To think this toddler needed a severe telling off?

[newmumwithquestions]

At a busy play centre:
There's a toddler - I'd guess around 2. He's being pretty lairy, this is what we observed:
He tries to drag another toddler out of a ride on car.
He pushes over a younger toddler.
He hits an older toddler in the face - amazingly they don't retaliate.
He takes a wooden stick and uses it to hit another slightly younger toddler on the head.
I have one of mine on my knee, my family member is child free and goes over 3 times and tells him to stop, removes the stick etc. She doesn't shout.

We ask a couple of other mums but can't work out who his parent is. Then he goes over to one of mine, younger than him, hits her in the face. She falls over, falls backwards and hits her head. Lots of screaming. My family member picks her up and shouts at toddler ('don't you hit her again'). Toddler starts crying.

Parent is still unaware. I ask again who the parent of small toddler is and eventually find parent. I tell parent what has happened. Parent apologises for him hitting her but does not make him say sorry, does not tell him off, does not ask if my DD is OK, does not ask what other children have been hit.

Parent is angry their child has been shouted at.

I think they should have been watching their toddler who frankly deserved a lot more than a few shouted words?

AIBU?

YANBU. However with toddlers you can shout until you're blue in the face.
They don't have the development for it to registrar. Its just the terrible 2 stage.

Definitely better supervision & a firm, clear No whilst removing the toddler from the situation

But shouting at a toddler? They wouldn't have a clue what was happening & would just be scared.

If i saw someone shout in a two year old's face, that wasn't the Parent ,i'd intervene and they wouldn't have walked away from the situation without a warning from a Staff member. You can't behave aggressively towards toddlers.

OP by your logic, your family member was ok to shout at a toddler. This wasn't productive in any way ,they were just reacting to their emotions. Well that's what the toddler was doing, but at least they've got the excuse of age.

Carrying on that logic, the Parent has every right to feel anger and act on it. Because it's wrong,so have those around you. Which then makes a shit society.

Personally i'd be embarrassed by your relative, they obviously have no self control. Were they over disciplined at the toddler stage, so never learned to self regulate?

YANBU. She had told him to stop 3 times with no success, a shout may have shocked him into stopping. The other children being hurt are the ones who are important here. Not the 2 year olds feelings.

The toddler needed better supervision and that is definitely the responsibility of the parent. For that, YANBU.

As far as shouting at the child and making them cry, YABVU. Firstly, you have no idea how old the child actually was. You are guessing 2 but he could have been much younger but just a big child. My DC is massive for his age and people and other kids frequently mistake him for an older child.

Secondly, shouting doesn't help 2 year olds, it just scares them, or more likely they completely ignore it. frankly deserved a lot more than a few shouted words? What are you suggesting?! A good thrashing? A punishment such as taking a toy etc that the child won't understand?

I saw 5 year old slap a 18 month old child right cross the face while the baby was sitting on her own mum's knee, the poor mum was in shock, the baby howling and the older child's mum did fuck all! It was horrible
and all our friends were angry and I was fuming at the other mum, we never spent any time with the other mother after that.

And YANBU at all, op especially if the child had been told not to behave in such a horrible manner before this happened. I would be mortified if my child behaved in that way, not angry

I wouldn't have shouted at the child; I'd have shouted at the parent.

What's the use of screaming at shouting. I get its frustrating, but. The childrdn are playing 5 minutes later and you're still screaming and shouting at each other. Its really not worth it.

Shouting at a 2 year old is totally totally inappropriate. I would be furious if someone shouted at any 2 year old in front of me. I have shouted in stress at my kids but it was never the right thing to do.

Op do you have a baby? 2 year olds are tiny tots they aren't naughty. They behave in ways we may not like but we then speak firmly or remove them from th3 scenario.

I'm really surprised at the reactions on here. I would be really upset if a strange adult shouted at my 2yo, but I've certainly shouted at my own. And I tell her off for naughty behaviour. If she does something very naughty (like hit the baby) she gets a severe telling off and she says sorry, gives a cuddle and a kiss to reinforce kind behaviour. I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all.
Genuinely didn't know it was such a no-no.

Exactly the same here Podge

We used to have the 3ye old version at dd's playgroup with mum doing bugger all. When she decided it was dd's turn she snatched a toy in front of me out of her hands and stood there waiting for her to cry.
I simply sat on between the two of them blocking her from seeing dd and said 'Never mind dd, we'll find something MUCH nicer to play with and picked up the first object and made out it was the best thing ever. Other child didn't know what to do, and within a minute shyly brought it back. Thanked her and said we'd found something else to play with instead. Child didn't know what to do as I guess had never had that reaction and my dd never had an issue with her again. Maybe I was lucky, but it did the trick!

Its a bit sad to be smug at getting one up on a 3 year old..sorry

What on earth was the parent doing? Surely she must have known what he's like.

She should have apologised on his behalf but not made him apologise. She should have made a fuss about your kid and the others. Then removed her child

I don't think your friend was unreasonable. A 2 year old should know not to hit other children and if told 3 or 4 times already they clearly didn't care less. So a few sharp words with a raised voice is perfectly reasonable. Unfortunately the parent is less than useless so the child had no hope really but why should you have to remove your child from the area when they are playing nicely? The child being horrible should be the one being removed.

The fact the mother had no idea what her little darling was doing or wasn't interested when you told her speaks volumes.

If my 2 year old whacked a child round the head in soft play I'd totally expect the other parent to tell him off a bit. He might think twice about doing it again.

Toddler should have been taken away from situation by their parent. As this didn't happen and you tried to find parent I don't see what else you could've done frankly other than take your child away from situation. Btw I do think children need to be told if they are doing something wrong regardless of age - maybe shouting came across as a bit aggressive

You are complaining about a 2yr old who was unsupervised by their parent. How did they get close enough to your Dd to hit her or was she also unsupervised at the time?

When mine were small and there was a child being rough I would be very close to my dc to support and protect them where needed. I have also never shouted at someone else's dc and would be furious if anyone shouted at mine. Y (and your relative) wbvu.

I shouted at my own children when they were toddlers very occasionally. But that was inadequate parenting on my behalf and nothing I'm proud of. Or it was in a situation when they were in genuine danger (dd running into the road for example) when I needed to get their attention.

Little children never ever "deserve" to be shouted at. Sometimes you might shout at them (and of course that is ultimately forgivable) but shouting is never the best course of action.

Strangers shouting at children is never acceptable - unless to get their attention in an emergency.

If someone shouted at my 3 year old I'd be absolutely ripping.

BUT in the same breath, I would never not be supervising him in a play area, and if I clocked him behaving like that he'd be either sat out for a time, or I'd be taking him home and confiscating some toys.

Just don't go to play centres. Awful parenting for 99% of the kids. Appalling cleaning and full of germ spreading kids. Why do that? Just don't put yourself or your children through it!

LouKout wasn't trying to be 'smug' but this was a child who took pleasure in upsetting other children (she would charge at a child on a mini trampoline and send them flying, or run up to a child who has just started toddling and grab the buggy they were pushing and knock them over at full pelt). I was trying to show that you can get a child to respond better by not giving them the reaction they are expecting ie being shouted at and get them to behave better by showing them that they haven't got the reward that they wanted by upsetting the child. It gave said child time to think about what they had done which obviously happened as she tried to return the toy which she was praised for.....
I've always tried to reinforce good behaviour rather than making an issue out of the bad.

"Don't you hit her again" is a fair response to a child who has repeatedly been allowed to get away with rough treatment of other children and is not being supervised by a lax parent. It's not a lengthy rant/ lecture.

When DS was 2, he was on a piece of playground equipment. I was sat close by on a bench but the view was a bit restricted due to the shape of it. I was feeding my 6 week old baby and had reached the stage of the day when my SPD and tear were really burning. (It was one of my first outings since the birth having spent the whole first month stuck in the house). I heard a parent comment along the lines of "did he bite him?". DS had had a couple of biting incidents at nursery so I was concerned that he might have become over tired and bitten another child. So I heaved my sorry body, breast and baby over in a pathetic bow legged stagger and retrieved DS1 because I'm not standing for him getting away with hurting other children. He wasn't an articulate child (later went on to speech therapy) and would play happily for a long time, then suddenly lash out without warning. That was always time to go. He's grown into a lovely gentle child because rough behaviour always had a consequence if I hadn't correctly judged his mood in advance. I'd have been mortified if another parent had ended up resorting to shouting at him because I'd left him to it without any supervision.

I think it was wrong to shout at him that's for his mum to do, when she can be bothered to pay attention to him. I would've asked him where his mum was and approached her.

I'm forever rolling my eyes at parents face down into their phones whilst their children are misbehaving, I can't really be mad at the children's behaviour when they have parents that would rather fb/have a gossip than play with/keep an eye on them.
I once had a little girl running round, throwing things, who tried to put something sticky in baby dd's hair (in the baby section of a soft play), I just said 'no thankyou' and that was that, off she went.

In context that adult response doesn't sound terrible to me. And it's interesting that even though a number of posts have said '2 year olds don't understand shouting, it doesn't help anything', it did actually make this one stop the hitting.