Stop It!: How to Intervene in Public Child Abuse

By Mary Lansing

Have you ever witnessed an adult abusing a child in a public place and silently stood by because you didnt know what to say or how to intervene? Stop It! will help the reader know how, when and whether to speak up when coming upon such a situation. It will guide you into developing non-confrontive intervention skills. Real stories supply you with anecdotes and strategies for shifting the tension, refocusing potentially violent situations. Reports of actual situations come from people who attempted to intervene, and from people experienced at intervening who provide innovative methods for stepping in.

A five-step plan of action is introduced to take the witness from first awareness of the abuse scene to determining if and when to intervene in a compassionate manner. Encompassed in the plan is how to overcome fear, which often causes people to freeze during such an event, triggering inaction. Steps I and II, Awareness and Self Appraisal instruct the reader how to move through the fear. Step III Situation Appraisal will help you know when speaking up will be helpful or when staying silent is more appropriate. Steps IV and V, Rehearsal and Intervention, the final two steps, encourage the reader to take action with confidence and boldness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491707623

Mary Lansing

Mary Lansing has been licensed as a marriage, family and child therapist for the past 35 years.

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Copyright © 2013 by Mary Lansing, M.A., M.F.T..

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-0761-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-0762-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013916696

iUniverse rev. date: 11/04/2013

CONTENTS

Chapter One

None of your business

Responses from bystanders to the idea of intervening

Chapter Two

In the Women’s Room

A review of various types of intervention

Chapter Three

Talking back to Mother

Memories leading to advocacy

Chapter Four

A Tough Spot

How fear and unconscious games deter us

Chapter Five

Foremost Five Steps

How to know when, What to say, How to say it

Chapter Six

Help is Available

Organizations that support how children get their needs met

Chapter Seven

What Will Other People Say?

Steps that lead to gaining the courage to intervene

Chapter Eight

Stop That!

A Cascade of Cooperation

Endnotes

Appendix Of Essential Questions

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

W riting any book is a monumental task, and I am proud to thank all those people who supported this one’s development through its long period of gestation. One common trait we all shared was our visceral reaction to seeing a child being abused in public. No one didn’t experience the onset of old feelings stirred up by being a witness. Nor was it always easy to discuss.

I am deeply indebted to each person who contributed to the stories that resulted here and to those who held my hand and urged me forward through my writing process. Nancy Lee Batchelder was my ever present and excellent editor. Along with her husband Alan, she provided me with encouragement whenever I needed it. Along the way, the following people provided necessary support and feedback: Larry Steward, Jordan Riak, Eve Menger, Kathy Masarie, Emma Christenson, Lois Isbell, Bill Smith, Carole Groobman, Lupe Rushford, April L’Huereux, Lynn Reer, Yvonne Giese and Rev. Bill Sinkford.

And to my children, Grant and Melanie, I am grateful for all the innovative ideas and advice I received. It was never given without their first having asked if I was open to it, a practice they are better at than I.

INTRODUCTION

Stop It—How to Intervene in Public Child Abuse

P arents reprimanding their kids don’t want a stranger interfering. The person who sees the act will most often walk away from the scene thinking isn’t that terrible. That poor kid! or "I’d better not interfere; it’s his kid. " And so we make an excuse for doing nothing about what we see as despicable. Even so, there is an instant, visceral reaction that occurs before we take that walk in the opposite direction. And once we experience that feeling, some of us chastise ourselves for remaining silent when we might have intervened.

Before becoming a family therapist I spent eight years as a secondary teacher. It was during those years that I lost my husband in a car accident. Raising our two children alone, I read Thomas Gordon’s best seller, Parent Effectiveness Training.[1] When he offered a course in teaching his concepts, I couldn’t enroll fast enough. Learning the skills he had written about changed my life and gave me a new purpose.

It was an effortless transition from working with kids in the classroom to working with parents gathered in my living room. They were there to learn how to listen to their children so their children would open up and talk to them. My two children, then six and eight, wrestled with the changes for awhile, and then made a transition into respecting each other and me. Not only was it a godsend for my own family, it created a smooth and natural transition into the therapist’s life for me.

We all have memories of having been slapped, spanked or shamed in public. This prompts some of us to begin advocating for children we encounter in similar situations. I was fourteen when I had my first experience attempting to rescue. I tried to stop a man I didn’t know from drowning baby kittens. Perhaps because I was unsuccessful, I never let go of that memory. Now, after spending the last two decades intervening in situations where an adult is abusing a child in a public place, I’ve learned a great deal. There are boundaries to be considered, essential questions to be answered; some of them are:

How do I know when to intervene?

What can I do about it?

What can I say?

What if the parent turns on me?

What if the parent blames the child?

See Appendix of Essential Questions, page 99

Here, you will read stories from people who intervened and succeeded as well as those who failed in their efforts. Most of all, you will gain a new perspective on how to screw your courage to the sticking point, thereby wiping away the shame you heretofore carried when you recalled the times you walked away.

CHAPTER ONE

None of your business

A natural hot springs in southern Washington boasts a rickety hotel with 1897 forged above the screened front door. Inside, the floor sags and the ceilings are low. The walls are painted wooden slats. It is a place where Miss Kitty and Matt Dillon might meet at the bar if this were Gunsmoke, except this bar is long gone and the rooms are outside cabins, not upstairs past the railings anymore.

Patrons who partake of the mineral baths used to be able to visit the restaurant, which served American standard hamburgers, steaks, and iced tea. I was standing at the small hotel counter paying for a much-needed hot soak and massage when the front door banged shut. The few people sitting in the tiny lobby turned toward the noise. A young father walked rapidly in, pulling his son by the arm and muttering, You’re gonna get it for this, just you wait! He scowled, seeing no one, staring straight ahead. The boy, who looked to be about four years old, swung from his father’s hand like a rag doll, his small feet hardly scraping the floor as he was pulled along. His red, tear-smudged face was punctuated by