Poor child

It is so distressing when we witness children being treated like that little girl. Perhaps it would be worth trying to engage the mother- she may be at the end of her tether and sometimes a kind word can diffuse a situation. Any criticism can make a situation worse and the mother more defensive, but it's difficult, there's no guarantee it will work.

I'm afraid such scenes were common place 50 years ago. It was nothing to see a child being wallopped,clipped round the ear, having ears boxed, or having heads banged together or even being given a fourpenny one!! Thank goodness we are now shocked to see bad behaviour towards children

How terrible, and, of course, intervention could just result in the parent taking it out on the child when she is alone with her.

The thing that gets my goat is seeing babies out in buggies in the cold with no shoes or just socks on. Usually the mother has boots or other more than adequate covering. Grrr!

The casual cruelty of it.

I am sure these episodes we witness are not a 'one off'
Behaviour like this from an adult leads me to believe the abused could eventually become an abuser.
Frightening??.Very much so.

I believe this sort of treatment of children stems from the way these parents were parented themselves. It's sadly all they know. Parenting classes should be made compulsory when there is a suspicion of child abuse, particularly mental torment, which doesn't leave visible marks on the body. It has to be stopped to break the cycle. All very sad indeed, especially when a witness.

What's wrong with speaking out. What are you afraid of, frightened of your own shadow by the sound of it. Child abuse takes on many different forms but it's still abuse. So if you see, hear or even if you suspect abuse have the courage of you convictions and do something about it or are you more concerned about making yourself unpopular. I have no time for people like you LuckyGirl who are not prepared to at least try to right a wrong.

Terribly sad and very difficult to know how to react in such a situation. Intervening may possibly make it even more difficult for the child, particularly as it can't be followed up as the onlooker has no idea where the family is living.

It is frightening to think how living in such a toxic environment will affect a young child. As nannypiano says, poor parenting often creates a vicious cycle where children who are cruelly treated go on to replicate the same behaviour towards their own children.

Ouch, foxie! Bit harsh, that, isn't it? I'd like to think I'd intervene too, but we aren't all created in the same mould, you know. People do what they can, when they can, or live with the guilt of not doing so. Condemn not, lest you be condemned...

I experienced something similar to this at a supermarket. A child fell over in front of the mother's trolley. She was crying and all the mother could shout was 'It's your own fault!'.

I simply couldn't walk on by without saying something, and said to the mother 'She's hurt herself. Don't you care?'

Result - a red faced mother who was probably ashamed.

I hate to see a child dristressed.

That would have really, really upset me. However, even if you had said something in a calm way to the woman there is still clearly a problem and so the child would get it in the neck later.

The most distressing thing about this story is that the poor parenting she is experiencing on the bus in public is cruel. I have experienced similar, a very well off young mum, with a 2/3 yr old toddler and a baby sat her toddler down on a chair at the table in a cafe whilst they waited for the father to come with their drinks, the toddler sat there never made a sound, the mother chided her till she started to cry, when the father arrived the mother told him she'd been a very naughty girl and wouldn't sit still, the injustice of the lie stayed with me for a long time after,
worse still I was powerless to intervene on the child's behalf.

distressed!

Oh, and wow foxie! Agree with GrannyMosh - rather confrontational I must say.

We all react differently in situations and should respect others without judging.

When I confronted this mother, my heart was thumping!

Something similar happened once when was mooching round a Department store. A smartly dressed man with two young boys in tow was constantly berating the smallest child who looked totally bereft. I still wish I had intervened. What stopped me was the thought hat he might take it out on the child later. So hard to know what to do.... I still feel for the poor child and can only hope that things have worked out for him.

I would have been upset too, not sure if I would have intervened or not.
Sometimes you can deflect the attention by speaking calmly to the victim - eg say "ooh what a lovely toy, where did you get it?"
OTOH I once knew someone whose child was being attacked by another child, in a park. He intervened obviously, pulled the attacker off. Later the police came to his house - the attacker's father had reported him for assault!

I would like to think I would have intervened otherwise I would feel so guilty afterwards, as O P does. My son had words with a young mum in the high street who was busy chatting while her kid was running into busy road. She told him to F off and what had it got to do with him. He put her straight! My daughter has also reported to S S about abusive mum at bus stop. I think All new parents should have to attend parenting class. We all have to learn to drive before we are let loose on the roads surely parenting is even more difficult than driving
And what is wrong with buying toys from the charity shop?!!

I think many of us would intervene if we saw a child being physically hurt. I certainly hope we would at least report it to the police or to children's social care.

It is harder when the abuse is emotional. The child with the toy on a bus, I'm not sure what could be done there, as you say in some circumstances try to engage and play with the child yourself, but that may not work so well on a bus.

The baby with a cover over its face in a shop for example, I think I would have gently touched the mums arm and told her.

For many years I have felt very strongly that child development should be a compulsory subject in school for both girls and boys at secondary school from age 11 years. The subject should cover both physical and emotional development. This would at least prepare young people to be parents before they get any older. It would not resolve deeply ingrained issues from their own upbringing, but might give them a better idea of what their own child needs when the time comes.

Things were very different, Radicalnan, when I was small, but I don't remember gratuitous emotional bullying, which makes me feel sick even just reading about it. However, I don't think I'd know what to do about it- not very brave.

Morgana I agree about compulsory parenting classes, but as I said above, I think young people need an understanding of child development before they ever get old enough to be parents. This needs to be a compulsory subject in school from age 11.

I have worked with families for many years. Some parents have no idea what their children's needs are. Teaching them when they are already pregnant, or already parents is often too late.

A long time ago some of the mothers at school noticed one very pinched looking child never had a decent lunch on school trips(2 slices of bread and cold tea) we saw the other children casually handing over some of their lunch as if it were a common occurance. When questioned children said that Tommy always had that lunch. Furthermore Ssnta had left him just a lump of coal in his stocking.One of us (a doctor's wife) reported her findings and thank goodness investigations revealed that Tommy was picked on, starved and beaten regularly even tho his younger brother was well cared for. He was removed and years later we heard he had thrived in his foster home and done well. This in a very middle class area with very educated parents. It can happen in any strata of society.

I helped to found the local branch of Homestart and it is still going strong after 35 years - it is an excellent organisation and very helpful to families in this sort of situation.

This little girl was being subjected to emotional abuse and that is never benign. Indeed these children do love their parents - mainly because they have no other adults at home to relate to. Families are complex - and this wee lass will have no idea that this is not how other children live. She will just grow up being belittled and put down and probably turn into a poor parent herself. It is a miserable cycle and painful to behold.

I remember sitting on a bus with my eldest daughter, normally well behaved, but for some reason was over excited, jumping around and shouting. People were looking and I just couldn't get her under control so I smacked the back of her hand. This worked (bit like slapping someone hysterical I suppose) and she sat down. At this point a woman behind me helpfully told me I should never smack my child and I told her that perhaps if she'd have been smacked as a child she wouldn't be so interfering now. Both she and my daughter then sat quietly for the rest of the journey. My daughter appears to have grown up to be well adjusted, happy and successful despite my barbaric behaviour.

There is NOTHING wrong with buying toys in a charity shop - I do it all the time for my GC. NO-ONE has said there is anything wrong with it!!!! Indeed it was the one positive in this sad situation - that the Mum had bought the child an appropriate toy. What was wrong was that she was using it as a vehicle to put the child down.

One retrograde step is the withdrawal of funding for LA family centres where parents can get together under the watchful eye of professionals, and learn how to be good parents. I have seen these work very well. I remember on one occasion two mothers were discussing their children and the one said that when he is naughty I tell him to stop or I will not love him - people were on hand to help guide these Mums to see how damaging and unhelpful that was.

One critical piece of learning for young parents is that they have to put themselves in the mind of the child to understand where they are coming from, and this is where parenting classes could help - someone needs to tell the pupils what babies and young children can do or understand as they develop so that they do not have unrealistic expectations of their children. Let us hope that one day this will be on the national curriculum for schools.

Foxie - in the past a "sharp word" with the parent probably would have resulted in a red face and mumbled apology. Now you put yourself at risk of a punch in the face for being an interfering cow (or words to that affect but put a bit more strongly).

A softly, softly approach is much less confrontational and more likely to diffuse the situation (oh, that's a pretty toy... and smile at the mum). Again you might get told to sling it but coming over aggressively and no tolerance will likely exacerbate the situation and could lead you to a trip to a&e. You have no idea if the parent has mental health issues or an addiction problem that could quickly escalate to violence. As others have said, not everyone has the courage or physical presence to take on a bully (which this lady seemed to be displaying traits of). Could the OP have handled it differently? Perhaps - by engaging the child and if told to F off, reporting her to the police afterwards with her concerns over the child's wellbeing but hindsight is a wonderful thing and not too helpful when you're on a bus and faced with the situation.

foxie - what is wrong with speaking out is that, as others who have some subtlety of thought, have pointed out there is no way of knowing if it might inflame the situation and make the child worse off.

On a practical level, I could not have engaged with the child as the bus was moving, and to get in to a position where I could do this would have involved me trying to stand up on a moving bus, which I cannot do because of my mobility problems.

I do agree that the best action would have been to talk to the child about how lovely their new toy was.

I wonder what she does to that poor kid at home

The other day I saw a woman on her phone walking along with her 2 year old toddling after her, but she fell further behind and the woman did not even notice the kid was about 20 ft away, just continued yapping on her phone! Did not turn around once. The little one was looking all around and could have so easily darted into the street as it was next to a schoolyard of kids (older ones) where the balls often sail over the fence. I was really worried!