Upset at friends son who keeps hitting mine!

Whilst I would remove my child from a situation to prevent them from being hurt I also have to ask why should the good child and parent have to leave because of another child's behaviour which their parent can't or won't deal with?

If you know your child is a hitter/biter because they already have form for it then you should be watching them like a hawk and removing your child the second they even look like they are going to hit or bite and take them home. Maybe they won't do it if they don't get to stay.

Don't make other people feel like they need to tell of your child to protect their own. They aren't the bad guy.

If someone isn’t dealing with their child, someone else will. That person can’t complain if they refuse to tell their child off.

I’m not going to sit there and allow another child to hit mine, especially in the case of things like soft play when the parent is unknown.

Sorry, but this is terrible advice to give such a young child.

You should NEVER tell off someone else’s child. EVER.

You make their parent aware of what’s happened and let them deal with it.
If they don’t deal with it, you remove yourself from the situation.

There is no ‘not causing upset’ if your friend refuses to address her child’s aggression. You just tell her that you cannot have your child growing up thinking that this is what friendships are like. You have to protect them from the physical (and likely emotional) abuse, if she won’t sort her child out.
End of.

I had similar problem with my DD being bitten by a friend's LO.

My priority was #1 to keep DD safe and #2 to make sure that DD didn't learn that bitting was OK.

The next time my DD was bitten we simply left the playdate (immediately with minimum fuss and explanation). I wasn't going to hang around for DD to be bitten again, my DD was safe and the other LO learnt that the fun stopped if they bit their friend. I only had to do this once, after which the other child learnt that they didn't "win" attention from bitting. It also meant I didn't have to say anything to my friend's child so avoided that particular minefield.

Tell her your child doesn't want to meet up with them anymore because he's tired of being hit. Your son is only 3, he shouldn't have to put up with that. Amazing how some people are always the victim......

@AmberSnake what @LivingLaVidaBabyShower said. I would be saying something like ‘I appreciate you don’t want me to tell little Johhny off if he hits my child but in that case, I’m expecting you to deal with it if he tries it again’.

I've been in a similar situations, both as you and as the other mother.

In your situation I wasn't as close as your are to the other mother, but learned quickly that as she was not properly addressing the hitting/biting, she didn't address other behaviours either (kicking/strangling etc) on, not just my child, but all children they came into contact with. Came to a head when her husband called the police on my mother, for my mother to have the "audacdity" to "throw the boy across the room" (she didnt, she moved him gently away from burning candles and had witnesses). But the husband spent the night in custody for being caught on cctv grabbing and twisting his son's arm, to be able to blame my mother.
I've not spoken to them in 8 years and my anxiety when I see them is off the chart.

Where I was in your friend's position, I knew my son was a hitter/biter (not the son from the situation above), so I would follow him everywhere, if we were around other children and stop him if I could see he was going to hit or bite. Or apologise profusely and remove my son if he did.

So, do you really want to be friends with someone who is OK with their child hiting/biting another child? The parent's actions speak louder than the child's in this situation

Gosh my son went through a hitting phase at this stage - there were consequences though “we are gentle with are friends, if we can’t be gentle we’ll have to leave’ - and leave we did, every time, it felt like weeks. I wasn’t unkind - I love my son, he know’s he’s loved - I just held a reasonable boundary. he doesn’t hit anyone randomly anymore…

your friend is being a prat - and is probably embarrassed at being ineffective. I would take some time out from this for a while - even if it’s just a ‘let’s meet up without the boys while they’re in this phase’

Do i tell her i’m teaching my son self defense so if your son hits him i’m gonna have to tell mine to hit back? Is that okay or is that rude?

That would be utterly unhinged, even if your son weren't 18 months older than this other boy, which he is.

The answer is what everyone has told you it is: stop meeting up as a family until their son is a bit older and past the hitting phase. You shouldn't be prioritising this friendship over your son.

Probably not appropriate but I’d tell my DS, next time X smacks you on purpose - smack them back. They’ll learn.

I have this problem with a family member. Simply gentle parenting only works for gentle children. Her first is a gentle child. Her second is not and she never gets told off for hitting/biting/pushing etc. If I am there I very firmly tell the child ‘no NO we do NOT hit’ which the mum absolutely hates, but I’m sick of my kids being the targets. Unfortunately it’s been 3 years of this now and we don’t see them very much anymore which is sad. But my kids don’t want to see the child and I have to look out for them

Obviously
You stop seeing them
Why would you continually put your child in a situation where they get hurt ,and you dismiss it ,as he didn't mean it
Your conditioning your child to accept violence and to accept being bullied because..oh he didn't mean it .
Stand up for your child and stop putting him in that position

My daughter is 2 and when we go see my friend and her 1 year old mine for some reason cannot seem to not hit, pull or kick her. I always stop her tell know show her how we can touch the baby. I have to actively sit with them so I am close enough to intervene quickly. (Toddlers are fast!) my friend has other children so she understands how it is and isn’t bothered but sometimes I feel so awful. And I’m trying to stop it!

I'm surprised so many people are recommending teaching your child to hit back. 3 year olds shouldn't be taught to hit unless you plan on spending the next few years being called into nursery/ school to talk about why your kid resorts to violence every time they get slighted or are angry with someone. 3 year olds just don't have the tools to deal with physical violence yet, it's on you to keep him away from that where possible.

A few people have recommended good scripts for a conversation. I would try once more to have an open conversation about it and come up with a strategy together. If it doesn't work and your son gets hit again it might be time for a little distance. Meeting up without the kids for a year or less while your friends kid gets over that phase shouldn't kill a good friendship.

Sorry but as far as i'm concerned if my child was getting hit and bit by your child you can be damn sure i would be saying something to your child about it and i have done on previous occasions. Sometimes a stranger saying it can have more of an impact than their parent saying anything.

Not at all. Maybe next time she allows her son to act violently towards yours it can be settled by you slugging her. Apparently hitting is ok 👌

If her child is old enough to understand you when you speak to him then he’s old enough to understand her. She should be speaking to him and sorting it out.

Your posts seem to indicate that you are more concerned about potentially losing your friendship than whether your child is unhappy at being hit

I would have had a word first time and if she got shitty about it then so be it. No friendship is worth that much

Stop meeting up with her or just see her on her own.
Or tell your child hit him right back .

I’m going to get hate for this but I had this situation years ago with a friend (who is no longer in my life as I saw the light) who had a son the same age as mine (he was 3 weeks younger) and he was just awful. She just loved to tell everyone they were ‘growing up together’ and when they were 3ish every toy my son would pick up he would snatch off him. She would just laugh and tell them to share. There were lots and lots of incidents of bad behaviour but my son was once playing with a radio controlled car and he just walked over and picked the car up off the floor to stop him. He never got told ‘No’ and she used to make out they were jointly at fault all the time. The 4th time he picked the car up off the floor my son walked over and hit him with the controller - she wasn’t in the room, her son started crying and when she came in I just said I didn’t see what happened. He looked at me and I looked at him and he knew full well that I saw what happened and wasn’t going to stick up for him, The final straw was when he whacked my 1 year old son with a wooden sword when they were about 5 (I had another baby, she didn’t). When she made an excuse that he ‘didn’t mean it and that’s just how he says hello’ I just left. Some people just won’t accept that their childrens behaviour is wrong. Also, my boys are not angels and I didn’t make a habit of letting my children hit other kids but this felt like some sort of situation where my son had finally stood up for himself against this spoilt bully of a child, That’s why I think he moved on to DS little brother as DS had shown he wouldn’t be bullied any more. Vote with your feet and don’t tolerate friends who don’t discipline their kids.

No her son is not too young to understand and you did perfectly right to intervene. If not what sort of message are you giving to your son? Approach your friend being upset with some practical suggestions and ask her how she would deal with it the other way round. No need to put your friendship iin jeopardy.

“I love you and your son, I really value our friendship, but I can’t stand by when your son is hitting mine. It hurts and upsets him and it’s not ok. If you won’t deal with it, I have no choice but to step in. If that’s not acceptable to you then maybe we meet without the kids until yours is past this phase. Please just think how you would want me to deal with it if the situation were reversed- what would you expect from me?”

This would annoy me because 2 years old is not too early to have your child understand 'No thank you', and 'Kind hands please'. Two phrases which my hitty 2 year old can understand perfectly well and which you will hear at nursery settings up and down the country where staff have to control aggressive toddlers.

I was in just your situation OP, but I wasn't as close to the mum as you are so it was easier for me to just put the friendship on pause until her son had moved out of this phase.

He doesn't hit now, but interestingly he is not very nice and says nasty things. Perhaps it's just his nature but I do wonder if lack of boundaries might have produced that.

We have a friend who has a 'physical' son. They're a bit older so possibly easier.

But I was impressed by the one mother in our group who turned up to a meet alone saying her son declined coming because he didn't have fun and hated getting clobbered.

To be fair, the mother of the aggressor takes no prisoners when her son is out of line, but it still doesn't stop him.

Yes, this. That's the age gap between me and my next sibling and my mum's approach was to allow my sister to whack the bejesus out of me because I was "much bigger" and apparently therefore it didn't hurt or affect me(!).

She didn't let my sibling do it to the younger kids, though, because they were "too little".

Some parents absolutely think it's OK for older kids to be hit by younger ones, I'm afraid.