It can be difficult to know what constitutes child abuse, or what to do when you witness it.
When you think of the phrase 'child abuse,' you probably imagine children being beaten with baseball bats or locked in closets without food. While examples as extreme as these do occur, many 'lesser' forms of maltreatment can also legitimately be classified as abusive. Verbal aggression, threats, intimidation, and spanking are just a few of the many behaviors that you have the right to intervene in.
Abusers will frequently deny that the way they treat their child is abusive. They will order you to mind your own business, condescendingly explain that you fail to understand the situation because you don't have children yourself, and insist that their child did something to 'deserve it.' Don't be fooled. Once you realize how frequently abusers respond in these ways, you will come to see that almost every accusation they make about you or their child is actually true about the abuser. This is a common psychological phenomenon called projection.
If you know of a child who is being physically abused, or if you are being abused, get off this website right now and call the National Child Abuse Hotline at 1 (800) 4-A-CHILD, the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1 (800) 799-SAFE, or contact you local police and Child Protective Services.
Unfortunately, calling the police or CPS may only help in situations that are widely recognized as abuse. Just as beating wives was once considered normal and even proper, screaming at, threatening, and even hitting children is not yet seen for what it really is: child abuse. Social progress is slow and difficult, but you can take action today in your community to help the world move in the right direction.
Don’t forget to protect yourself, too.
Intervening in abusive situations can be scary. It takes courage to confront your fear and risk social disapproval for standing on your convictions. The perpetrator may even turn on you to avoid the guilt and shame of harming their child. Always make sure that it is physically safe to confront an abuser. Do it in public, take a friend, or call the police. Do not intervene alone if there is a risk of physical harm to yourself.
Intervention carries emotional as well as physical risks. If you have experienced abuse in the past, witnessing it may 'trigger you' into mentally re-experiencing your own abuse. When you get 'triggered,' you may become ineffective in the confrontation, be much more frightened and hurt than you would be otherwise, or provoke the abuser into escalating the situation. Use caution when intervening if you have a history of abuse, and be especially careful in situations that are similar to the abuse you experienced.
Once you identify an abusive situation, and you decide it is both physically and emotionally safe to intervene, how do you go about it?
Enlist the help of friends or bystanders, and call the police if necessary. One of the most important aspects of confrontation is the social signal it sends. In addition to keeping you safe, having another person at your side tells the abuser that you aren't alone in condemning their behavior. It tells the child that more than one person cares about their suffering. Having support will embolden you and give other bystanders one less excuse for not intervening themselves. It's harder to write off two or three people as lone 'extremists.'
You will probably doubt yourself. In the moment when you decide to intervene, a voice in your head may tell you to mind your own business. Another might say, "The way they're treating that kid is not so bad. People will think I'm crazy for causing a stink about this." These voices will rationalize and justify until you start to doubt your principles, question your values, lose your resolve.
That is perfectly normal.
When we say intervening in child abuse takes courage, it is the courage to stand up to the voices in your own head that we are really talking about. Once you understand, empathize, and overcome your own fear, confronting a real human being is surprisingly easy. How many times have you dreaded facing something for weeks or months only to have it turn out better than you expected? Most of the struggle to live and promote our values is internal.
When it comes down to the mechanics of the intervention itself, remember that the primary target for your words is the child. Unless you are a professional or have studied psychology for many years, you will probably be unable to fundamentally alter the way a caretaker relates to his or her children. It takes many months or years of work to heal a broken family. You can't just bungee in and fix them, but you can send a strong message to the child. As a friend of mine once said to a child whose father was verbally abusive, "There are good people in the world, you just may have to wait until you're older to find them."
Sympathy and Moral clarity are the most important elements of the intervention. You need to communicate that the abusive behavior is wrong, and that you are certain of it. This will feed the child emotional ammunition and strengthen their internal perspective. You also need to convey your sympathy for the child's pain, and perhaps even for the adult's unprocessed pain and limitations. Focus on the behavior without giving the abuser a label. Personal accusation provokes retaliation and doesn't give the perpetrator a way 'out' of being an abuser. Remember, it's about the child. You will be much more effective if you intervene out of love for the child, instead of anger at the abuser.
The following are some things you can say during an intervention. They're just possibilities. Each interaction is a little different and these examples may not be helpful in your case.
Try describing the abusive behavior ("You just screamed at your child.") and asking how they feel about what they did ("How does thinking about what you just did make you feel?").
Try empathizing with the abuser's better intentions: "Do you really want your daughter to remember this day at the zoo as the day you humiliated her in front of everyone?"
Try emphatically stating your perspective: "Spanking is just a euphemism for hitting. It's wrong to hit your wife, and it's wrong to hit your kids."
Again, there are many other ways to intervene than these few examples.
When you confront people who are abusing children, take courage from the knowledge that the truth--and this growing community--are on your side. Every time you stand up for the helpless, you are building a bridge to a happy and peaceful future. Even a single intervention can change someone's life. Confronting abuse is something you can do today in your community. It doesn't require any money, and you can do it right now.
The child you defend today will remember this day forever.