Question Detail: I'm upset how my friend disciplined her children, wondering if I should call children's services?

I'm upset how my friend disciplined her children, wondering if I should call children's services?

It’s a bit of a strange one this but the yesterday my friend walloped her two children right in front of me, now I’m wondering whether to call children’s’ services. She’s got two girls, one 11 and other 13. She’s a single mom and each can be a bit of a handful on their own and they sometimes fight but I’ve never heard of anything too bad. Anyway, yesterday we were having a chat and a coffee in her kitchen and there was some screaming coming from the garden.

Obviously we both jumped straight up and we could see the both the girls coming through the back gate, each of them had hold of the other’s hair. I was quite surprised to see them fighting like this but even more surprising was my friend’s response. She grabbed a small wooden paddle out of the kitchen door, steamed over to them, separated them both and said “I told you two what would happen”, told them to grab their knees and walloped their bottoms ...HARD. I was gobsmacked, dumbfounded – I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing! I’m not used to being around violence it was a bit frightening to be honest.

This was not like just a couple of whacks each, I mean she gave them a damn good hidding – those girls are not going to sit comfortable for a week. There's no way I would paddle a 13 yr old like that, 11 year old maybe but at 13, its too much. When she’d finished walloping them and sent them upstairs crying, I was so embarrassed I just made some excuse and quickly left. Maybe it’s nothing, but I can’t stop thinking about those poor girls and whether I should phone children’s services.

It’s only out of loyalty to my friend that I haven’t yet. She phoned earlier but I let it go to answer machine as I’m too embarrassed. I might try and talk to her but I don’t know what to say? she's a few years older than me and I don’t have children, so she might think I’m interfering in something I don’t understand. Sorry about the essay, I don’t know, maybe it’s nothing and I should forget it happened but it's eating me up wondering what to do.

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Anonymous replies: Hello. You have a bit of a problem here in that oyur friend is not going to take kindly to what I am going to advise you to do. I am writing from a UK perspective where this is illegal. You have witnessed child abuse and you have to report it. There ia not an age where it is right to hit a child as violently as this. In my view the situation is made worse because they are girls. I think the best thing to do is talk to your friend, tell hee that she should go to parenting classes and that if she does not then you are going to the authorities. I know this will be hard, she will not want to listen to you because you have no children, but what you saw was a violent crime and should be treated as such. I guess you will lose her as a friend, but these girls need protecting.

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