Parents don’t always agree on when to intervene and when to let children figure things out for themselves.

What would you do if you saw a young child stuck in a tree, clearly in pain, but his parents refused to help?

Would you walk away and let them handle it? Or would you step in and risk upsetting someone?

In the following story, one bystander finds himself in this exact position and decides to step in and help.

Here’s what happened.

AITA helping a kid stuck in a tree then calling mall security.

I went to the mall last night with my girlfriend. As we were walking in, we saw a kid crying with his foot stuck in a tree trunk.

He was around 5-7, and he was struggling hard, and it was very awkwardly placed.

We went into the mall, got the hoco dress, and started out.

When they walked out, the boy was still there.

Maybe 30 mins altogether (the mall really sucks btw).

We walked out, and he was still stuck and complaining that his ankle hurt really badly.

I heard the dad yell, “You got it in there, you can get it out.”

Having had enough of this, I just went over and helped him.

Apparently, the whole thing upset his own father.

His parents got all mad, and he was on the ground crying in pain.

Apparently, he tried to pull really hard and lost his balance, twisting his ankle to the point that he couldn’t stand up.

I called mall security, who then called the cops, and they took a statement and said I could leave.

I came home to my dad telling me I should have minded my own business, and everyone said that was a learning experience for the boy.

AITA?

Yikes! It’s easy to see why he helped the kid, but it really wasn’t his business.

Let’s check out what the folks over at Reddit think about how he handled it.

For this person, 30 minutes was way too long.

This reader thinks he did the right thing.

As this comment points out, after that long of a time, the kid was suffering.

According to this person, he couldn’t ignore it.

He did the right thing! It’s clear that the parents were in no hurry to help the little boy.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.