Seemingly abused child

[Fawkes]

So, the people (I think there's 5 or 6 that live in the apartment, including little kids) that live across the alley from me are constantly screaming and fighting, often at their little kids, and by little I mean like toddlers. For the last 30 minutes, I've been hearing a little kid crying and screaming, and the only other voice I've heard is the occasional adult speaking voice from just one person, but it's in Spanish so I can't understand it. But judging by the length and intensity of the crying, this doesn't sound too good, and this isn't all that uncommon for this family. Any advice on what I should do? I'm really hesitant to call child services or the cops as that could, and most likely would, have far more of a negative impact than a positive one.

[iwwforever]

Perhaps you can get someone who speaks Spanish to help find out what is going on.

[ellipsis]

That's a tough call, I had a similar situation at an old flat of mine. Unless you hear them physically abuse them I wouldn't call cps or the cops.

[Fawkes]

Perhaps you can get someone who speaks Spanish to help find out what is going on.

They usually yell in English, not Spanish, so I generally understand it, I just didn't know what was being said in this particular instance. And I'm hesitant to wait until physical abuse is evident, because 1. I think it may already be and 2. emotional and mental abuse is just as bad, if not worse.

[ellipsis]

but emotional abuse is harder to prove, especially during a police visit resultant from a dispute.

[RED DAVE]

Call the cops or call 311 and find out how to make a complaint. If you're wrong, no big deal. If you're right, you may have saved the kids life or sanity.

RED DAVE

[Decolonize The Left]

The best option is to go over there and tell them that you can hear the screaming and it concerns you as a neighbor. Ask them if they need any help with anything or if there's anything you can do, and if there isn't then leave. It's good to let them know that what's happening isn't ok with you and that you are conscious of the toddlers screaming.

Do not threaten to call the police or child services unless things get ugly and even then just let them know that if the situation doesn't change you'll be forced to do so.

Using this method you give them a chance to understand your perspective, and the fact that you disagree/are concerned with what's happening. You also avoid the authorities but if this doesn't at least partially resolve the situation you will need to contact the appropriate people.

- August

[#FF0000]

August p. much got it spot on.

[RED DAVE]

August p. much got it spot on.With all due respect, Comrade, you and he are wrong. I have been a social worker; in fact, I worked in a unit that was responsible for taking children out of their homes: frquently, the action began with the complaint of a neighbor. You do not want to know what I saw. And rapid intervention, even if it's wrong, is called for. Child abuse is often chronic, not occasional.

RED DAVE

[Foreigner]

Thought I'd just pipe in with one more cautionary note.

Short Version/tl;dr:

Red Dave, I understand your perspective and respect the experience you cite, but when you say, "Call the cops or call 311 and find out how to make a complaint. If you're wrong, no big deal," I think you're seriously being insensitive to the foreseeable collateral damage of a false or careless complaint.

There's really never any clearing this sort of suspicion entirely, and it can have lasting and very harmful effects on people's lives. CPS or police complaints are not an appropriate mere-prophylactic measure for very iffy situations, unless you don't mind leaving lasting damage in innocent people's lives.

The Rest

By the tenor of how you (the OP) describe it, it could be what you say, but also consider my own experience as a parent:

I have two sons. One is allergic to, it appears, corn syrup and other chemical additives ("brain allergy" as they call it). The other is just highly stubborn and willing to go to war over little things (they both get extremely carefully-selected, natural foods, so I doubt it's nutrition in the latter's case).

The first one, if he gets those foods, goes into terrible, terrible rages, and exhibits pretty classic persecution mania type stuff (don't know if I'd say pathological, since every child does the "everyone is being mean to me, you guys are bad to me" type stuff here and there, but he comes on pretty strong with it). These rages involve pretty serious screaming, and we often have to physically control him several times over extended periods (hours to a day or two). When we have to physically restrain him, if you didn't know better, he'd sound like we're murdering him.

The other son, to keep it short, has a level of stubbornness that results in him screaming similarly for two hours, and often kicking people and throwing things, over objectively minor issues. In these situations, we sometimes have to restrain him (i.e., hold him, keep his arms to his body, hold his legs, whatever the case calls for) too, to stop the kicking and such. It sounds loud and ugly.

Sometimes we raise our voices, often just to get our voice over his to tell him he's out of line. But sometimes we yell in frustration or anger -- it happens, as this is one of the most trying sorts of things in routine life. (No, nothing abusive. I had a verbally/emotionally abusive father myself, so I'm pretty clued into these things and am pretty conscientious about them.)

When the ultimate escalation, for us, occurs -- going into the shower with clothes on (lukewarm -- but we call it "cold" to him for rhetorical reasons), or going to bed early -- in both cases the bloody murder screaming and pounding on the walls occurs again.

In all other situations, they are sweet, conscientious, sensitive young boys. But these troubles occur here and there, and they hit like a freight train. I'm sure all parents have some element of this, though I've had several other parents express surprise at the intensity of the rages, so I have reason to believe they're more intense than average.

But it's a thing in our life. We deal, we teach them to deal, but it sounds awful to someone outside. And yes, again, sometimes we have yelled in frustration or anger. If someone reported us for abuse, and got that sort of attention on us, based on such things, it would be an incredible blow for a number of reasons both generally-applicable and specific to us -- it's already hard enough being a dissident. I mean, when you radically disagree with the conventional order and its methods, hold "extreme left-wing" views, and so on, maybe raising children "red diaper," as it were, is abuse in the eyes of some neighbor. And it could be a convenient lever for official or political harassment/intimidation if one ever attracted that sort of attention from the government or other power elements.

And suspicions of this sort of thing persist among people. Just saying, I know it's extremely important to catch abuse, that abuse happens extremely often, and that sometimes the call has got to be made to report the person (or have a talk with them) to make sure for the child's safety and future, because it sounds like it crosses the line. But that report is a loaded gun that takes its effect whether there is genuinely abuse or not. And because, in Western culture and particularly American, childraising is made an intensely atomized, personalized phenomenon in which people rarely participate communally in any sense, it's really hard to find out for sure either before or afterward whether it's true.

But I tell you, in my life, even a careless, false allegation that brings investigation would give my parents-in-law (who despise me for ruining their daughter's religious belief and raising our children outside the church) serious ammo if my wife ever died and they wanted to make a play for custody. It would have lasting, unjust effect. So bear in mind those lasting effects that can occur, even if it's a false call.

EDIT: Quick clarification, since I'm putting myself out there. The angry/frustrated yelling I speak of my wife and I doing is of the commanding, "dammit, that's ENOUGH, stop NOW," sort, not "you stupid child" type yelling. In case it appeared that way. Again, we're pretty conscientious about it, and, to be fair, we see it a lot less since becoming much more rigorous with their diets. (In fact, I think it's finally going away as an issue for the most part, thankfully.)