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Child Raising In a news group recently, the question was posed: What would you do if you saw a woman hitting her child in a supermarket? Responses varied from calling the social services to making a joke and defusing the situation. Of course, implicit in the question is that you should do something. I've mentioned many times before the importance of simply observing objectively. People at the ordinary level of existence can’t be certain that their interference won’t make the situation even worse. Sometimes the consequences can be disastrous. In a survey by the Brisbane 'Courier Mail' recently, people who had been taken away from their families due to abuse as children invariably said that in retrospect they would have been better off in the abusive family than in the round of foster homes and institutions they ended up with. Of course, there are many wonderful foster parents but very little can replace the family unit. In families where the parents constantly argue, the effect on the children can be devastating but the overriding concern of the children is that the arguments will break up the family. People who want to take the children away from such a family are rather missing the point. People who have been severely abused as children tend to be the most intolerant of any kind of abuse. This is simply projection. There is the world of difference between a beating and a simple slap, especially where this is a rebuke. Children should be taught that actions have consequences. If a parent warns a child that "if you do that again and I'll slap you", then they should carry that through. Reasoning does not work for all children. I've pointed out before that very often the children are many steps ahead of their parents The real abuse is making idle threats and not providing proper boundaries for children.