Should I step in when I see a parent abuse his child?

"While I was roaming around the neighborhood, a teenage girl hinted at an argument with her father, it seemed to me that she was 15 and saw the features of a rebellious and reckless teenager. As she walked behind him, the girl kicked her father and the father responded by throwing his entire cup of coffee on Her face, to respond to him with a chain of insults.

While living in a big city, I sometimes noticed dangerous or offensive behavior on the street, but I hesitated to intervene for fear of exposing myself to danger. In this case, the father was clearly angry, and he is slightly older than me. I do not think that he would have lengthened me, but I am afraid of getting involved in these matters. “Should I have helped the girl and teach her that her father’s behavior is unacceptable? What is the best way to help someone when she feels that you are relatively unable to help?”

Think about the consequences of your intervention
In a report published by the American New York Times, writer Kwame Anthony Appiah said: First of all, you should not harm anyone or misbehave with him, as this is the most important factor when interfering. And if you don't think about the consequences of your intervention, you will not behave ethically, no matter how noble your feelings are. Sometimes your intervention results in embarrassing the person concerned, and you may be facing a person who does not have the ability to control his anger, and the mix of anger and humiliation that may result from your intervention may make things worse for his daughter.

In this regard, you may have become the target of his aggression, which you should avoid. You must ask what you know about their relationship before the intervention, and learn more to properly assess the situation. It is, of course, difficult to judge the possibilities of reaching a set of possible results.

However, the principle of non-harm is indicated to give special importance to potential negative risks. It is not enough to imagine that an intervention makes things better, but rather it must be ensured that the intervention does not worsen the situation for the worse.

The writer stated that some people may tell you that this is none of your business, but this may not be correct sometimes. If you knew one of these options, such as that your intervention may not cost you a high price, and that your risk for the sake of adolescence and made her realize that her father's behavior is not correct, that would make you feel obligated to intervene.

Another witness, who did not reveal his name, also mentioned, "I recently witnessed a mother reprimanding her roughly nine-year-old child. They were in a large public park, and they had pulled him to a secluded place, tightened by his grip on his shoulders and attached to it on the wall. She was criticizing him in a language other than English, As her anger grew, the child wriggled at her and cried with fear and tears streaming from his eyes. Although his life was not at stake, I wish I had stepped in. But what is the thing? The right thing to say or do? "

From different cultures
The difficulty with these conditions lies not in the inability to ascertain the importance of what you saw, but rather in the inability to easily determine the impact of the intervention. Maybe the mother burst out of anger after a hard day, hadn't done it before, and she would apologize to her son later and decided not to do it again. Perhaps she is upset because she loves her son, but she is subject to tantrums that she cannot control, according to the author.

Moreover, keep in mind that people from different cultures believe that strangers have no right to interfere with the relationship between parents and their children. Even if your response shyded her, her feeling might be "From this stranger who knows nothing about us and comes to teach me how to treat my son?"

In fact, if the thoughtful evaluation led you to believe that saying something will not make things go wrong and make it go well, it is justified to speak to the mother and tell her that her behavior exceeds the limits.

Reporting to the police or child protection services may lead to a series of disturbing and possibly traumatic events, and may cause the child to be separated from his guardian. The principle of non-harm affirms that direct contact to report a case of child abuse - which may be based on misleading information - can destroy a family’s life.