Distress witnesses should intervene

Dear Amy: I am perplexed by a situation my husband and I witnessed this afternoon in the downtown area of a large city we were visiting.

A woman waiting for a bus held a screaming child by the neck of his T-shirt as she yelled at him.

She claimed that she could not let him go or he’d run.

She had his shirt collar wrapped around her fist and his left arm wrenched within it all.

The boy was about five or six years old and was crying so loudly we could still hear him shrieking blocks away.

We were not the only ones to witness this situation. But I am ashamed to say, we did nothing to help this little guy. And neither did anyone else. What should we have done? — Sick at Heart

Dear Sick: I have heard from many people who have said that when they were children others had witnessed their parents berating and/or physically abusing them in public, and that it broke their heart to feel so invisible to onlookers.

Yes, you should have intervened. Worst-case scenario, he wasn’t her child and was being taken against his will.

On an appalling par with that awful prospect, she is his parent or guardian and treats him this way regularly.

One way to intervene is to simply try to interrupt the dynamic. You say (to the woman), “Wow, this is rough. Can I help?” Then you bend down, try to make eye contact with the upset child, and say, “Hi, buddy. Can you try to calm down and talk to me? Can you take a deep breath? Are you OK?”

Depending on what happens and how you perceive it, you should say, “I’m going to stand here near you until everybody calms down.” And then — again depending on what you see and perceive — you should consider calling the police.