Friday, June 29, 2007

This is one of those 'what would you do' posts



For the past two consecutive days i've seen mothers react to their child's misbehavior rather...violently.

ya'll know what i'm talking about. a kid is misbehaving in public, and the parent responds with a very public showing of hitting and screaming.

1. I was taking the tram home on Wednesday when a young mother was standing in the handicapped section with a (approx.) 2yo girl in a stroller and a 4yo boy. 2yo is kind of kicking the bag of mom from stroller. mom starts shacking the stroller, yelling some rude things at kid in dialect. a little later boy starts to unintentionally squeeze a finger of 2yo between this thingie to keep wheelchairs from rolling (it's kind of hard to describe what it is, but just go with it). 2yo isn't in that much pain, but still screams hysterically cuz it's her older brother doing it. mom pushes the boy really hard, grabs his coat, shakes him back and forth and slaps him on the head as well. everyone on the tram is discretely staring, but boy seems to find this a daily activity.

2. I was standing guard by our car in namur when a woman walked past me. clinging to her was a 6yo girl who was just 'crying' for the sake of crying. obviously she had been punished before for doing something wrong and was sorry and frustrated at the fact that she made her mom angry (or so i think. i'm not sure if you should trust my child psychology). right when they had passed me, the woman GRABS the girl's HAIR, pulls it back really hard, yells a few things in french at her (ta gueule) and then throws her head back forward by means of her hair. the girl, now feels even worse than before, but her attempts to give her mom a hug are answered by some more 'ta gueule's'.

Of course parents can have a bad day, get frustrated...i totally understand that.
Obviously we should cut parents some slack. i'm not a parent, or far from becoming one.
Everyone has their own way of punishing kids. some parents are the talking kind, others tend to be more physical, and others parents take away rights and privileges. i'm fine with all that. every kid is different, and good parents probably know best.

But the two cases i'm describing to you here are extremes. clearly all the outsiders in the 2 stories were a little shocked by the way these people punished their kids.

so what would you do? Let's say you're...old and experienced? would you go up to the parents (personally i think it's a very bad idea to approach a parent in times of rage) and tell them that they are wrong? or would you stare at them, and give them the worst evil glare you have in store? or just walk by and try not to think about their situation at home?
I hate situations like this.

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