Readers' response to rough parenting? Call a cop

I asked for it. You gave it to me.

Some of you, quite literally.

And I thank you. Really.

In response to my request for input on "Bad parenting moment vs. abusive parent" it seems there is no shortage of views.

My husband and I had witnessed a mom grab her son's arm, squeezing as she yanked it so hard she pulled his head down to the table at a local fast food restaurant. He was in obvious pain, prompting me to ask her to stop, prompting her to grab his arm again, only letting go when I asked if I should call police.

I asked what you felt we should have done, especially in light of reports a murdered Crystal Lake second-grader's teacher told me she'd seen similar incidents occur with that child's mom. Her family will bury her today.

My fear is I didn't do enough in the fast food restaurant. Or that I made it worse for that little boy and his siblings for, clearly, they were all cowering at the end of the incident.

Your views run the gamut.

A kind word

"In that moment, wouldn't a kind word have been more helpful?" asked Kimberly. Many of you asked me to use first or no names for this one, so that's what I'll do.

"You noticed that she was having a hard time, but rather than offer to help her, she's scolded and told she's out of control … maybe an offer of assistance rather than the threat of police action could have calmed things down."

Others of you made a similar point. And it's a good one.

I have done just that -- offered a helping hand, a kind word, a distraction. And others have done the same for me at times when my own children were small. You're right that it can make a difference.

This felt different to me. I'm really not in the habit of playing the "mommy judge" as one reader accused. But this mom scared me a bit and -- though I tried in the column to give the benefit of the doubt that it was a bad parenting moment -- I truly felt at that time that the child was at risk of greater harm.

Fearing the same, one reader shared an incident at a local grocery store about 18 months ago. After witnessing the mom screaming throughout the store, then throwing a tantrum at the checkout, she kindly offered to watch the daughter for a bit so the mom could regroup, relax, shop alone. The woman stormed out of the store, threw her daughter into the car and screeched away.

"My regret -- I should have taken down her license plate and gone to the police," the reader said.

Make it worse?

Another reader said she normally hesitates to get involved in these situations. "… though you stop the behavior of the moment, later on, the offending party, feeling embarrassed, takes it out on the children even more," she said, adding she thinks I should have called police. "Better to have a police report on file for future reference, even if nothing else can be done at that moment."

That's exactly what McHenry County Sheriff Keith Nygren advised when I told him of the incident I saw.

"That's someone who's out of control," he said after hearing the mom grabbed the little boy's arm again even as I asked her to stop hurting him.

"That's when you call us and let us sort through it," Nygren said. "It may be nothing. But she may have had a string of reports and this could have been the final piece of the puzzle. Let police make that determination."

Good points

I appreciate all of your comments and your insight on the difficulties of parenting. And, as several of you described, there are often extenuating circumstances. Some of you feared someone calling the police when you grabbed your child's arm to stop them from running into the street.

Let me assure you the incident I saw was not a loving gesture by any stretch. And, the more I've considered it and your helpful comments, the less I would hesitate to call the police if I ever saw someone hurt a child like that again.

As Sheriff Nygren said to me: "If she does that in public, can you imagine what she does in private?"