After hearing a child out, we have to reassure them that we will take steps to protect them in the future. In such a case this means speaking with the hanhalah and clarifying the circumstances. Getting to the bottom of what happened is more likely to happen if the parent isn’t so aggressive that it puts the hanhalah on the defensive. A parent can simply say, “I have heard my child’s account of events and I’d like to hear from you what happened.”
In a case of serious physical abuse one should not accept attempts to defend such conduct with claims that the child’s behavior was so bad that he deserved it. Abusive behavior is never justified. You don’t have to argue over the chain of events, as plenty of things could have happened in the lead-in to the incident that the boy omitted from his account — for any number of reasons. Perhaps he was actually chutzpadig; perhaps he did say something to the menahel; perhaps he had already been warned in the past about running out of class. Arguing over these facts distracts from the main point which is that a child shouldn’t be treated this way.
When a parent is polite, and yet remains adamant that such behavior cannot be tolerated, the hanhalah is much more likely to treat the issue with the gravity it deserves. It’s only when parents are too quick to forgive, or too hasty to condemn, that they create an opening for the hanhalah to brush their complaints aside.
However, it is very important to be open to hearing the details of the incident in order to place things in their proper context.
