as a kid who had the holy hell beat out of him on occasion my teachers just thought i was sickly and anti social.
my father was smart. never any broken bones or bruises where they will show. if he went overboard when he beat me with the belt he'd call in school and say that i was not feeling well. so for a couple days while id have difficulty walking and sitting id be at home.
i never went to the hospital. no teacher ever asked me anything. they just wanted my homework and wondered why sometimes i would cry at the end of the day. of course i never spoke a word of it to anyone, and im pretty sure i would have lied if anyone ever saw the bruises on my back, chest and butt.
i rode those 3 years out like a prison sentence, age 9 to 12. no teachers ever noticed. i even went to counceling for the divorce (it was me who caught my mom having sex with another guy, and not understanding what was really going on i mentioned it to my dad who then filed for divorce.) i spoke to the therapist about all the things a 9-10 year old thinks about when his parents get divorced.
the real shit of it is, i learned to handle the situation by becoming numb to it all. never letting myself be happy, never letting myself be sad. just numb, awaiting the next time he would get angry. but the numbness enraged him further. he was very hot and cold with his fatherly affections, when we would be at a barbeque and he would dole on me that and i wouldnt react in front of his friends. those were particularly bad days.
all his friends just treated me like a quiet, introverted, little shit disrespectful kid. just like all the teachers. my baseball coach. my cub scout leader.
no one ever asked why i always refused to go swimming when i lived in frikin hawaii.
i think people see what they want to see. when they looked at my dad they saw a good looking 6ft 2in fit military guy who was nice and good with the ladies. they never saw the monster who would challenge himself to see how few strikes with the belt he would need to peel the skin from my lower back.
when they looked at me they saw a skinny, smaller sized boy who wasnt particularly bright or good at just about anything he did. mediochre grades, difficulty with math. hell, 33 year old me thinks people fealt sorry for him, to have as an only son such a misrepresentation of his obvious genetic prowess.
sorry, im ranting. the point was, friends teachers and neighbors see what they want to see. at least, that is my experience. in 3 years and hundreds of beatings, not a single one ever helped me.