Unruly kid or poor parenting ?

So there we were in one of Bangalore's largest retail stores for clothing when we spotted a young couple and their noisy kid standing next to us. No different from the rest of the Bangalore's Sunday evening shopping crowd except for the fact that the dad was carrying the small kid who was whacking his mom with a rolled up newspaper. My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I saw that. If he could do that to his own mom, I wondered what he would do to strangers who were within striking distance. Which is why I discarded my plan to shop from there.

Half an hour later I was checking the sneakers in another shop in the same mall when I saw the same unruly kid rolling around on the chairs that were there, thereby preventing others from sitting down & trying out different pairs of shoes. 15 minutes later we sat down to grab something to eat when we found the same couple sitting at a nearby table having an argument over how their kid was misbehaving. To make matters worse the kid started kicking the glass wall for no apparent reason. While we were watching the drama, the dad resorted to the age old technique that has put all kinds of mischievous kids in place - One Tight Slap (OTS). And then there was silence. Both at their table & ours.