What will you do if you saw someone smacking their child on the street?
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What will you do if you saw someone smacking their child on the street?This is a very interesting article i saw in the Daily Mail today.
To me, there's not a lot you can do really, only in exceptional cases will i call the police.
This was posted from The Student Room's Android App on my GT-I9100 -
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Re: What will you do if you saw someone smacking their child on the street?This.(Original post by Skarm)
Nothing, unless it actually looked like the parent was going to cause the child serious harm.
There is a major difference between giving a child a whack on the bum if they are being out of control and beating them. Also depends what the child did. If they were running around screaming uncontrollably (then i'd have to question the parenting techniques) compared it it sitting there in silent then asking the parent a question as that is plain abuse. -
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Re: What will you do if you saw someone smacking their child on the street?Not a great deal - assuming reasonable force. Most people - irrespective of what they say here - would do nothing anyway, that's just the way it is. If I thought they were abusing the child I like to think I would act but it is all so situational.
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Re: What will you do if you saw someone smacking their child on the street?Nothing. If the child needs a slap then the parent is an idiot for not teaching them right in the first place. That may seem ignorant and blunt but that's how I see it. Cause comes before consequence in this world
Physical discipline may be necessary (not a whack to the face but a pat on the bottom, sure) to fix the situation.Last edited by Occams Chainsaw; 05-07-2012 at 09:09. -
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Re: What will you do if you saw someone smacking their child on the street?Seriously? Smacking is the lazy way out of true discipline. I'd rather take a 'Supernanny' approach and actually have them question their own behaviour and why it was wrong (which children can do at 2!), have consequences but not ones that could end in physical injury. Most children are at their best behaved in a nursery, pre-school or school setting and obviously teachers and school staff never smack.(Original post by coca)
Think "thank God, there are actually still some parents around who bother to discipline their kids".
Smacking just isn't necessary and if someone was willing to smack their child in public what the hell are they doing in private? I think if I saw it I would just give them a shocked/disapproving glance, but then that depends on the circumstances and seriousness of the smack...if it was in my school I'd have to report it for safeguarding reasons.
This whole debate infuriates me, those who think that people who don't smack aren't enforcing discipline is not the case, it's those who have no discipline whatsoever or just smack without explanation who are letting their kids run riot. Some parents need showing how to parent and could do with watching Supernanny and Tanya's House of Tiny Tearaways or taking a few parenting classes. -
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Re: What will you do if you saw someone smacking their child on the street?aaaand on the other hand, a swift smack on the bottom that doesn't actually hurt the child isn't exactly child abuse.(Original post by balloon_parade)
Seriously? Smacking is the lazy way out of true discipline. I'd rather take a 'Supernanny' approach and actually have them question their own behaviour and why it was wrong (which children can do at 2!), have consequences but not ones that could end in physical injury. Most children are at their best behaved in a nursery, pre-school or school setting and obviously teachers and school staff never smack.
Smacking just isn't necessary and if someone was willing to smack their child in public what the hell are they doing in private? I think if I saw it I would just give them a shocked/disapproving glance, but then that depends on the circumstances and seriousness of the smack...if it was in my school I'd have to report it for safeguarding reasons.
This whole debate infuriates me, those who think that people who don't smack aren't enforcing discipline is not the case, it's those who have no discipline whatsoever or just smack without explanation who are letting their kids run riot. Some parents need showing how to parent and could do with watching Supernanny and Tanya's House of Tiny Tearaways or taking a few parenting classes.
different people have different parenting techniques.
supernanny's approach doesn't work for everybody. take it from somebody who has tried both the naughty step, and the reward chart, and neither have been terribly successful. every family is different. -
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Re: What will you do if you saw someone smacking their child on the street?I don't think smacking is necessary at all, but often parents still do it depending on their own views as well as how they might have been brought up, etc. How a parent chooses to discipline their child is up to them, and although I'd feel uncomfortable, I don't think I'd intervene unless, as others have said, it looked like serious harm could be done.
What makes me more uncomfortable is the idea that it's probably only because the parent is in public that they aren't being much worse than they might be at home, but equally it's probably wrong for me to assume that and they could well be loving parents who were just exasperated at that moment in time. -
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Re: What will you do if you saw someone smacking their child on the street?Indeed; but what is this supernanny's approach really?(Original post by PinkMobilePhone)
aaaand on the other hand, a swift smack on the bottom that doesn't actually hurt the child isn't exactly child abuse.
different people have different parenting techniques.
supernanny's approach doesn't work for everybody. take it from somebody who has tried both the naughty step, and the reward chart, and neither have been terribly successful. every family is different. -
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Re: What will you do if you saw someone smacking their child on the street?And to all the other posters, wait until you have your own kids, or at least have the experienced of dealing with and taking care of difficult kids, then you could judge whether or not smacking the kids is abuse or teaching a sense of discipline
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Re: What will you do if you saw someone smacking their child on the street?(Original post by paddy__power)
Not a great deal - assuming reasonable force. Most people - irrespective of what they say here - would do nothing anyway, that's just the way it is. If I thought they were abusing the child I like to think I would act but it is all so situational.
I always wonder if the people that feel the need to point this out are trying to subtly apologise for the fact that they themselves would be one of those willing to stand by as something bad happened. -
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Re: What will you do if you saw someone smacking their child on the street?I don't think there's anything wrong with a smack that slightly shocks but doesn't hurt the child. However I once saw a parent completely lose it in a shopping centre once, and hit their son on the backside repeatedly whilst shouting (yes, with everyone watching). If this was happening to teenagers, or a grown couple, something would have been done- yet because it was parent and child everyone just ignored it. I went up to them and told her that if she didn't stop I would call the police, to which she replied "it's none of your business, when you have kids you'll do anything to shut them up" but the child was NOT accepting punishment quietly, I've never seen a more distressed child. I actually felt bad letting her leave with him but what else could I have done!
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Re: What will you do if you saw someone smacking their child on the street?This.(Original post by kka25)
And to all the other posters, wait until you have your own kids, or at least have the experienced of dealing with and taking care of difficult kids, then you could judge whether or not smacking the kids is abuse or teaching a sense of discipline
I love how people are questioning other people's parenting skills on a hypothetical spur of the moment reaction. You don't realise how hard it is to make the right decisions all day every day, until you have your own children! That's not to say that smacking is right (or wrong!) but just that a child's bad behaviour does not always stem from 'bad parenting'...We all have off days, parents and children included. -
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Re: What will you do if you saw someone smacking their child on the street?It's a fair thing to wonder. Often you are probably right but it isn't the case with me. I make no promises that I would act but I like to think I would and believe I would and even if I believed I wouldn't I would feel no need to apologise for that (subtly or otherwise). You are of course free to draw your own conclusions as you see fit(Original post by concubine)
I always wonder if the people that feel the need to point this out are trying to subtly apologise for the fact that they themselves would be one of those willing to stand by as something bad happened.
