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Have you checked the children?
Do you know what your teenager will do if that party you just took them to gets messy? Have you discussed what they will do if things turn nasty?
What if there's a punch-up? Will they walk away or go for help or try to intervene? Or will they cheer and egg on the violence?
Will they whip out their phone and film the fight and then post the footage on WhatsApp?
In recent weeks, ACM mastheads have reported on a number of unrelated but disturbingly similar scenarios in which a young person is surrounded by a group and set upon - the assaults captured - gleefully - on the phones of onlookers and shared among so-called friends on social media.
Footage filmed by kids showing other kids being bashed to unconsciousness. Their hair torn out in clumps. Hospitalised.
Nobody should ever have to see the video of 14-year-old Liarna being viciously punched and kicked at a wild party near Wollongong last month.
And yet everybody should see it.
After careful consideration and only after obtaining the permission of Liarna and her mother, the Illawarra Mercury shared the confronting footage with its subscribers - with a strong warning.
It's upsetting to watch. It makes you feel sick. And angry and sad and helpless.
What is wrong with these kids? And not just the ones kicking the girl on the ground. The one who filmed this video too?
Read Mercury reporter Nadine Morton's description of the footage and you know you don't need to watch it: "A group of young people are gathered around Liarna as one girl taunts her.
"A male voice can be heard saying: 'She's getting ready ... punch her, punch her'.
"Then, a male's voice says: 'Swing, swing, swing, swing'.
"Liarna is punched repeatedly and after falling to the ground she is kicked repeatedly as she cowers, and covers her head with one arm and her stomach with another.
"Another voice in the video can be heard: 'Stomp on her ... get up b---h'.
"As Liarna lays motionless on the ground, teens push and shove each other as they circle around her.
"Finally a male's voice can be heard 'let her get up'."
From her hospital bed, Liarna later told Nadine: "The hardest part for me is that no-one helped til the end, until they were done. Like, everyone was just cheering it on".
Yes, for as long as there have been schoolyard rumbles, there have been cowardly morons who watch on and chant "fight, fight, fight".
But now the morons have smartphones and Snapchat accounts to weaponise their cowardice, amplify the violence and aggravate the trauma.
If a girl, defenceless on the ground, is getting her head stomped on by a group and you pull out your phone to film it and then share your video footage for attention - how are you not also one of her attackers?
NSW Police Detective Superintendent Phil Hallinan told the Mercury: "I think people that share those videos and promote those videos online, it's abhorrent behaviour. I think they're cowards, the ones that stand there and cheer it on".
Det Supt Hallinan works in the NSW Police's Youth Command. He's also a dad. The footage of Liarna's assault rattled him.
"The thought of being a parent, seeing that occur to your kid, it's horrible," he said.
His advice to parents: "Speak to your kid about what is their plan if their friends are doing something they don't want to do. How do they get out of it?
"If they are in a situation that they're uncomfortable with, what's their plan? Is it to call mum or dad? At what point do they ring triple zero, ring the police, or go find another adult to help them?
"You need to make sure that they've got an exit strategy and the confidence to tell their friends, 'no, I'm going home'."
Yes, before you drop your child at that party, have you checked that they have the confidence to do the right thing when push comes to shove?
James Joyce is a guest Echidna and ACM's executive editor.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Are we clutching our pearls here? Is a teen fight filmed and shared for likes on social media any worse than a pre-Zuckerberg era punch-up behind the bike racks after school? Why do kids think filming assaults - and sharing them online - is OK? What would you say to your kid if they were at the party where Liarna was assaulted? How can parents stop the cycle and nurture their child's empathy?
Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- Patients can check a public register and see whether their doctor, nurse or psychologist has ever been found to have committed sexual misconduct. The federal health regulator has begun adding sexual misdemeanour findings to the public registers of both current and cancelled practitioners.
The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) says 107 practitioners have had additional information added to their profiles this week, of which 21 are still practising.
- An overhaul of the way the government funds disability services could require wealthier Australians to pay more for their care, in a bid to save billions of dollars on the federal budget. Health Minister Mark Butler says "significant reform" to the National Disability Insurance Scheme is likely needed to reduce the program's growth rate from more than 10 per cent a year, to the government's target of between five and six per cent.
Expectations are mounting that the changes will be included in Labor's next federal budget, due to be delivered on May 12.
- Claims police officers and a public pool's staff racially discriminated against Indigenous families will be investigated by the nation's top human rights agency. The Australian Human Rights Commission has accepted a complaint against NSW Police and Belgravia Leisure following an incident at the Inverell public pool in northern NSW.
First Nations families enjoying the pool were ordered to leave on March 16, 2025, after staff called police, alleging some children were disobeying the rules. The families say they were never asked to leave the pool before police arrived.
THEY SAID IT: "The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing." - Walt Disney
YOU SAID IT: Garry wrote about the Trump Translator.
Attila said: "It is said that the best medicine is laughter! I agree but not in the middle of breakfast with a mouthful of toast.
"We usually read The Echidna at breakfast, but this morning I came close to wetting myself trying to read the Tump piece. In fact I couldn't get through it in one read, taking a break then getting back to it. Really very funny stuff, but on the flip side incredibly disturbing.
"Many thanks for brightening up our day and probably the whole month."
Helen said: "I was deeply offended by the ease and casualness with which Trump speaks about taking the lives of others, without regard for the killing maiming and suffering of children, women and men who occupy the places he speaks of 'obliterating', who are the people of the civilisation he talks casually of destroying.
"The pursuit of regime change by assassination of individuals is murder, and unacceptable conduct by a state. But trump seems to have moved on from regime change to war on the Iranian people. This is not defensive. It is outright bloodthirsty killing."
John said: "Very clever, Garry, especially the skillfully inserted use of CAPITALS, Trump's tiresome method for emphasis. The Beatles of course did have a hit song, Money (That's All I Want)."
Murray said: "That is another very clever piece from Garry. It shows the parlous state of world politics, when the leader of the free world manages to sound like an aluminum siding salesman trying to reach his monthly sales target, and the other party's candidate is incapable of forming a coherent sentence."
Sue said: "I have never been confident that the US would come to Australia's defence unless it was clearly in their own interests, although the US expects Australia and other countries to support it. With Trump as president this has only been reinforced. Trump will do whatever he feels like doing, without rhyme or reason - he has stated that he will what he wants - and justify his decisions with irrational and irrelevant idiocies.
"Love The Echidna. Keep the flag flying."
Jan said: "I wasn't the least bit offended by Trump's turn of phrase last week, just horrified that someone in his position could come out with this sort of unstatesmanlike drivel. I suppose we shouldn't even be horrified however as by now we should be accustomed to this style of unbalanced narcissistic ranting that he seems to deliver on a daily basis. Can't wait until the midterms and hope it proves to be his undoing."
