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Original poster

man shouted at my 3 year old for kicking

999 replies

ghostspirit · 08/09/2013 14:53

I took my children to chessington. and was in que for the ride. my 3 year old daughter had been kicking the man in front of us. ( i had not seen) He turned and shouted at her 'stop kicking me,don't you dare kick me' his tone and voulume of voice was a bit over the top. I told my daughter you don't kick its naughty. Then i told him she is 3 years old if there is a problem you talk to me not her. The woman who was with him said they have to be firm with their child because of some special needs he has and i said that may be your situation and you may need to talk to your son that way, But that does not mean its ok to talk to my child that way.

OP posts:
PaperSeagull · 08/09/2013 17:53

And did you offer an apology? I may have missed it somewhere. Or did you immediately leap in with the "if there is a problem you talk to me" (which honestly sounds quite aggressive to me)?

mrsjay · 08/09/2013 17:54

OP i understand everything you are saying about how you feel about the man who told her off but she pissed him off and it probably hurt he was within his rights to tell her to stop, if he was in her face screaming at her I would agree with you but you said he shouted which imo is different, I think you need to put this down to experience and move on and remember your 3 year is not a little toddler she is 3 and by her age she should know not to kick

YouTheCat · 08/09/2013 17:54

Okay. Question ignored again. Hmm

OP, my take on this is this:

You were on your phone, ignoring your children while your 3 year old merrily kicked away at this poor bloke. The reason he felt he had to reprimand her is that you were doing nothing because you hadn't noticed her kicking out because you were on your phone.

Am I right? Can I have a Wine ?

WorraLiberty · 08/09/2013 17:55

Look, children don't die because someone raises their voice to them when they're naughty.

As long as he wasn't bending down screaming in your child's face, he did the right thing imo.

'Shouting is a form of violence'??

Not in the case of what happened in the OP it's not.

Original poster
ghostspirit · 08/09/2013 17:55

oh i would not say never ever raise a voice to a teenager... they are older and bigger but a 3 year old is much differet. a big man shouting at a small child. must be like a giant to her

OP posts:
jamdonut · 08/09/2013 17:57

So the bugbear is that he "shouted".

He was probably fed up with it!!! It sounds like he had waited for you to do something about it.

If it happened to me, it wouldn't occur to me to speak to the parent , but that might be because I work in a school and we talk to children all day. And yes, occasionally , we have to raise our voices because it warrants it. Especially if a child hurts you. An ineffectual "please don't do that" does not always work. A sharp rebuke does. Even with 3 year olds in Foundation stage.

WorraLiberty · 08/09/2013 17:58

Poor little poppet

This could take years of therapy and £1000s of pounds to get her over the trauma....

mikkii · 08/09/2013 17:58

We were on a bus recently. DD1, then 5 was sitting near the driver with DS. DH and I (with DD2 on my knee) were sat nearby. A grumpy old day got on and was glaring at DD1, so I asked if there was a problem? She kicked me was the response. (Well, DD1 has form for swinging her legs and may not have noticed if she connected with the lady).

I apologised, and said "DD1, you kicked this lady, what do you need to do?" DD1 immediately apologised. I was a little disappointed that the apology was not accepted or acknowledged.

The best bit came when the women went to get off the bus and whacked me with her bag. Given her attitude to DD1, I called her on it. I pointed out that she had not had the good manners to accept DD's apology nor manners to apologise for banging into me (I didn't understand why the two incidents weren't the same) and I also used the point that it takes a village to raise a child and that she had not set a good example to DD!

FamiliesShareGerms · 08/09/2013 18:02

OP, if all the man said to your DD was "stop kicking me, don't you dare kick me", even if this was bellowed at the top of his voice I'd consider it not completely over the top. It could have been a lot worse.

You can't expect an adult to filter everything through you, that's not how society (yet) works. You don't seem to have made your daughter apologise for what she did. And you can't complain about posters calling your daughter a brat when she she was clearly behaving like a brat!

Did you really expect MN to be all "there, there, what a horrible man, hope your DD has recovered from her verbal assault"?

BeanandGone · 08/09/2013 18:03

Are you sure you weren't just embarrassed that the other man was able to parent your child better than you?

That^^is ridiculous response to OP's post. What a load of rubbish.

SilverApples · 08/09/2013 18:03

I don't understand why you posted.
When you did post, convinced that YWNBU from the start, and the thread didn't go the way you expected or wanted, why didn't you just stop and metaphorically walk away?
What have you gained from this?

Original poster
ghostspirit · 08/09/2013 18:03

oh youthecat.... do you have a phone fetish or something... yes the first thing i said was sorry then i told her off for doing it then i said to him he should have spoken to me

OP posts:
BeanandGone · 08/09/2013 18:05

a big man shouting at a small child. must be like a giant to her

Well she definitely won't kick any more giants!!

I was raised on strewellpeter and it did me no harm Grin

MNHQ
JulieMumsnet · 08/09/2013 18:05

Evening.

Just a quick post to remind you of our lovely talk guidelines.

It's OK to comment on a post, not the poster.

MNHQ.

duchessandscruffy · 08/09/2013 18:06

The man can't have been that scary if your Dd thought it ok to kick him!

Why didn't you put her in the buggy as a punishment?

Yanbu to be upset that he shouted. I am not at th as t stage yet, but I can imagine that another adult telling your child off is upsetting and horrifying. But you have to face up to the fact that he was not in the wrong for telling her off, you were in the wrong for a) not realizing she was kicking a stranger and b) not apologising/making her apologise to said stranger.

BeanandGone · 08/09/2013 18:07

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter

internationallove985 · 08/09/2013 18:07

Hi O.P just like to add. I hope you offered the man an apology or you got your D.D to. Just basic manners really.
Familiessharegerms. No-one has the right to call someone else's child a brat, let's not forget this is an innocent little girl we're talking about here. Let's not get too nasty. Posters calling a little girl a brat is going too far I.M.O. xx

Misspixietrix · 08/09/2013 18:09

Friday she did put Dd in the Buggy I think ~

Groovee · 08/09/2013 18:10

None of us bar the OP were there, so we don't know if the man actually shouted or if he spoke firmly in a louder voice which the OP may have thought was shouting.

Did you or your dd apologise to the man?

Kicking bloody hurts. I've had it done to me and it's something that both my children get severely told off for when they do it to each other.

Next time it could be a child your child kicks... They could well kick back harder.

At 3 they can still be told something is wrong and sometimes a short sharp shock is what stops them doing it.

YouTheCat · 08/09/2013 18:11

Not obsessed by phones, just trying to get a straight answer.

Side stepped again. Hmm

coco27 · 08/09/2013 18:12

If some brat kicked me repeatedly I would have been yelling at them too!!
.You don't own your DD , she is a person in her own right. You have to get used to the fact that other peoples communications with don't have to be brokered through you!

working9while5 · 08/09/2013 18:12

Yeah the OP should have apologised and unreservedly so but no, an adult should be able to be assertive with a child without shouting or saying 'don't you dare'. I was recently hit by a toddler of about this age randomly while his mother was in the next aisle at the supermarket. Three times. Should she have been supervising him? Hell yeah. I gave him my best teacher death stare and said firmly and quietly 'do not hit me again'.

No excuse for losing your temper as a grown up and behaving like an overgrown toddler yourself. No isdue with dealing with it, telling child off etc but there are far too many people quick to anger and create more irritation.

Did the op handle it well? No. Did the man handle it well? No. I blame the hyperstress of queuing in such a place. Parenting classes my arse. A lot of grown ups overtaxed and distracted by the hellishness of a theme park queue and losing the run of themselves.

Misspixietrix · 08/09/2013 18:13

MrsMongoose I had sooo many adults tell me off.for being naughty when I was little If DM was not around/busy. Grin

Original poster
ghostspirit · 08/09/2013 18:14

i have answered already but if it makes you happy we will play pretend... ok i was on the phone to my other kids telling them the best place to shout at the old ladys.

OP posts:
duchessandscruffy · 08/09/2013 18:14

misspixietrix I don't think she did - she said it was a form of punishment she would use if bad behaviour continued, as an alternative to taking the whole family hone.

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