A Boston mother is scheduled to be arraigned today for allegedly beating her daughter at a Silver Line stop yesterday.
Yan Zhu, 44, was charged with aggravated assault and battery on a child under 14. Transit Police arrested her for beating her 3-year-old daughter at the Tufts Medical Center stop just before 10:30 a.m.
A T spokesman said police talked with “a number of witnesses” and then charged the woman.
The arrest comes a week after Erica Ryan, 25, of Roxbury, was arrested for allegedly punching her 1-year-old son in the face while trying to feed him as she rode a Route 23 bus.
Randall Block, the executive director of Watertown-based child abuse prevention group Parents Helping Parents, said it is nearly impossible to explain what brings a parent to the point of striking or beating their child, but said it could have something to do with a parent’s own upbringing.
“The way we all parent has a lot to do with our own childhood, and when I see stories like parents hitting kids, the first thing I wonder is whether, as a child, this parent wasn’t hit,” Block said. “When we hit our kids, when we yell at our kids, they remember those things — and it’s really hard to let go of those examples.”
Block said his group offers parents assistance in the form of support groups and a 24-hour hotline.
“The most important thing is that somebody seek support if somebody feels that their child is too difficult for them to handle for whatever reason; that they find other people who they can talk to.”
