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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Have I been mean to this child?

435 replies

SureJan · 07/01/2018 19:52

My baby DS is 6mo. My cousin came round to visit with her 4yo DD.
Baby has some toys, obviously nothing really for a 4yo to play with but I didn't mind at all her playing with the baby toys.
4yo started getting a little bit naughty (probably bored) & was snatching toys off the baby. Cousin, her mum, didn't say anything to her about it. Eventually I gently told her not to snatch, he's only a baby etc. Cousin not phased, didn't say a word to her. She didn't stop doing it so I started wrapping up the play date, picked up baby & said he was due a bottle, that sort of thing, to signal it was time they went home.
4yo started making a fuss when cousin said it was time to go & she was flustered. 4yo had baby's rattle in her hand & looked like she wasn't going to put it back. I nicely asked are you going to put the rattle back? They both ignored me. Cousin started saying bye, thanks for having us, 4yo still had hold of rattle. I said (nicely again) I'll take that rattle off you now, & she started kicking off really bad, screaming, crying etc. Cousin said nothing to me, just looked at her DD & looked blankly at me. I tried to tell 4yo it was baby's & baby needs it so it has to stay here - more screaming & crying, still no input from cousin. Then cousin says to 4yo, maybe SureJan will let you borrow it until we come again? I said sorry, no. Cousin rolled her eyes at me & said 'really?' in a very pissed off tone, & I stuck to my guns & said yes really, it's not hers to take!
Cousin cajoled & begged 4yo for a good minute or 2 to hand it over, with her screaming full pelt in her face, & eventually cousin snatched it off her, threw it onto the floor & dragged her out of the house saying 'thanks for fucking nothing' to me!
WIBU? Part of me feels bad because it was just a rattle & baby probably wouldn't have missed it, maybe I was being a bit mean? I'm sure cousin thinks I was just being awkward & making her suffer through an embarrassing tantrum that I could have easily stopped by letting her take the bloody thing.
But part of me thinks no, it's not my fault she won't discipline her DD & why should I just give her stuff to take home so that she gets an easier time? It was a rattle & she's 4yo so not age appropriate for her, I feel she was just pushing boundaries & didn't really want it.
I know it isn't my place to tell cousin how to discipline but I do feel she should have stepped in way before the rattle incident by telling her DD to stop snatching, play nicely, be gentle with baby etc. It annoyed me that she didn't!
Am I mean/unreasonable? I have no doubt that there will come a time when baby is older & tantrumming in similar fashion & I'll be able to empathise more, but I don't think in that situation I'd let him take the toy to keep him quiet.

OP posts:
alotalotalot · 09/01/2018 13:06

I'm just not a big fan of the big discipline stick

or even a little discipline stick...

ArcheryAnnie · 09/01/2018 13:12

I'm just not a big fan of the big discipline stick

What, in the OP's scenario, counts as a "big discipline stick", @lethaldrizzle?

Ladybirdbookworm · 09/01/2018 13:13

There are some very judgemental posts on here
Calling a 4 year old child a brat and vile is quite honestly horrible

I agree with what lethal said - absolutely
Quite honestly one of the nastiest threads I've seen in ages
I really hope the cousin isn't a mumsnetter I'm sure she would be extremely hurt

Tissunnyupnorth · 09/01/2018 13:32

I’ve noticed this more & more. Parents asking to ‘borrow’ toys that their DC’s won’t put down at the end of a play date. It’s lazy parenting, avoiding a confrontation rather than enforcing boundaries about other people’s property. I assume it’s connected to the rise of the ‘snowflake culture’.

MaximaDeWit · 09/01/2018 13:41

God what a disciplinarian lot you are.

It's not about being a disciplinarian. I consider myself to be pretty relaxed and definitely "choose my battles" and my child is not perfectly behaved by any stretch. I think its actually about being kind in the long run and not confusing your child by letting them get away with behaviours sometimes and not others. I think that's actually pretty cruel!

I prefer (and find it much easier) to treat my child with respect and trust that he wants to do the best thing and given really clear guidance from me about what is and isn't ok he will, by and large, choose to treat people kindly and behave well.

You do children a real disservice by not bothering sometimes because you've had a shit day / Mental health problems, etc. aside

Lethaldrizzle · 09/01/2018 13:54

Ladybird - I don't feel quite so alone now! To all the others who are appalled by and mocking my parenting style, I'm not saying I don't ever use discipline, I'm not saying that the 4 year old child wasn't naughty, I'm saying it was a bit of a storm in a teacup, she could have let it go. (The op) No-one is perfect. I have been a parent for many years now so I feel I have just a little bit of knowledge in the area of managing misbehaviour in children and what I have done do far has worked.

Sleepyblueocean · 09/01/2018 14:00

Whilst what the cousin did wasn't an example of good parenting I think there has been over the top unpleasantness about it from some posters.

NeversayNever2 · 09/01/2018 14:03

4 is a very hard age for some dc!

I found it much much harder than so called terrible twos, maybe your cousin was having a bad day! Just remember today when your LO is wearing you down every day and whilst you do discipline you find it hard every second of every day and hope for some respite, when your cousins dc will be a lovely civilized 8 year old and your 4 year old wants her toy Grin Grin...

alotalotalot · 09/01/2018 14:06

Maybe your kids do respect you as you discipline your way lethal but a lot of us know kids where those boundaries have never been displayed. We've seen the end result where the kids are disliked by their peers and adults alike.
Yes the op could have kept the peace and given in, but why should she when it goes against her inate beliefs and it has a detrimental outcome on her family. Ie the rattle disappears to be possibly returned/not returned at some indiscriminate point in the future.

Whilst we may be stereotyping from our frame of reference, you are guilty of doing the same. Your kids may respect you generally despite you saying you would pick not to fight that particular battle but it is in other peoples experiences that this is not always the situation. Anyway even if the cousin was only having an off day, the muttered "thanks for fucking nothing" is not forgivable. and actually intimates that our view of the situation is probably more correct than your view

ScouseAT · 09/01/2018 14:15

Yes you were being unreasonable, as are so many of the posters on here. When a 4yo is having a trantrum when you are trying to leave a place they are not wanted is not the time to give a lesson in parenting. Yes cousin could have dealt with things better throughout the visit but at that particular point a bit of compassion and support wouldn’t have gone amiss. All that fuss over a rattle the baby wouldn’t miss. I hope it was worth it.

Jenna43 · 09/01/2018 14:16

SparklyLights

Your cousin is hardly a shrinking violet if she can say "Thanks for fucking nothing" to you. If she's that direct (and rude, and sweary in front of kids - hardly modelling appropriate communication) she can say NO to her kid

I know 2 women who are independent, confident, take no shit from anyone types, yet they are totally incapable of saying no to their children. One of the children are grown up now, he smashed her house up because the first time she actually did say no was when he was an adult..he wanted money from her that she just didn't have so he smashed her house up.

rabbitsdontlayeggs · 09/01/2018 14:20

I would have made her give it back too OP I don't think you did anything wrong.

I took DD to play at my cousins house last weekend, we are the same age and there's 3 month age gap between our DDs. One is just 2 and the other is almost 2.

We managed to sit and have a coffee and a chat together - whilst still keeping an eye on the two of them playing together to make sure they were taking turns, not snatching or hitting etc. Yes, one or the other of us was up every five minutes refereeing, but that's kind of part and parcel when you have small children isn't it! They won't learn if you let them do things that aren't nice.

Saying all that we obviously weren't that observant - I came home with six little duplo pets in my changing bag that didn't belong to us that I assumed DD had sneaked in there. I dropped them off last night and said to cousins DD 'sorry DD took your toys, I've told her that it was naughty' and cousins DD piped up with 'Nooooooo! I put toys there!' Who knows if she did or not, but it was pretty funny!

OpenthePickles · 09/01/2018 14:22

Calling a 4 year old child a brat and vile is quite honestly horrible

But the child is a brat, and so is her mother. It's not the child's fault obviously, she hasn't been shown how to behave properly and watches her mother throw tantrums in front of her.

OpenthePickles · 09/01/2018 14:26

*4 is a very hard age for some dc!

I found it much much harder than so called terrible twos*

Yes so did I, much harder than terrible twos....still managed to instill manners and teach my child not to take other peoples belongings though and that tantrums don't get you what you want.

Trinity66 · 09/01/2018 14:29

and that tantrums don't get you what you want.

Yeah this is the biggest thing here, if the child thinks that she can get what she wants be screaming and shouting then she's going to carry on doing what gets her results, that isn't her fault, that's what kids do, parents are supposed to teach them better ways to deal with life

BitchQueen90 · 09/01/2018 14:31

I really don't understand how reprimanding a 4 year old for snatching toys from a baby would be called "disciplinarian". Would you let your 4 year olds do it to other children? At my DS's school and even when he was at nursery the DC are taught not to snatch. Why would you not also teach that at home?

loopsdefruit · 09/01/2018 14:44

I had a discussion today, with an adult, who honestly thought that if you wanted something and couldn't afford it then it was perfectly acceptable to steal it, because everyone deserves 'a treat' sometimes. Angry

So no, I don't think it's unreasonable to teach young children that this isn't ok, because otherwise they grow into adults who think it is.

CorbynsBumFlannel · 09/01/2018 14:47

If it had just been the rattle you could write it off as her being flustered. But sitting there and watching her 4yr old repeatedly snatch from and upset a baby wasn't a mistake. It was a conscious decision to not discipline her child which is really poor when other kids are having to put up with the effects of it.

Trinity66 · 09/01/2018 14:51

CorbynsBumFlannel

Yeah that's the thing, you're not doing your child any favours by leaving them do stuff like this, you're setting them up to be disliked by other kids and parents not wanting to have them over to play with their kids because they're hard work/upset the other kids etc And that's sadly not the childs fault, they don't know any better, that's why parents have to teach them, it's not even discipline, it's teaching them how to behave

CherryMaDeara · 09/01/2018 14:52

There are some very judgemental posts on here
Calling a 4 year old child a brat and vile is quite honestly horrible

I agree with what lethal said - absolutely
Quite honestly one of the nastiest threads I've seen in ages
I really hope the cousin isn't a mumsnetter I'm sure she would be extremely hurt

ladybookworm

If anyone has the right to be upset, it's OP. She doesn't deserve abuse from her cousin just because she is able to maintain boundaries.

If anything was vile, it was the cousin's swearing to OP.

And what do you think brat means? It just means a badly behaved child, which this child CLEARLY was. There's even a range of dolls called Bratz FFS.

The lackadaisical and grasping parents are so apparent on this thread, hope I never have the misfortune of coming across them

TheWitchAndTrevor · 09/01/2018 15:13

This thread is bonkers.

But sadly is the reality of some parents.

I am far from a perfect parent certainly not smug in the slightest. Have had to put up with tantrums up to 7 year olds.(Yes some can continue to batter the boundaries until that age)

But there are things you can ignore and simple right from wrongs you can't.

Letting your child Upset another child (a baby in this case) accidently or internationally needs pulling up. No need for shouting being angry or aggressive, just a no we don't do that.

Making sure you have stuff to entertain your dc when out.

Reading the signs of when your dc is tired/bored, and making a move to avoid a situation if possible.

Making sure that they understand that they can not take things that do not belong to them, and screaming at you will not change that.

The above is not smug perfect parenting. It doesn't matter how knackered, fed up you are it's basics.

When your child and your parenting start effecting others around you, do something about it.

The OP was effected as her child was upset at having things snatched of them.

The OP was effected because she was the one on edge watching an older child to stop it from upsetting her child.

The OP was effected, by being expected to let one of her belonging be taken, just because the parent didn't want a tantrum.

Parent how you like. But don't be surprised if when your parenting effects other people's children, you get pulled up on it.

Although I doubt in real life many people would tell you. But believe me they want too.

knobblykneesandturnedouttoes · 09/01/2018 15:41

The only thing you did wrong was to say ‘are you going to put the rattle back now?’. Young children need you to express what you want them to do if it’s an instruction. So next time it would be better for this child if you say ‘put the rattle back before you go’ . She has no boundaries and is given control by her Mum. You asked her what she was going to do but then took away that choice which I think would be confusing for lots of children this age. I don’t think she should’ve been allowed to take it unless you offered, but I also dislike hearing mixed messages from adults to children. For example one parent today ‘do you want a wee before we go?’ Child said ‘no thankyou’. Parent says ‘do as you’re told’. Confusing for a small child.

Trinity66 · 09/01/2018 15:53

Ha good point knobblykneesandturnedouttoes although I suspect the question was probably more of a prompt for the childs mother to step in and tell her child to give the toy back now as they were leaving!

RavenWings · 09/01/2018 16:17

Yeah this is the biggest thing here, if the child thinks that she can get what she wants be screaming and shouting then she's going to carry on doing what gets her results, that isn't her fault, that's what kids do, parents are supposed to teach them better ways to deal with life

Bingo. I can think of quite a few children I taught who had always gotten by on the basis that, if they screamed enough, mummy dearest would bend over backwards for them.

It was quite a shock for them when this just wasn't acceptable in school, and the teachers don't really care how much you screech - the expectations are still there. They also struggled then with their properly socialised peers who understood boundaries. It's very unfair on your child really, to make them think that this behaviour is acceptable and will be rewarded.

DuchessofLondon · 09/01/2018 16:35

Its quite telling that some posters are more outraged that the OP tried to maintain some boundaries with a child who clearly wasn't listening/refusing to listen than they are with a parent who used vile language in front of the children.

Yes there may be additional needs, I have two children on the spectrum. But sometimes, just sometimes, it is just down to a child being naughty/lack of parenting. The ex friends of my DCs. One of her children is that bad that two sets of parents have already requested that their children be moved from the classroom this child is in, because of the issues the child has caused, the Mum still doesn't make the connection that it might not possibly be the other children with the issues. Thankfully we moved and the Children's friendship just drifted apart without any aggro but I feel sorry for their next set of friends.