A mum has told of her shock after another parent smacked her daughter on her bum during a school activity.
The man, who was the parent leading during an after school club, said he had done it as her child was misbehaving.
The mum-of-two explained that smacking her children was something she did not believe in, adding: I don’t think it’s right.”
However, she was confronted with the situation when she went to pick up her daughter after school one day.
In an anonymous post with parenting site Mamamia, she said:
“My daughter has ADHD.
“She pushes boundaries…she’s really hard work at times.
“She’s also fiercely loving and loyal and honest and wonderful in so many ways.”
She recalled how she had gone to pick up her little girl when her daughter came up to her, yelling: “He slapped me! He slapped me on the bottom!”
Nearby parents confirmed that she was telling the truth, and that she had seen the whole thing.
The anonymous mum continued:
“Obviously my first concern was for my daughter.
“She told me that the slap had left a red mark, but by the time I looked, it had gone.
“She told me it didn’t hurt anymore.”
She confronted the man in question, telling him that she thought what he did was wrong – and he is said to have just stared at the ground.
She continued:
“It was obvious he knew what he’d done was completely out of line and he was going to be in trouble over it.
“One of the other parent leaders came up to tell me that the man who slapped my daughter would be asked not to return to the group. That’s what happened.”
A spokesperson for the school later rang the mum to apologise and ask her if she wanted to press charges, and she said no.
Explaining her decision, she said:
“I didn’t want to make my daughter relive the experience when she seemed to have put it behind her.
“I didn’t feel the overpowering rage against this man that I thought I would feel.
“He’d done the wrong thing…I knew it, he knew it, everyone knew it.
“But he was just a parent who had volunteered for a role that he probably wasn’t suited to.
“I didn’t want to bring charges against him, and maybe have him end up with a criminal record.
“I will still never smack either of my kids.
“I never want them to fear me, and I never want them to feel that violence, in any form, is acceptable.”
