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When this Australian mother picked up her young daughter from an extracurricular group, she was shocked to learn that her child had been ‘slapped’ by an adult volunteer.

The event was supervised by a group of parent leaders, who were there to keep an eye on the children.

However, when the woman came to collect her daughter, her child said that a man had slapped her on the bottom and another mum confirmed her story.

‘I have never smacked my children. I don’t believe in adults hitting kids. I don’t think it’s right, and I’ve read the research that says it’s bad for kids in the long-term,’ the anonymous woman told Mamamia.

She confronted the man and said that he was wrong to slap her daughter. He responded by staring at the ground, as if he was acknowledging that his actions were wrong.

Following this, another parent leader told the woman that the man would be asked to not return to the group.

While her daughter felt guilty about this, her mother told her that no matter what, the man should not have slapped her.

‘To me, that was it. It was over. Sorted. I felt glad that the incident was taken seriously and action was taken so quickly – that this man, who probably didn’t have the right temperament to work with kids, was removed,’ she said.

A few days later, someone from the group rang the woman to officially apologise and ask if she wanted to press criminal charges.

Upon reflection, the woman decided to leave the matter and not press charges as she thought that the matter had already been dealt with effectively.

‘He’d been removed from the role, and he would have to live with that shame. I didn’t want to bring charges against him, and maybe have him end up with a criminal record,’ the woman said.

While we know everyone parents different, and he may believe this is OK. Surely you would not think it was OK to discipline someone elses child that way, especially in that situation?

What would you do?

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  • 100% no right at all. Even school teachers are not allowed to physically discipline their students.

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  • Very wrong of him to smack the child.
    I would have been very upset. Depending what the child did, perhaps ‘time out corner’ would have been the better option.

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  • Wow, this person definitely doesn’t have a right to physcially discipline any child!~

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  • I would be furious if these was my child. How dare they

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  • I am a firm believer in smacking but it is not okay to discipline someone else’s child in this way ever. Especially not a volunteer in a setting like this.

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  • I think this was all handled in the best and right way for everyone.

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  • It is definitely not ok to hit my children. Not even I hit them. I have had countless arguments with my MIL over this. She says that she would smack my kids if they misbehaved under her care.

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  • There is a saying ‘It takes a village to raise a child’ and once this was true. Others would tell a child if it was behaving badly that they shouldn’t do what they were doing and another would explain why they shouldn’t be doing it. Yet another might be confronted with a child doing something so dangerous that it could kill itself – would you complain if a smack, push, shove got it out of harm’s way. Children accepted this, and rarely did the parents hear about it in a nasty way – if you lived in a remote area and let your children roam freely then this ‘village’ was a great thing. One day my elder son fell off his bike and a passing motorist helped him up, put him and said bike in the car and drove him home. Before he arrived, I had five different neighbours alert me that this vehicle No. plate — — had my child in it’s care/clutches and as he drove in my drive way, I thanked him for his help. My son was bleeding badly from quite a few gashes and he took me to town to a doctor for my son, and waited to take me home again. Even in this day and age there are people who will help, and in the case above, I wonder what the parent’s daughter did to cause the reaction. Modern day volunteers give up their precious time to be a supervisory presence to help out at a school excursion. They do this to help the school and all those parents who are unable to volunteer and go with their child. If the school doesn’t have enough people volunteering their time, then the excursion will have to be stopped.
    I don’t know the full particulars of this case – just that modern parents don’t want anyone else helping bring up their children – and this happens when parents berate the school teachers on their child’s behalf also. The final result is the child has no respect for anyone – very few children ever respect their mum and dad – it’s always the teacher or the man down the road that earns their respect and then the parents prove by their actions that that is not correct an d the poor child doesn’t know who or if it should respect anyone at all.
    Please think what you are doing to your children, parents, before anarchy becomes a way of life.

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  • I would have pressed charges for sure. No one and i mean no one puts there hands on my children. That man should never be allowed to work with children again. You leave your child in a place and put trust into people to find out that someone slapped them. You cant leave them any where any more.

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  • Not your child, then you have no right to discipline that child

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  • I have “smacked” another person’s child in the process of getting him away from something dangerous. My hand went down to drab him as he raised his. Better than allowing a child to injure themselves or another child

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  • I’d have pressed charges.

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  • you do not under any circumstances hit another person’s child


    • I 100% agree! It is a massive no to any type of violence! Never ever should an adult in a position of power do this.

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  • We do not smack and I would be furious and would of course address the situation immediately.

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  • It would disturb me when someone would slap my child. Don’t know if I would press criminal charges.

    Reply

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