Sister angry I “yanked” my nephew’s arm and told him off

Thats a sick and dishonest way of (mis)interpreting what happened.

I suspect if OP had reported that the dog had bitten the child it would be a very different thread. And OP would still be getting flak, but for not intervening in time !!

@Mmemm “The parent in the room could have been supervising more closely” so that’s an issue with your brother in law but you took it out on your little toddler nephew?!

Nephew's about to pull a hot cup of tea onto him, but don't "yank" his arm away OP it's aggressive/bullying 🙄

Some of the responses are totally batshit.

Letting a child hit a dog is incredibly stupid. It's cruel to the dog and dangerous for the child. BIL was being negligent.

I understand that how OP handled it may demonstrate a lack of a fulsome understanding of child development...but she isn't the parent, and only had to step in because of BIL's negligence.

Even if you are of the view that the "how would you like it..." carries an implicit threat, I'm sure most of us recognize it as a pretty standard turn of phrase that is intended to be used for teaching empathy.

If you are very particular in how you would like your child to be supervised (which is fine) then you need to actually supervise them. You don't get to check out of supervising your own children then get angry because someone else, who was forced to intervene due to your ineptitude, didn't address the (potentially dangerous) situation in the exact way you would have if you weren't too stupid and lazy to try.

And kid was fine too 🤷

But they weren’t made of Welsh Slate or concrete so no harm done or do we want to guess what else they might be made from and try and catastrophize how horrendous it might have been even though it wasn’t? Dog was fine. Everybody stand down. 😂

I think it was right to stop trh toddler but you did it without the skill a parent would.

When you have kids of that age you will realise that they are little more than babies.

I think the adults are at fault for not supervising more closely.

I'm with you, as you've described it seems fine and hardly traumatic for the child. All the 'gentle' parents on here are so wet.

Given your parents have asked you to smooth things over with your sister (who is being unreasonable) could you do a #sorry/not sorry apology? i.e "I'm sorry if you feel I handled it wrong. If there is a next time I won't interfere but I suggest you & BiL don't leave child unsupervised when the dog is around as he's obviously not yet old enough for that. And we'd all hate Nephew to get bitten wouldn't we? Oh and just to be clear I did not yank his arm. "

Maybe text it or WhatsApp and show it to your parents to prove you sent it. I would in fact go out when possible next few times they come around so things cool off.

He’s a baby though really, probably didn’t understand at all, a gently taking it away and explaining how we mustn’t do that as it could hurt your doggy and how we take care of animals etc would have sufficed.
I agree that Bil should have been watching more closely to attempt to intervene before it happened, but these things happen with kids.
Do you have children?

So you wanted OP to leave the child hitting the dog while she got his mum ?

Nowhere and never. She asked the child how they would feel if someone hit them. That’s been translated as a threat. It’s batshit.

Yep. And that’s the whole point. Which many posters are wilfully ignoring. Children learn by experience - if something is hot and you touch it, it teaches you not to touch it again. Unfortunately dogs biting if startled isn’t a lesson anyone wants a toddler to learn, so the adult takes charge and does whatever is needed to get the point across so that the child doesn’t have to learn by experience.

What ? It’s perfectly true.

My parents have Welsh slate ones. They are sharp and could do a lot of damage.

The dog doesn't know that

You are OTT OP.
Toddlers do those sort of things with no malice.
YABU++++

Threatened to hit?
Where? When?

There’s nothing in OP’s posts to say she did either.

The child in question is nearly 3, so not a baby. The word "yank" I suspect was hyperbole from the bil.

How patient would you be if you found your nephew hitting your dog ? How patient should you be if you find a child hitting a dog, given that the consequences of that could be dire for the child.

Why? How? She told him off, she didn't slap him!

The dad wasn't watching his child so how did he know that op "yanked" his child's arm. It seems like dad is being hyperbolic, when he snitched because he knew he should have said something at the time.

I don't think you did anything wrong there op in teaching your nephew to be more respectful to living creatures. I wonder whether most of the posters suggesting you overreacted would say the same if it wasn't a dog, but a baby sibling?

I said this earlier but I don't think her motivation or tone is as important as that she acted quickly to keep both parties safe. It was the right thing to do. I can't imagine having a big strop at anyone who acted to keep my child safe, especially if I wasn't there!

Coasters can be made from all sorts. Have seen ones that are wood, glass and slate. Could probably do bit of damage.