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

Don’t be daft - asking him if he would like to be hit in the face is giving him an opening into seeing how wrong his actions were. It’s really important that little children learn as early as possible how to behave around animals.

Did you grab his arm?

Why ?

Are you just arguing with me for the sake of it? Are you the OP?

Have we really wandered into OP has no clue how to treat children so whatever she does it's OK? Sounds like another excuse. And OP has said she does babysit him, so I imagine she's picked up some idea how to childmind along the way.

I don't actually think this is a massive deal, but can understand her sister's POV. As OP is living with her parents, in her shoes, I would apologise or, at least explain, for their sakes.

She wasn’t wrong. The BIL was for not supervising a toddler around a sleeping animal. He should have thanked op, not cowardly bitched about her to her sister.

No, what you did was fine! Just be careful with pulling one arm though, 'pulled elbow' is easy to cause in some children, and if that happened you would never hear the end of it!!

But in terms of understanding and development of a child, it's disingenuous to say that a 2 year, 1 month old is the same as a 2 year, 11 month old. Even a few months make a huge difference.

At this age they have no impulse control

this. OP keeps saying “in my opinion he knows better” (cos he’s 4 months off three).

This is someone with zero understanding of child development with wildly unreasonable expectations and willing to try to aggressively enforce them to boot. I would not want my toddler around them.

She's not wrong, just because you say she is.

You may think it's batshit but the OP would be the one up in court facing charges of having an out of control dog if it savaged her nephew. Unfair perhaps, but the law puts the onus firmly on her to ensure her dog does not injure anyone.

I think make that the basis of your apology/explanation. You got it wrong. We teach empathy by making a child think about how the other party feels. So 'don't do that, it'll hurt the dog and make him sad'. I'm in the camp that physically stopping something is fine. What principle aren't you apologising on? You are putting your Mum in the middle and considering she is housing you, that's unfair. You might not want children (my eldest and youngest didn't), you have to co-exist with one, while in your parents house. Boys in particular need to be taught empathy, Dad should have done better. The child is a couple of years from full impulse control and empathy, though.

She wasn't angry, she was firm and raised her voice. Nothing wrong with that.

And, I'm not a believer of gentle parenting techniques or their effectiveness, so your comment does not resonate with me.

Ignore them.

You fid the right thing. Potentially saved toddler from being bitten and the poor dog blamed. Most sensible people agree with you. Children who are not taught to treat animals kindly and are never told off can and do become horrible adults.

People (including your sister and useless BIL) are failing to see the bigger picture here. No one was ever harmed from a panicked telling off.

It sounds fine to me op. You stopped a potential nasty incident - they should be thanking you.

Well you're refusing to accept you were wrong so I don't know why you posted? Did you think people were going to congratulate you?

Absolutely shouldn’t say how would you like it if I hit you. My daughter has just turned 2 and we have a dog and always telling her to leave her when she’s sleeping or if she walks away she doesn’t want to play, be gentle, don’t touch her ears etc. if she hit my dog with anything I would be stern and say no we don’t hit the dog and she would say sorry to the dog. At this age they have no impulse control and it’s not easy but my view is anger breeds anger and certainly violence breed violence. If I was you I’d apologise to your sister for how you reacted.

It’s not nasty / it’s called explaining things to them. Which you are meant to do

of course it would be more accurate to say how would you like it if the dog bit you because that was a possibility

You advocated for the dog. And as you say there is a big difference between just turned 2 and 2 months off being 3. An almost 3 years old understands more than people make out. As someone who has been through the kids and dogs phase, a few harsh words at the time generally stops slip ups later on.

No, she didn’t. You are making things up. Read the account again.

The grump should go to the dad who did nothing. He should have jumped up and disciplined his son himself. I wouldn’t be thrilled with how you dealt with it, but you’re not a parent and you did your best. What do they expect if they aren’t going to parent?

Says an awful lot about how this child will grow up if this is the parents attitude/attentiveness.

@Mmemm It's fairly obvious to me from the "" around the word 'yank' in the thread title that you don't agree that you yanked him at all. Don't quite understand why that's going over some people's head.

If indeed you DID yank the child or speak unduly harshly to him in front of his father, why didn't father intervene?

I suspect if your dog had nipped your nephew in response to being whacked with the coaster, there would have been far more than a 'yanking' of the dog going on by the parents (that's if daddy could actually be arsed to respond).

@Mmemm I think you were fine. His Dad should have stepped up and your Sis is probably annoyed with him, too. She doesn’t set the rules in your parents’ house and actually you are allowed to set your own standards. If nephew had been upset then you could have comforted him after “I’m sorry you’re upset but you know we should
be kind to animals”. BIL had time to moan about you but not parent in the moment. If Sis is stamping her feet, let her get on with it.

It’s difficult to tell from the first post whether you over reacted or not and I agree that your BIL should have been more aware and dealt with it but you and your sister both sound very inflexible and I feel sorry for your parents. You are living in your parent’s house and they want your sister and nephew to visit. What harm would it do to give a half apology ( sorry if I overreacted but BIL was absorbed in his book and I didn’t want the dog to get hurt or react). Get down off your high horse . Your sister is also being a bit OTT in saying she won’t visit but you can only smooth it over from your side.

You did threaten your 2 year old nephew. Thats exactly what happened.

“how would you like it if I hit you in the face”

Bloody hell OP. It doesn’t matter if you want kids or not l, this is a pretty nasty way to speak to a child. I have a 2.5 year old and they do stupid shit sometimes. It is hard not to get upset when they seemingly do something violent, but to say that you would hit them in the face is an absolute step too far and I’d be very upset if a family member said this to them.