about my 3 year old throwing a toy at a kids head?

[colourmehappytheresasofainhere]

Long story short. My son, 3, was playing with our neighbours kid, 6, in the park. My son throws quite a heavy water pistol from about 6 feet at the other kids head, for no particular reason. Other kid gets a massive shock, bursts into tears and a massive bruise comes up on his forhead. I comfort the other kid for a moment before his mum runs over. then take my son away and talk to him about how dangerous that was, how the other boy was hurt, etc. We then went back to apologise to the other kid who is having cuddle with his mum, and my son aged 3 and 4 months, refuses point blank to say sorry. So I tell him that we will have to go home and he will have to sit in his bedroom to think about what he did until ready to apologise. Dp comes in, I explain what happened, and he goes in to talk to our son. I then realise after about ten minutes he is playing puzzles with him. So I call dp out and explain that I think he should stay alone in there till he wants to say sorry. Dp disagrees. He doesn't think what he did was that bad, and he thinks all children do that kind of thing. I don't think they do.

Am I being unreasonable about what to expect from a 3 year old? am I being unreasonable that my son should stay in his room, alone till ready to apologize? Am I being unreasonable to think that not all children do that kind of thing? Have I got it all wrong?

Depends. If its a one off it seems a bit heavy handed, if he's got form then most definitely.

I think you are being a bit unreasonable.

You speak to him, withdraw him from the nice thing he was doing so he gets the message, and you make sure he sees you apologising and making a fuss of the other child.

The word sorry is neither here nor there for a 3 year old.

YANBU at all

At nearly 3 and a half, he should know what he did and at least feel bad that he's hurt someone.

To explain more hat I meant:

... some children say sorry at the drop of a hat with no understanding. The understanding, and the steps towards gaining self-control are more important.

I think that children do need to see you say sorry and show concern, but extracting an unwilling sorry from a child won't necessarily get the message through.

Later, I think the ability to feel and say sorry are really important

Did you ask your son why he did it?

A refusal to apologise indicates that he felt justified in doing it.

No, I think you're right. If he had apologised to the boy them it'd be different, but he's at the age now where he's learning about behaviour and consequences and your dh is sending him mixed signals.
3yo do that sort of thing, but that doesn't mean that there should be no consequences for it.
Yanbu

The consequence was leaving the park

I think you handled the situation well, my ds is the same age and I'd expect him to apologise too. Think your dp is being unreasonable and I bet if his son was the 6 yr old he would view it differently.

YANBU.

I do think it was fairly normal behaviour in a three year old, but what's normal and what's accceptable are two totally different things in my book and it's not ok to brush stuff like that off as 'boys will be boys' yadda yadda.

Having said that, don't leave him for too long and expect it to be a good punishment. At his age, he'll have long forgotten what happened or what he was supposed to be apologizing for. Far better to dish out a consequence at the time.

I think you were right in the park and were right to take him home. He's of an age to know that certain behaviour is unacceptable (whether he thinks so or not) and there should be consequences. 3 is old enough to know you don't hurt people, whether by throwing stuff or other methods.

However, I think the 'sit in his room til he says sorry' is probably slightly too much - children of that age need immediate consequences, not long and drawn out punishments.

Then again I don't think your DH should have undermined you

What howcomes said. YANBU but even if you were, your DH should discuss with you what to do prior to seeing son, not to go completely behind your back and undermine you. Will lead to a whole host of problems. Kids aren't stupid.

Yes Lovecat

I think it's not helpful for your DH to in any way suggest that the behaviour is normal. But I think the sitting in the room is excessive in a 3 year old and won't work

Maybe you should have time outed him there and then in the park. ???

I agree that it is a long time between the incident and the punishment otherwise.

I would remind him of the incident in a factual way befor he next plays with other kids and review (and hopefully praise him) afterwards.

It is frustrating when they do stupid and potentially dangerous things at this age but it isn't unusual. My boys were not rough in 'public' but used to take their violence out on each other

I didn't mean normal, I meant acceptable

Thanks for replies, I appreciate it. I did ask, and my son couldn't say, I was watching quite close by and I couldn't see any reason for it, and they usually play very nicely together. But my son can be like this, occasionally.

I agree, I should have done time out in park. The park is opposite our house, which is why we came home for a big time out, but it's turned into perhaps a too big thing. I will show this thread to Dp.

He couldn't say because he's 3 and they do mad things sometimes without much thought

I wonder if you are worried about him turning into a psychopathic thug? I know I did. It takes years of a drip drip approach and he'll be fine

It was an extremely dangerous thing to do. However your DS is only three and won't realise how dangerous it was so a really heavy handed approach won't really work. Not sure about the staying in the room till your DS apologises. Not even sure they understand the concept of apologising. Some children will but it means nothing and some absolutely refuse! But your DP should not be making out that it wasn't a serious thing. It was.

I think you should have stopped at take him to one side and explaining then encouraing to apologise. As he refused taking him home made sense but then to carry it on by leaving him in his room seems over the top - how long was he left for?

I think you did exactly the right thing in the park, but as others have already said, to make a 3 year old stay in his room until he says sorry is a bit much purely because he will have forgotten what he did and the concept of "sorry" can be a bit ambiguous to a young child. People trot out "say sorry" without really explaining what it means (not saying you haven't explained - you didn't say). I usually go along the lines of "was that a kind thing to do" "do you wish you hadn't done it" "will you do it again" - that's kind of what "sorry" means.

Well, unless I've misunderstood, the child he needs to say sorry to isn't there any more, and he's had a telling off and he's been brought home and put in his room on his own? Imo, a wee bit much...

I have a just turned three year old boy. I can only say what would happen if he did it. I would comfort the other child that was hurt immediately. Once they were ok I would explain loudly and clearly in very simple words to ds that you mustn't throw things, that you've hurt someone who is now very sad and how disappointed I was in him and that we would have to go home because he wasn't playing nicely. Then we would go home. I would offer him the opportunity to say sorry but imo he doesn't really understand the word and I would far far rather he used the word when he truly understood it and could mean it rather than parroting it with no sentiment as I want him to understand what saying sorry really means. (my ds had come out with it on occasion, unprompted and appropriately which made me very pleased!). Anyway. Once he was home, I would drop it, and only mention it at bedtime when I have a chat about his day with ds. "we did this which was nice and that and then you hit that boy by throwing your toy which wasn't very nice at all and we had to come home because you weren't playing nicely. You know you mustn't throw toys don't you? If you hurt someone like that you must say sorry to them because you hurt them and made them sad. Then daddy came home then we had dinner etc etc.

Ds seems to take in the lesson he needs to learn better when he is out of the eye of the storm as it were - having a quiet cuddle and talking about it its easier than when I'm panicking cos he's just done something awful.

How long are you planning to punish him? 1 day, 2 days etc? It sounds like he's had his punishment by being removed from the park & sent to his room.

You can "over" punish too - be careful that he doesn't just end up resenting the punishment without being able to link it to the offence...

The boy lives upstairs so I was hoping he would be happy to go upstairs and say sorry. Hes out now and we will talk about it again at bed. thanks again all.

And yes I have a few crazy men in my family, very keen for him to not be like them!