How would you react if you saw a 3 yo trying to deliberately step on a cat's tail?

[TotesDelulu]

For context, child is 3.8 (4 this summer), the parent is my friend who was out of sight at the far end of the garden (it's a big garden) making a phone call. Cat is 15 with arthritis and was snoozing in the sun.

I was inside washing up and looking out if the closed kitchen window when I saw child looking down at floor and moving strangely. I stood on tiptoes and moved to the side to get a view of child's feet and realised they were trying to step on the cat's swishing tail. I yelled "[CHILD] STOP IT, YOU DO NOT STEP ON THE CAT'S TAIL" extremely loudly through the window just as the child's foot came down on the end of cat's tail. Child jumped backwards then looked round to see who had shouted. I went and opened back door, crouched down and said "[Child] I need to talk to you" at normal volume and in a normal tone of voice but child ran off toward friend who had heard me shout and come to see what the problem was.

Friend has now got the hump and gone home because a) they don't shout and b) child claims not to have been stepping on tail. I don't usually shout either especially not at other people's DC, but child was outside, no parent in sight, windows and doors shut, and I was worried for my poor old cat and wanted to intervene fast enough to prevent a tail injury!

I am absolutely 100% certain that's what child was doing, I would never have shouted had I not been certain.

So how would anyone else have reacted?

Indeed a previous poster was quite happy to declare the child a serial.killer in the making
Whilst also staying they would throw the parent and child out of their garden by the scruffs of their necks .

kind hands
This phrase should be banned.

This

It's what they use in my child's special school along with other familiar phrases that the children recognise .

If you shouted at my child as loudly as you've acknowledged you did, then I would speak to you (away from my child) about that as a separate issue. I would not be happy about someone significantly raising their voice at my child regardless of what had actually happened

However I think you were wrong to shout. Shouting is wrong in principle. So I would apologise to your friend and say that you could handle situation better but only for this

I’m really interested in what the above two posters think the OP should have done. She’s explained very clearly that the child wouldn’t have heard her unless she shouted, as she couldn’t reach the window. So if she hadn’t shouted and had taken the extra seconds to get out to the garden and speak to them at a lower volume, the child would have stamped on the tail of an elderly, arthritic, obviously much loved cat. I cannot imagine that any normal, sane person would think that it would be preferable to hurt and frighten an elderly animal rather than raise their voice to a child in order to be heard, so in the exact circumstances that the OP was in, what would you have done? If it had been your child, why would you think you had any right to either criticise her or expect an apology?

Also, I’m really curious whether it’s only occasions where your child is about to hurt someone/thing else that you disapprove of shouting? If she’d walked in on your child about to stick a fork in a toaster, and bearing in mind the tendency of young children turning a deaf ear to anyone telling them not to do something they want to do, would you want her to gently and calmly say ‘ooh, please don’t do that, dear. It’s dangerous and you could hurt yourself’? While you were waiting for an ambulance, would you be thanking her for not raising her voice at your child? Or would you rather she raised her voice to shock them into putting the fork down?

'Kind hands and kind toes, Felix, dear' is what people say when they're actually supervisin their children and can remove them from the issue before it becomes a problem. Bellowing FELIX! LEAVE THE CAT ALONE! or FELIX! STOP! through an entire brick wall so that it stops precious Felix in his tracks when his parent is failing to supervise and hopefully raises the Fear of God in him is perfectly reasonable when preventing injury to Felix, Felix's baby sister Clementine or Scragcat the Magnificent Feline as she's snoring in the sunshine.

Hopefully, Felix's Mum will be so offended she won't leave him unsupervised anywhere again. Or come round. You don't need the hassle.

Jeez - my (lovely generally well behaved) children got regular telling offs from shouty mum when they were little and up to no good (teasing siblings or about to do something reckless like running near a road). They’re all fine. We all still love each other. What is this angst about kids never being shouted at? Perhaps that why bad behaviour is off the scale in schools and teachers are leaving the profession in droves.

I’d have done exactly the same op. Poor cat. Leave the mum to sulk.

I’m always telling kids off in the park for chasing/chucking stuff at the ducks.

I would have reacted the same and I think its totally fine to shout in these circumstances. A follow up chat about how sore it would have been for the cat would have been useful from the parent .
I have a zero tolerance towards this behaviour
We stopped a 10yr old from tormenting a kitten outside our house actually followed him to nearby house to tell his parents what he had been doing .
Got a mouthful of abuse from his gran .
He was done for assaulting her in his late teens .
Have followed his court cases in the local press .
He was a bad kid and is a bad man .
I'm not saying it's the same in this case obviously but I never think lack of empathy is a something to be supported.

the point about shouting is it only works if it is unusual
if a child is routinely shouted at and there are never any actual consequences- eg

FREDDY COME HERE NOW

I SAID COME NOW

IF YOU DON'T COME NOW WE WON'T GO TO MACDONALDS

i SAID COME NOW

FREDDY ITS TIME TO GO

IM GOING TO COUNT TO FIVE

1...2...3...4...5

COME ON NOW IVE TOLD YOU ITS TIME WERE GOING

IF YOU COME NOW WE CAN GO TO MACDONALDS ON THE WAY HOME

etc etc

Freddy is learning not to pat attention to the person shouting
But if 98% of the time Freddy is spoken to in reasonable tones, when someone shouts FREDDY STOP he will probably stop

so its a handy trick to have up your sleeve

This. Mother is silly to get so worked up about it. 3yos do some daft things sometimes and need to be stopped for their own safety or the safety of others/animals/property. They have limited self-control and empathy so it's not necessarily a character reflection on them as it would be in the case of animal cruelty with an older child. It is naughty though, as most children that age would know not to do it.

And of course child is likely to deny it, they're probably scared having been told off.

This is not a sen child as far as we've been told though.
The op's friend will be one of those parents who insist their child behaves really well in school when staff know differently.
Why would the op's friend not believe her?
Ridiculous.

Of course it's fine to shout if the situation warrants it! Honestly, whatever happened to plain old common sense? Are there really people out there who wouldn't yell to stop a child in his/her tracks in order to prevent harm (to them or to others?) Batshit.

Kids do strange things when out of their parents' sight.

That's why I'm very tolerant of apparently "poor" behaviour when we host playdates if the parents don't stay, but I do supervise closely and jump in if necessary.

I would have done the same. We have always had cats and my children would never do that.

I never said it was just, saying what I would say
You don't have to agree with me.

I would have shouted a lot. And would not have that child back in my house

I would have done the same. I would also yell at a stranger's kid for animal cruelty if I saw it.

For what it's worth I think you did the right thing. I doubt that kid will try the same thing again, if the parent gets over it and continues to come to your house. I also get why the parent is in denial. At that age you think they're innocent and wouldn't do anything to harm anyone or any creature. Its a kind of parental blindness. I did it myself.

I'm not shouty and I don't like cats. I'd still have shouted at the kid

You absolutely did the right thing. Your cat’s tail would have been harmed more than you shouting at the child. Hopefully they have learned their lesson and have been shocked.

I'm not keen on shouting as a way of life, nor am I particularly sentimental about animals, but those who think it's worse to shout briefly at a child than allow an animal to be tormented really need to think about where that might lead. No wonder society is going down the drain.

I’d have almost lost my shit!

Yanbu

A less tolerant response would be to not intervene and see cat claw through child's skins or face. Most people would do the same, I'd shout the child's name and yell a command, "Elodie, STOP" and physically lift the child out the way in an attempt to prevent cat clawing eyes out.

This. "Little shit" "little brat" "friend is a moron / pathetic" What's wrong with people on here 🙄