It seems my impression that both children were pre-schoolers was incorrect - see the comment from Lizé Brits - she says the boy was 8 and the girl "almost 4", i.e. 3, and that the boy slapped her hard enough to leave visible marks on her face - I think you'll agree this changes things? My initial response to this story was to register "little boy hits little girl" - in my book, that's not on. Boys need to learn from a young age that it's not okay to hit girls - it's because our boys fail to learn this that we have such monstrous levels of gender-based violence in SA.