to not want your child to cuddle mine after just hurting them?

[RocketInMyPocket]

I have a really good friend, she's lovely to be around, but when it comes to the kids some things give me the rage.
Her dd is 6 months older than mine, and can sometimes be a bit spiteful (snatching pushing smacking) . My dd will be 4 in August, hers 4 in Feb.
I have taught my kids from an early age that any violent behaviour is simply not acceptable, and they don't hit snatch pinch etc.
So her dd smacked mine over a toy. My dd was crying, saying 'Mummy, x smacked me', her dd lied and said she didn't even though we saw her. When I said, X, I saw you do it, she proceeded to scream bloody murder.
My friend picked her daughter up, said ok calm down, give Rockets dd a cuddle and say sorry. She was screaming, shaking her head no, lashing out with arms and legs.
The say sorry part was quickly dropped, and was just turned into give a cuddle.
At that point she tried to cuddle my dd, (who had stopped crying by now, but was still sniffling on my lap), and my dd immediately started crying again as soon as she came near her.
Friend said oh she's trying to be nice to you and give you a cuddle to say sorry. And pulled at sad face at my dd. I said something along the lines of, sorry dd only cuddles people who are nice to her, not people who hit her and make her cry.
Friend kind of gave me an odd look, put her dd down and said, oh well she doesn't want a cuddle.
I was just so fucked off that she put the onus on MY dd, pulling sad faces etc when she hadn't even mentioned her dds hitting, lying and then thrashing and screaming apart from saying basically go and upset the girl you've just walloped by making her cuddle you when she quite frankly doesn't want you near her.
Friend left soon after.
What would you have done? I enjoy my friends company obviously, but don't really want her dd near my two, as it's not an isolated incident, and my 2 get a bit confused when she behaves badly, and nothing is done, when they would obviously be punished.
Sorry for such long winded post, but I hope you understand what I'm saying!

RocketInMyPocket - What was your daughter doing with the toy prior to being hit?

And no, I am not suggesting hitting is an OK response to not playing nice. But I do understand that some young children do not have the higher level communication skills to negotiate, compromise or even explain themselves clearly when they are frustrated.

Some children do have these skills, others don't.

So if one little girls is being manipulated in some child-like way - failure to share, being unkind, not playing fair... Then it is hard for a child without higher level communication skills to explain their upset in a non physical way.

This does not make aggression right or acceptable. But it does offer an explanation for the behaviour. It also shows that both girls needed a bit of a talking to.

Fair enough.

This is a difficult one for me because i have a hitter (he's 2.5 tho). Personally i wouldn't have done time out in this situation. I would have told him off for hitting and told him to say sorry. Of course he isn't sorry, because he doesn't understand what sorry is, and of course he never ever actually says it, instead he usually tries to hit the child again . We then leave with me apologising and DS screaming.

YANBU about the hugging, i would never even ask one of mine to hug another child in any circumstance. Say sorry yes, but hug is a bit much i think. However, i do think i'd be pissed off with your comment and yes as you point out, it's the 'nice' part of it. The sentiment is fine but the wording could be better.

If it were me I wouldn't bring my child to play with yours again after this. In fact it would probably make me feel uncomfortable around you even without the dc. I would hate to feel judged even tho i would understand your point.

Really? Failing to share now justifies hitting?

It depends on the circumstances Slithy, but i can see how in some situations it would definitely encourage it and explain it if not justify exactly. Last week we went to a toddler group and there was a child who collected up the trains in a bucket and walked round with them refusing to share. There were 2 children sitting nicely at the brio track (my ds one of them) and no trains to play with. DS followed the child with the bucket trying to get the trains back by snatching (he isn't verbal enough to ask for them back), i kept intervening and telling him to stop, but also explaining to the mum of the child that DS only wanted to play with some of the trains on the track. The mum just said 'oh' and shrugged. Then DS pushed the boy over, he dropped the trains and ds happily picked them up. I of course told him off, but i do kind of understand why he did it. I certainly wasn't as cross with him as i was when he just walked up to a little girl in the park and for no reason pushed her flat on her back.

Honestly, I think if you hadn't included this comment:

I have taught my kids from an early age that any violent behaviour is simply not acceptable, and they don't hit snatch pinch etc.

I might have been more inclined to agree with you, but your suggestion that it is all down to your marvellous parenting that your children don't hit implies that you think children who do do so as a result of poor parenting. My son has been in and out of hitting phases and we have always told him not to hit, and encouraged him to apologise. He still hits, occasionally, and this is certainly not down to any lack of direction on my part as to how unacceptable that is.
I think you need to get past the idea that this child is hitting because she is spiteful or because your friend doesn't do what you would do in that situation and accept that some children just hit despite the best efforts of their parents.

WRT the cuddle - my son occasionally wants to give someone a cuddle to apologise, which is fair enough as it is something that we do at home. If the child doesn't want to cuddle then I explain that a cuddle is only an option if both people want to. Not because he's not nice (because it's ok to not want a cuddle from someone who is being nice to you too), not because they are upset (you can be perfectly happy and still not want a cuddle from someone) but because someone has to want a cuddle for it to be ok.

It sounds like your parenting styles don't really match up - she might spend hours at home banging on about hitting and apologising and just wanted the issue over with today, or she might be a slacker who leaves her daughter to it and doesn't care if she learns not to hit, but either way getting together and judging each other's parenting doesn't sound like fun so why not suggest a break from each other, or meeting up without the children?

I loathe the forced cuddling!

Maybe the OP could have worded what she said better, but the friend pulling a sad face at OPs daughter!

that would have given me the rage!

YANBU at all.

Never mind the other child, it would be a bad message to teach your daughter, that someone who has been unkind to her should be forgiven after a 'cuddle', you were right to say what you said IMO.

The snatching etc, is normal really, but that wasn't the point of your thread, so I Will say no more on that.

YANBU

My DS is 14 months and has never had any kids play roughly with him until a few weeks ago. A much older child snatched a toy off him then when DS took it back, pushed DS with both hands onto the floor and he hit his head. DS was obviously scared and confused and cried when the child came near him to 'hug it better'. In my pfb annoyance I would have loved to have shoved the parent over then offered a hug to make it all better

Yes, obviously I can't do that but some kind of acknowledgment beyond, ah, hug it better now would have been nice...

I can see that my 'I don't tolerate violence' comment has gotten peoples backs up, but I'm sorry, I don't from my kids.
Whether the fact that they aren't violent because of that or their personalities, I don't know and frankly don't care. I'm sure that it might be the case that just because I don't tolerate it, doesn't mean they won't do it, but I would talk, lecture, punish etc
I most certainly wouldn't smile and roll my eyes. I don't tolerate bad manners either. Doesn't mean my kids have always said please and thank you. Just means that if they don't say please they don't get.
I'm sure I do plenty of things that others don't agree with. My friend does other things very differently to me, but as that stuff has no bearing on my kids, I couldn't care less.
Someone asked me what would I do if my dd had done it, so that's why I explained what I would do.
If you can honestly say that there aren't certain behaviours in children that you find intolerable and infuriating, then good for you, you're obviously a far more relaxed person than me.
I'm human, and I have certain things that irritate me.
And I have actually stated a few times now, that it wasn't even the hitting per se that bothered me, nor was it really the cuddle as such (although that did put my back up a bit) I could've dealt with that if it wasn't for the face that was pulled at the time, which I felt put the whole responsibility onto my dd.
And as for what they were doing fate, they were playing with the dolls pram, taking turns really nicely for ages actually. We just heard screeching from both girls, both holding the handles trying to pull in opposite directions. Think I said something like 'Are we sharing nicely girls'. If I had seen which one ruined the turn taking I would have said No A, it's B's turn. But I didn't so I asked, both said it was her turn.
So I gave a generic, 'If we cant share nicely, no one will play with it', which was when she hit her.
I can clearly see it by her logic, that she did it to get dd off the buggy, so it wasn't taken off them.
But as I've already said, the reason for the hitting was irrelevant, as that wasn't my issue.
And by the way, If I HAD seen it was my dd, (and it might well have been!) I would have had absolutely no issue with telling her, let go now, it was x's turn, and if she wouldn't let go that x will play with all by herself now because she obviously doesn't know how to take turns.
So you might want to get that crystal ball of yours polished or something, because you're way off the mark with that one.

And thanks to all your replies, looking at the different points of views and reasons, I'd probably say that if I could go back, the only thing I'd change is the way I worded it, as can see how it might have been misinterpreted.
Also both girls have really good language skills, so I'm very confident they would both understand pretty much anything said to them. (In terms of generally, not my specific words)

I have to say I am quite shocked by some responses.
If my almost 4 year old hit another child they would be punished. You can't force them to say or be sorry but they need to know there are consequences.

My ds was a biter (mainly of me,dp and dd) I would never have let him away with biting another child regardless of what "provoked" him

I can see the point rocketinmypocket was making. Its her friend not correcting her dd and trying to force cuddles on her own dd.

I would always have apologised on ds behave even when he was only 2, he bloody well knew what he was doing could hurt.
I could never shrug it off and say ah sure kids will be kids.

What age do the rest of you tell your children hitting is not acceptable??

And actually, as for this comment:

Friends child was encouraged to apologise and hug and make up. And you encouraged your Dd to throw it back in her face. Good luck for the future.

If it meant that my dd had a good awareness of her own personal boundaries, what behaviour she was and wasn't going to tolerate and if it meant that she wasn't gullible enough to graciously accept insincere apologies over and over again for the same thing, then I'm going to be pretty bloody pleased actually.

Good luck for your future, while you teach your kids to be pushovers with no ego and no confidence in their own feelings/opinions.

It's all a bit making a mountain out of a molehill.

Kids hit and fall out all the time.

I wonder how some of you are going to get through the next few years if you angst this much over a 3 and 4 year olds behaviour.

Slithytop, why do you keep referring to this child as 4, she 'is not' 4 she's 3 - however close she may be to 4 the fact remains she is 3. Therefore, we are talking about the behaviour of two 3 year old's- I don't understand why you and the OP seem to think there's a huge difference developmentally - 6 months is nothing and OP your child will equally be entering reception this September where 'playground' culture is much more harsh. I'm sure there will be many injustices that your dd will not even receive a 'fake' hug for!

My DD is 3 and will be 4 in just over a couple of months, one of her good friends is 3.5 months younger, you cannot tell the difference, they are the same height and scale and if anything her friend is much more self confident. I certainly don't expect DD to behave exponentially better than her friend because she is 3 and 9 months and her friend is 3 and 6 months - that is just daft. Indeed, DD is the same height as some of the two year olds at her preschool, one of whom is hitting her a lot at the moment- he's bigger than her and I would imagine it hurts a lot! Of course his understanding is not as good as hers but from her perspective he hits her, she doesn't think, 'oh I'm 9 months older than him so I as a 3 year old i should just understand that and move on!' and this is why you shouldn't demonise the other little girl because when it comes down to it, she is just thinking like a three year old.

Equally I have a 7.5 year old who is summer born and has a much greater understanding of the world than a couple of autumn born boys in his class - they are more like 10-11 months older in seem really young in comparison. So 6 months is nothing even at three- you are expecting too much of your friend's child.

Odfod

IMO 'tenacity' is a a much better trait to encourage in your child.

But she isn't 4 she's 3 still - you attribute development to the 'right' age surely. Even then, children are individuals and vary widely in their understanding of concepts such as right and wrong.

OP, you're the model of restraint in comparison to my dear old dad. My mum's best friend's daughter was a horror (still is, actually). When we were about 18 months old, she bit me in the back garden. My dad witnessed it from an upstairs window, came pumelling down the stairs, told mum's friend that her dd was a vampire & turfed the pair of them out!! amazingly 30 years on they are still friends.

My tuppence worth is that you were fine. As has been said, this wasn't the first time. Maybe you need to see your friend without the kids if it is a friendship worth salvaging. Every time vampire child came around it ended in tears so I think sometimes you just can't force children to be friends.

usualsuspect333

That is what I have been thinking whilst reading this whole thread!!!

Surely when a child is a hitter the important things are a) the parent doing their best to stop other children being hurt and b) the parent working at stopping that behaviour. b) does necessarily mean punishment as it will depend upon the child and why they are doing it.

Does not necessarily mean punishment
Of course someone should say sorry to the hurt child.

I remember being infuriated with another mum when dd was 3 because she kept pretending her ds hadn't hit people when we all knew he had. It was ludicrous. Three year old playdates are intense and it's very easy to get over zealous.

Now dd is older and has probably fallen out with her friends at school around 100 times, I've learnt to butt out and let them get on with it. It's far easier if you have a dc who accepts an apology and moves on. It's all about survival really. I don't think my 9 year old or her friends react in an adult way yet. It's a sort of bizarre world they inhabit where a major falling out can be resolved with a one line apology letter "sorry I have been mean" with a pound coin sellotaped to it.

I would try very hard not to be so uptight about it myself. Whilst it may be important to you to fight your dd's corner now, from the outside others will see you as overinvolved and a bit odd.