To expect other parents not to verbally abuse a two year old?

[tulip27]

Yesterday at a rather full to the brim local farm park my freinds two year old boy clonked another two year old on the head with a plastic spade.While I don't condone this behaviour (' I am sure it was a case of I want to go on this climbing frame and your in the way'),the mother of the clonked child proceeded to call my freinds son a ' nasty horrible little boy, lets go away from him he is nasty'. My freinds son stood there terrified. I couldn't believe a grown woman could release so much venom at a small child. She then proceeded to tell my friend if her son clonks others she shouldn't let him out of the house!
What are your thoughts on this?

Oh FGS, the woman didn't "reprimand" or "discipline" the child, she called a toddler nasty and horrible. That is not an appropriate response by a full-grown adult, to the undesirable behaviour of the 2 year old.

FFS, why do some of you expect a 2 year old to expect better than an adult?

YANBU. I think there but for the grace of God etc for most parents. Two years old is two years old and the other mother would have been quite within her rights to get down on his level and tell him not to hit etc but bawling him out when his Mum was not next to him (not that it would have been right if she had been )was plain wrong for a grown woman. If someone had done that to my child I would definitely have said something to the other woman and yes I would have told my child off also and made her apologize but shouting at a 2 year old in that way is wrong. I like your point about him being on the planet for 700 ish days.

pmsl hatrick, sorry, but if anyone had done that to my dd i would have laughed, just to see her face, i mean, who sometimes feels like nicking a chip of someones plate in a cafe when your waiting for your food?

oh, but can you imagine their faces

still gigling about your dc, well, they should share

sorry am bit late with this but spot on posting Aloha...totally agree

How many times have we had our children hit/bitten etc by others when the parents do not even seem to be looking. It is nasty and horrible to hit someone on the head with a spade, even if the child is usually quite nice, and lets look at it from the other womans point of view. If you had been with her, OP, your post would have said something like AIBU to expect people to not let their children hit others on the head with a spade in the play area. Some perspective please. These things happen. Poor woman was probably really upset to see her child being hit.

So this child was terrified by being called nasty and horrible - what about the child who may well have been terrified by being hit over the head with a spade? I think your OP was over the top, tbh. The other mother did not handle it well, but you stated that the parent of the hitting child was not there to deal with it.

If ds at that age had hit someone with a spade while I was distracted, I'd be straight over, full of apologies, and telling ds that was not a nice thing to do and must have hurt the other child.

Massive over reaction. Two year olds very often hit each other with spades. That woman was a loon, clearly to be saying such hysterical stuff to a toddler.

I would probably have stepped in to tell him, calmly but firmly, 'No. You don't hit. Say sorry' etc ... but IME this happens all the time with kids this age.

If I'm being very honest I remember when someone clonked my PFB with a beater during baby music class. I pounced over and pointed at his saying, 'NO!' just that bit too loudly. It was 8 years ago but I remember it with great embarrassment.

no-one likes their child being hurt...makes us all react irrationally at times. ive behaved in an unappropriate manner sometimes if i can see my child in distress.

tbh, even the ice cream thing would piss me off. i wouldnt be laughing about it anyhow.

The woman is barking. Obviously a very inexperienced mother. It was a crappy, awful, thing to have done to a child. No doubt her reaction will be very different when her child does the same to someone else and he WILL.

oh i agree hatrick, no need for a screaming match.

oh but hatrick...two year olds can be so AMUSING with ice cream.

i swear i never laughed at dd walking into a lamppost with one.

honest.

Well, if a child hit one of my kids, I'd feel very angry indeed. It is a perfectly normal maternal response. You feel that instinct to protect, yes, even from another child. So part of me would want to swing the other child round by his ankles and lob him across the playground.

But then the rational, civilised woman in me would grab ape-mum by the fur and say hang on, be reasonable. It's a kid too. And I would (probably through gritted teeth) say something like do NOT hit my son again.

And then I'd feed my inner ape-mum a banana.

i never even wished i had a camera on me either

it was a proper nose in icecream job...sigh...you couldn't have made it up better.

had to watch bb! back now.
yes i did say that.
it was the way the woman said it to all her buddies, as if ds was some sort of freak.
he got over excited. i told him off. he cried. she continued and got the whole group to make me feel embarassed and ashamed.

pmsl at the banana-eating inner ape mum.

absolutely right as well about the protective instinct v the adult response.

it just spilled out.
then i got that awful adrenaline rushing feeling in my throat like my heart was gonna drop out and had to get a cup of sweet tea. LOL
Oh, and I kept ds in the far end away from them all then!