Trust me...I was a teacher in The Bronx; I have seen a lot...No, a parent doesn't scare me. I won't tolerate a parent who abuses his/her child. Period.
It has nothing to do with "what I would be thinking later" but with stopping a behavior that I KNOW will hurt the child forever. BTW...Do you know how many kids are taken to the pediatricians "because pain on the shoulders"? Many...and in most cases the pain is the result of his/her parents pulling them by the hand "to walk at the parents' speed".
Which actually brings up the aspect of “unintentional” abuse. My first wife was a cosmetologist and regularly fussed at mothers who wanted their little girls to have hair down to their ankles. She came by her “fussing” quite honestly because a couple of doctors had sent girls to have their hair cut in order to alleviate the headaches they were having. And then there are the mothers (and dads) who insist that their daughters enter into beauty contests.which to me is unintentional abuse. But then, there are the ones I have seen when I worked hotels and some of the mothers are absolute tyrants. Until I stopped her, one mother was slapping her daughter around because she missed a note or two whilst playing the piano for the talent portion of the contest.
The word, “abuse” has the same definition no matter the circumstance so perhaps in a case akin to the long hair diagnosis, a better wording might be, “an action or lack of action resulting in an unintended consequence”.
Any way you use it.......abuse is abuse. Gee, anything imposed on a person -long hair that causes headaches / facilitates injuries and bullying or hair pulled back so tight as to causes "a two feet high forehead"- is abuse.
I am not at all sure if you are proposing an argument to my statements or not. Look, by the time I was 12, I was on my own, putting myself through school, buying my own clothes, had a job and rented a room. I know what abuse is. Other than my dad and stepmother, the most abuse I received was from a few teachers from grades 1st thru 6th. Why? No one until I reached the 7th grade recognized that I was capable and willing to do above average work, Once recognized, by the time I hit 15 I was not only doing junior and senior work but taking 2 college level courses and graduated high school by the time I was 16 and entered the Army when I was 17.
My instincts are as yours, Silvia. My only hesitation would be out of concern for the child paying the price behind closed doors of the anger I stirred up by calling the parent out in public.
@Silvia Benoit Not sure I what I would of done. Verbal abuse is a bit different than physical abuse. However you did what you felt was right at the time and that is what matters.