Author Topic: Urgent advice needed - very serious post.  (Read 2584 times)

Offline wulfie

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Urgent advice needed - very serious post.
« on: August 14, 2002, 01:37:06 AM »
Okay I'd like to hear from any of you guys who are Parents. I've got a potential situation here that I have zero experience with.

I'm staying in some military housing right now, i.e. real houses but the whole street is NATO military.

Next door neighbors have 2 kids. One kid gets messed up playing in front yard. Neighbors know I've got medical training and Mom comes running next door.

2 Kids, big Brother is 3 and little Brother (the injured one) is 2.

Kids don't know me from Adam and I'm trying to calm the 2 year old down to get a good look at his injury.

Well, my probing no doubt caused a little pain, and the 2 year old doesn't know me and I was awoken from a deep nap (bad hair, 2100 shadow, etc.).

So the 2 year old hollars real loud, and the 3 year old kicks me in the nose as hard as he can (I'm bent over). He thought I was hurting his Brother. Cool in my book - seemed like the kid had good instincts.

Well, the Mom grabs the 3 year old by one arm and really yanks him aside. Like his neck cracked like a whip. And then she slaps him hard on the cheek and spanks him *really* hard on his butt...for kicking me.

You have to understand I had no reaction to the kick. The 2 year old had a busted bone and was wearing PJs and I was worried about a cpd fracture (limb at odd angle along a normally straight axis) so I was paying close attention to rolling up the PJs very very carefully (nothing on me to cut them away - again - woken up from nap and all my gear under my rack).

So Mom really smacked him hard. Like 3 fingers visible on the kid's cheek.

Only reason I'm asking this here is if it's no big deal I don't want to cause grief for the Ps of this kid due to a baseless accusation from someone who never has raised Kids. If I asked anyone I worked with they'd know who I'm talking about most likely. And the rumor mill can be a squeak, no?

Mom seems nice and very attentive to Kids. Could have been reaction because she was scared about 2 year old. That's my (totally uneducated) guess. Yanking/smacking the 3 year old seemed very extreme to me at the time, especially when the 3 year olds intentions were so good in my book.

So is this 'child abuse' and should I talk to someone official about it?

Feel free to ask more detailed questions if you need to for the sake of making a good call.

I've babysitted my Cousin's Son a fair deal when he was 1-2. Never saw anything like this (really soft smack on the butt to get attention is all).

Any opinions/advice gratefully accepted.

Mike/wulfie

Offline Red Ant

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Urgent advice needed - very serious post.
« Reply #1 on: August 14, 2002, 02:16:40 AM »
In my book, there is absolutely NO reason to hit your kids. If you have to hit them, you've failed already. That being said, the mom in question was undoubtedly in a high-stress situation, and her reactions were likely influenced by her fear & panic. The thing that bothers me though is by the way you're describing the incident, the mom hit the kid REALLY hard. I wouldn't be that concerned if she just yanked him away from you, panic could explain that, but leaving fingerprints on his face? That is CLEARLY out of line.

I think the only thing to do is to observe the kids. Since they're your neighbors, you'll probably see a lot of them. Just pay attention. If they exibit obvious signs of physical abuse, then you know what to do. If not, then you really have no way of telling what the true situation is unless you are close to the family in question. Your choice then is to a) try to get to know them well enough to judge the situation, b) proceeding on the assumption that there IS child abuse and contacting the proper authorities or c) proceeding on the assumption that there is no child abuse and letting the thing go.

In my opinion, c) is unacceptable and b) is premature, which leaves a). I must stress though that this is only an OPINION, based on an account of an incident i havent witnessed. As you yourself pointed out, this is serious stuff - tread carefully and best of luck.

Offline wulfie

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Urgent advice needed - very serious post.
« Reply #2 on: August 14, 2002, 02:28:36 AM »
No real time to observe. I'm outa here in <2 weeks and I'll be working my tail off the entire time.

Mike/wulfie

Offline sidthekid

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« Reply #3 on: August 14, 2002, 02:43:48 AM »
Wulfie, You sound like a very smart man. 1 thing is for sure to call authorities on mother could destory that family. DPS rules your guilty until you prove otherwise.


 I can tell you my wife slap or son's face once and only once ( now this is a woman who doesn't think we should spank) He was bitting a little girl she yelled for him to stop, and I think out of a gut reaction she slapped his face. She anguished over this for at least a year. We have 5 children and my son is last of the 5. she has never spanked any one of our children before or since this happen. To give you backround she has a masters and a PHD. So It could happen to anyone.


 Now this doesn't mean your nieghbor is like her. But if you have seen her yell or cuss at children before. Then I would greatly be concerned. If you have even a slight thought this could be normal I would contact Base Chaplin, He could make visit and if he thinks something is going on He would be required by law to tell authorities.


 My last suggestion would be maybe when you see the boy who kicked you. You could call him over and apologize for getting him spanked. ( mind you your not at fault) Young children will tell truth to a fault sometimes. When you say your sorry he got spanked he may let on that he gets hit alot or might say my mom cried and said she was sorry too. then your decission would be alot easier.

 


 Red ant I'm sorry but I differ on spanking. My children got spankings until teenagers. When they got spank I made sure I never spanked while angered or upset, and spanking was last resort.

Offline Red Ant

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« Reply #4 on: August 14, 2002, 05:09:09 AM »
Quote
Originally posted by sidthekid



 Red ant I'm sorry but I differ on spanking. My children got spankings until teenagers. When they got spank I made sure I never spanked while angered or upset, and spanking was last resort.


And what exactly do these spankings accomplish?

Neither of my parents ever raised a hand against me, in any situation. Nevertheless as a child (and now as an adult) I had an abiding respect for them. My father could (and did) get me to "behave" without so much as raising his voice. To be honest, as a child, sometimes i wish they DID spank me, because it hurt to feel their quiet disappointment with me when i did something particularly stupid ;)

Anyway, I'm not in the business of telling people how to raise their children, but i stand by my original statement: there is no NEED to hit/spank children.

Offline Eagler

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« Reply #5 on: August 14, 2002, 06:52:17 AM »
mind your own business

dam, wish someone would have called the cops every time my dad whooped my arse :)
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Offline Curval

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« Reply #6 on: August 14, 2002, 07:37:06 AM »
Quote
Originally posted by Red Ant

And what exactly do these spankings accomplish?


umm..they stop doing what they were doing wrong?

I not a big spanker of my kids at all, but sometimes it is necessary.  You cannot use logic on a two or three year old.  Sometimes..and only sometimes...a spanking puts the point across in a way that the child understands.

Having said that I disagree with what this woman did...slapping a child across the face that hard is extreme, but I would caution against going to the authorities on this one.  My wife slapped my little guy on the face once...out of total frustration with his behaviour...I had to console her more than the child afterwards, she was devastated.  Accidents happen, we are all human..and this "could" be one.

Without the ability to observe this woman over a period of time I would let it slide.  But, you might want to mention it to someone else who lives on the street so that they can keep an eye out.
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Offline miko2d

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« Reply #7 on: August 14, 2002, 07:39:33 AM »
Mike,

 Consider what mother felt at the moment. She has a kid in pain and probably serious trouble - imagining the worst like mothers do in such situations. She is very angry at the whole world and especially at the older child who was present and probably caused the injury or at least did not prevent it.
 Now a man is trying to save her baby and an older kid interferes. She is not able to imagine what the he thinks - she is acting mostly irrationally.

 The best thing you could do is to talk to both parents when everything quiets down and explain things to them - that the child was right and she was wrong and she should appologise to him and explain why she made a mistake and slapped him and that he should always watch over his siblings - being more carefull of course and thinking before hitting someone. But that will come with age.

 miko

Offline hblair

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« Reply #8 on: August 14, 2002, 08:31:14 AM »
Quote
Originally posted by sidthekid

 My last suggestion would be maybe when you see the boy who kicked you. You could call him over and apologize for getting him spanked. ( mind you your not at fault) Young children will tell truth to a fault sometimes. When you say your sorry he got spanked he may let on that he gets hit alot or might say my mom cried and said she was sorry too. then your decission would be alot easier.

 



Sounds like a very good idea.

Now, on a lighter note..

I'd like to add that me and my two brothers got the living snot beat out of us on a regular basis . I don't know why mom felt she had to physically abuse us on different occasions. I mean it was over petty stuff like putting the dog in the microwave for 8-10 seconds (she never was the same after that), or having B-B gun battles that only ended when somebody took a flesh wound (brother had to go to ER to get B-B taken out of finger), or that time she heard me singing my marching song I had learned earlier that day in first grade "Eight more days and we'll be there! Eating puss and spitting hair!". I don't know what her problem was! The big meanie! :)

Offline Dnil

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« Reply #9 on: August 14, 2002, 08:49:24 AM »
how many kids ya have red ant?

Offline fd ski

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« Reply #10 on: August 14, 2002, 09:03:53 AM »
Put a baby in any kind of harm's way, and watch the mother's reaction.
They'll kill for thier young...

You were helping 2 year old, and 3 year old interfered. Her reaction was more them likely exagirated by circumstances.
Either way, it's between her, and her husband.

If you heard the kid being beaten couple of times, in a cruel matter, then by all means - call authorities.
This one time panic reaction on her side does not warrant the grueling process she and her family would be put though.

As for growing up the kids in the "non stessful way", my 4 year old cusin routinely refers to her father, to his face, as "the diddlying amazinhunk" if she doesn't get her way. He thinks its cute....

Let it go. If its bothering you, talk to the parents about it at later date. If you have any suspitioin that this is a REGULAR behaviour, then by all means report it.

BTW, where are they from ?

Offline gofaster

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Re: Urgent advice needed - very serious post.
« Reply #11 on: August 14, 2002, 09:09:17 AM »
Quote
Originally posted by wulfie
Okay I'd like to hear from any of you guys who are Parents. I've got a potential situation here that I have zero experience with.
...

So is this 'child abuse' and should I talk to someone official about it?
 


It's easier to sell child abuse to a commanding officer if you can prove repeated abuse.  Check for excessive bruising, make a note of the day and time and circumstance of the incident on a calendar or journal, speak to others to see if they've noticed anything.  Gather evidence to make your case, because that's what the authorities are going to want to see when they start building their case.

Offline wulfie

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« Reply #12 on: August 14, 2002, 09:14:29 AM »
Thanks for the input guys.

I was never judging the Mom, due to a lack of direct personal experience. The reason I asked is I've seen other (non-violent) situations involving kids that made me slightly unnerved and found out later that anyone who is actually a Parent was totally unphased by the situation.

I've also never spent a great deal of time outside the house I'm at and thus in the vicinity of the 2 boys when they are out and about. Since I've been here it's go in early and get home really late. But there's a Wife living in the same house as me right now (someone else's, with her Husband, before I get any 'suggestions' ehehheh) so I figure if there was any situation with that Mom and her kids the 'gossip radar' would have given me at least one small return over the past 2 months.

Due to a lack of time to check things out I'm going to ask one of the Chaplains I know in the area to 'make sure Mom is over the trauma'.

Oedipus thanks for the warning but I'm fairly bulletproof on that account.

Thanks again for the responses,

Mike/wulfie

Offline LePaul

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« Reply #13 on: August 14, 2002, 09:14:43 AM »
I've always been curious about the "spank" versus "time out" stuff.  I'm involved with a girl who has two kids (9 months and 5 yrs) and we talked about it recently.

For the most part, time outs seem to work.  Sometimes just quashing the mighty ego for a toddler is enough to set them back on course.  Then there are times when all logic as been lost.  The primary functions of the brain are out to lunch and despite 30,675 attempts to correct the behavior, sometimes you need to jolt the system.  We aren't talking Tyson-style-hit-for-distance kinda things.  We're talking patting the bottom or a slapping of the hand to try to get the message across.

I've seen friends who kids have time outs and just sit there and snicker as the time out clock ticks away.  Others are devestated they are in a time out, and the behavior is corrected.  

I got spanked growing up for a variety of reasons (telling mom to shove it seemed like a good retort one day, then she ratted me out to my father lol).  I didnt get hit a lot (or maybe I do not recall them all?  :P)  but just enough times when I got completely out of line and appeals to logic weren't making it.

I wouldnt be to trigger happy on calling Department of Human Services.  If you do not know the family well, its really not up to you to be the judge/jury on how she raises her kids.  Because, as you know, if DHS comes in, she'll be assumed guilty until she proves otherwise, most likely requiring legal services etc to defend herself from what you perceived, as a total stranger, as child abuse.

Its nice that you were concerned, but if you do not know the family at all, I'd mind your own business.

Offline midnight Target

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« Reply #14 on: August 14, 2002, 10:09:47 AM »
I've raised 4.

There have been many times I wanted to beat them to a bloody pulp, but they have been spared by divine intervention and cooler heads.

Actually I think the only time I have struck my kids was a quick attention getter. Like when they were about to run into the street, or asking to drive the car.

I can completely understand the mother's reaction. I go completely to pieces when my kids got hurt. I was a single Dad for many years, and I once ran my daughter to the ER for falling and biting her lip. the cut was about 1 cm. The nurse just smiled and said "are you SURE you want her to be seen by a Dr.?" I took the hint.

The only other thing I wonder about is how the 2 yr old broke his arm. Kids get hurt, but a 2 & 3 year old should be under pretty tight watch. Where was Mom when the kid was injured? And how did it happen?