly, ther in front of the store the young man dropped his pant down to full bare butt, and the woman took off her shoe and began BEATING the child on the butt.

I was in the wrong lane at a stop light..............By the time I could get turned around they were gone.

I am deeply troubled by this act..........If the young woman would make the child strip in broad view in public and submit to a beating, what does she do to him at home.

Was he trying to escape and got caught? Should I have blocked traffic and jumped out of my jeep to assist? Should I have stuck my nose into someone's family issues?

I post this in the religion section because I do believe the bible "spare the rod, spoil the child", but, in my mind that is a private issue to be handled at home, BUT, not to the point of abuse.................

I fear for this child..the woman was very young, perhaps early 20's herself. This is the same town that was home to the "(father)" who murdered his 3 month old son by stomping on his head, just days ago.

This is all very insane..................

I do not know to what extent this "beating" took place. However, if you could see some of the children that I have seen, I'm pretty sure you would not be so bothered.

I am in my 20s. I have seen more former classmates of mine killed or jailed because of poor choices they made. Their parents' attitude toward the behavior was simply that the negative behavior was nonexistent. I can see so many of the children I work with headed down the same path simply because their parents will not reprimand them.

Sometimes, a "good talking to" does not do the job. What if the child was caught stealing? What if the child assulted someone?

I do believe that there are other ways of discipline besides spanking, but not everyone knows different teqniques or believes in them. They figure that they were spanked as children and they came out okay.

Sometimes it takes forever for you to find the technique that works well as a form of discipline. So if your child is beating up his or her teacher (which does happen from pre-K on up) do you just go with trial and error and hope that this particular technique works? Do you do what normally works like taking away privelages even though you do the same for a lesser offense? there is so much gray area when it comes to discipline.

I in no way deny that abuse does occur, and many times parents may get carried away with a spanking due to their own anger or frustrations. I in no way could deny that children often mirror behaviors displayed at home and sometimes dont understand why mommy can do it but they cant, making spanking alone pretty crude. I also in no way deny that children know that they can get away with anything, and no one can legally lay a finger on them (at least where I am)!

The main issue here is was she doing it out of anger or was she doing it because she genuinely wants to extinguish a bad behavior. Was the "beating" that took place severe enought to cause injury, or just a sore backside for a while? I do think it would have been better for her to wait until she got home to do so if she wanted him to get bare backed though.

Uh. Did you call the police (yes, gasp! the police).

I dont know what else to add to this, except, I have witnessed a child being knocked around (not spanked), and I called 911 immiediately.

Originally posted by greeneyedleo
Uh. Did you call the police (yes, gasp! the police).

I dont know what else to add to this, except, I have witnessed a child being knocked around (not spanked), and I called 911 immiediately.

Being knocked around, to me, is totally unacceptable. I will never forget that I saw a parent beat up her child. I mean seriously punching the kid in the back and the chest. Another parent I saw knocked her son in the head (who was obviously already suffering from some type of mental issue). I was a kid around 7 or 8 and at that time didnt think to tell anyone, but its people like her that make physical discipline such a sticky issue. It is so hard to draw the line from discipline to abuse.

Whenever I see children with serious mental stresses and issues, I naturally think of the parents.

I don't remember a single spanking that helped me. I just became more vigilant in my stealth and acted out in other ways. And the worst punishments left painful imprints on me that haven't left.

When I discovered direction it was around the same time that I had way more control over myself. This direction originated much from my mother, who always held core positive values/wisdom.


It depends on the circumstances. In some cases I would get out and do something, because it becomes wrong and illegal.

You can only direct someone so much, and control one to only a certain age.

[edit on 5/2/2008 by Nyorai]

The proper action would have been to call the police with a description of those involved and the location. A license plate number would have helped, too, if you could have gotten one.

Getting personally involved in such an incident, unless the child was in mortal danger, would not have been advisable.

In many states, it is the law that one must report even suspected child abuse and you can be held legally accountable if you don't do so, although it is sometimes hard to prove in the case of ordinary citizens, but for professionals, this is a major concern.

It's hard to know what to do in such a situation if you've never been in that position before, but I would suggest that you get a copy of the Children's Code in your state and call Child Protective Services and ask them how to handle such a situation in the future. You can do that anonymously and any report of suspected child abuse can be made anonymously, as well.

My parents had 6 kids and they spanked us and we all turned out just fine. We didin't make the same mistake twice.

Originally posted by UScitizen
My parents had 6 kids and they spanked us and we all turned out just fine. We didin't make the same mistake twice.

I was raised the same way, and could not agree with you more. Good for you!

A swat on the butt as a reminder of boundaries is one thing. By the account here, this is a bit beyond that. I, too, was spanked as a child; my parents were not overly strict, but we knew to a "T" where the boundaries were.

Deciding to get involved is a tough call. Calling 911, maybe even physically stepping between the adult and the child, I've done both. It's tough, its scary, and it can lead to unforeseen consequences, you might be wrong, who can know? We aren't omniscient. But to do nothing, if you see something like this is wrong. I'll ere on the side of stopping it every time.

Grady, You're more knowledgeable in this area than I. How do the Good Samaritan Laws apply here? Or do they apply at all? In regard to those unforeseen consequences I mentioned.

[edit on 8-2-2008 by seagull]

Lets see now... I, as a kid received lickings with a stick till it broke in two, Strapped with a belt, back handed, punched in the face and pretty much hated my tormentor. I never had to drop my pants in public though......

The good news is, I, by my own choice turned out rather well.

Originally posted by seagull
Grady, You're more knowledgeable in this area than I. How do the Good Samaritan Laws apply here? Or do they apply at all? In regard to those unforeseen consequences I mentioned.

Laws vary by state, but I think it's in everyone's interest to read the children's code for his state and to have some idea of how to handle such a situation.

A few weeks ago, a man was moved into the apartment above. Because of the noise coming from that apartment I approached a couple of men who were exiting the apartment and asked them about the noise.

The said that the resident was disturbed in some way that I don't remember now, but that they worked for an agency and one of them was his caretaker, but they gave me no information regarding whom they worked for.

The other day, I was bringing in some groceries and that guy and his "caretaker" were having some sort of problem out front and the guy who lives there asked me to call 911.

I asked what the problem was and he said that the caretaker wouldn't let him go where he wanted to go.

Now, I'm familiar with such situations and I'm sympathetic to those who are charged with dealing with such problems.

I asked him if the person with which he was having the problem was his caretaker and the caretaker answered in the affirmative.

I asked him to show me some sort of ID to confirm his authority over the other individual.

He rudely refused.

I told him that he was leaving me no choice but to call the police.

He said that was fine with him.

So, I took my groceries inside and called the police and explained the situation and why I was calling.

When I was a Social Worker, I was required by law to produce my ID upon request.

I felt that if this person had a legal right to detain the other that he would know that producing an ID would be the easiest way to send me on my way.

His refusing to comply with my request was grounds enough for me to assume that he had no such authority and that I had no ethical recourse than to report the incident.

The police responded, but I haven't followed up on it.

Frankly, I don't care, but I suspect that when the report is filed, there will be some retraining among members of that agency regarding how to respond to such situations.

With almost everyone having a cell phone, it's not that hard to get someone on the line to give advice on how to handle a situation.

Unless there is a situation where death or great bodily harm is immanent, there is probably no reason to become personally involved, but child abuse does not have to involve death or great bodily harm.

By the way, I didn't call 911, because there was no indication that there was an emergency. I called the main switchboard and filed the report and the police took it from there.

Even if nothing comes of that incident, there is now a record of it. If something like that happens again and someone calls the police, there will be another report and so on.

I could have remained anonymous, but I chose to give my name.


[edit on 2008/2/9 by GradyPhilpott]