WWYD overreacting to hitty child

[Mumtown]

I’m quite at a loss here and would appreciate some advice.

So I have a mum friend who I get on very well with (only mum friend I could imagine being friends with outside of the context of our children). Her DS is quite violent I guess. Lots of hitting, pulling hair, biting etc. There hasn’t been a single play date where something this hasn’t happened. I’ve just seen it as kids being kids, my child is not averse to playing tough and has her moments too (not as frequently but even so). On a whole my child likes this child and asks to arrange play dates. Both children are four for context.

But a few things have happened over the past few play dates that make me wonder whether I should cut contact. First there was the knife episode. This happened about six months ago. The boy grabbed a knife off the kitchen counter and lunged at my child. Knife put away, nobody hurt, it was foolish of me to leave it out, all forgotten. Then nothing (except for the usual hair pulling and hitting) for a long time then a few play dates ago the child put a lamp cord around my child’s neck and pulled a bit. Again cord removed, all over in a split second and no harm done.

But since then we’ve not seen each other except at parties/out and about. We’re due to go to their house for a play date tomorrow evening but the thought of it is making me so nervous I can’t sleep. I’m worried about what may happen when they go play upstairs (they always do this, I couldn’t really follow them up without upsetting mum friend). I’m tempted to just tell her I have the flu but ultimately will have to make a decision one way or the other. Is this something normal that the boy will grow out of if I avoid seeing them long enough or is he a danger to my child and should I just stop arranging to see her?

Saying that following the cord incident you want them to play in direct supervision would be perfectly understandable. It sounds like the family may need more support though.

If you don’t protect your child who will? Just tell her the truth for goodness sake.

He’s one of those kids who grow up to be violent offenders, no way I’d have him round to practice on a child.

I hope they haven’t got pets.

To put this simply; this child is a danger to yours. Why are your protective alarm bells not ringing loud & clear?

You need to protect your DD and not your friend’s feelings!

Sorry, but this sounds bizarre. Where on earth would a four year old get the idea to wrap a cord around someone's neck to inflict damage? Was he literally trying to strangle her, or were they playing a game? I once found my 4 year old trying to play 'horses' with her younger sister by wrapping a rope around her neck to use as a rein. She had no concept of the fact that this could hurt her, until I explained it to her.

If it WAS malicious, I'd never be seeing that family again, and calling SS.

@KindnessCrusader please don’t worry too much. Mine grew out of it completely, he’s now perfectly gentle, does well at school and is not at all violent. He had to work harder than other kids at learning to regulate his emotions (as did we), but it has worked out fine.

"Hitty" is minimalising to say the least. Your job is to protect the safety of your child, not your friend's feelings. Go to the play date by all means but insist the children stay where they are supervised.

I've been in this situation. I wish I'd stood up for my ds and spoken up about the dcs earlier.

I accept some children develop the ability to control their emotions and behaviour later than some but the point isn't his behaviour but the risk to dd.

If you like the friendship and dd likes this child then supervised visits only. Just tell friend that. "I really value our friendship but your dc is developing impulse control later and we need to supervise." You could even say you'd hate to eventually lose the friendship because he did something really bad and hurt your dd. Just say at least if you supervise you can both intervene and help the child manage their behaviour.

4yo is such a difficult age. At that age my ds kicked (not hard but in a getting attention way) a peer in the gentitals to get her attention. It could have been bad and of course is not ok. He has autism. He knew kicking was wrong but he hadn't yet developed the motor planning to realise he could bend down and speak to her to get her attention or bend over and tap her. But no malice or not obviously he needed supervising for others safety and I'd never have dreamed of being upset of someone suggested it.

Sorry, I didn’t expect so many replies. Will answer page by page. As an update I’ve made my excuses while I decide what to do.

@Ponoka7 she’s trying to divorce her husband (he has minimal contact with child so I doubt it’s an issue although he does seem to have some personality disorder and it crossed my mind that it may be genetic but I don’t want to jump to conclusions, we have a history of personality disorder in my family but it doesn’t seem to have been passed on). She’s also had some health issues. At most he’s picking up on stress.

@Cremebrule I have a history of being OTT about DDs safety so I’ve been trying to follow her lead (she really adores this child and has never said that she doesn’t want to see him etc) but obviously now I have to make the decision ignoring her opinion on the matter because she’s too young to understand.

@differentnameforthis this is exactly what I am worried about. At the moment yes we can supervise play but in ten years time if they are still friends they’ll want to be alone and I wonder whether it’s better to just cut contact now, to be honest the boy has given me chills for a long time (before knife incident) but I thought I was just being neurotic.

@Toomanygerbils I don’t want to be that kind of person who labels children as evil but at the same time this really makes me want to cut all contact.

I don’t really know whether a child that age should understand the consequences of doing that
Agreed - but he WOULD understand, or at least know that such actions are absolutely out of bounds, if his mother bothered to teach him properly.

and I rather doubt that he’s seen that anywhere (mum is very much a nice middle class no tv ever type of mother along with everyone the child spends time with)
If you think Naice middle class families never commit or experience DV you need a serious wake-up call.

I just wondered whether if I prevaricated he’d just grow out of it or whether it would be best to prevent them from being friends so that no issues arise when they are older iyswim?
It's hard to believe that you are more focused on keeping the staus quo with your friend & tiptoeing around any unpleasant eggshells concerning her son's actions than you are in 1) protecting your child & 2) ensuring your friend is fully aware of the severity & potential consequences of her son's rough play.

It's time to stop considering any social embarrassment & simply, calmly & non-judgementally tell your friend the truth.

@malovitt what did you do after that?

I know there have been issues with other parents supervising all play over the hitting in the past that she’s been quite upset about so I think if I started insisting on supervising them she’d be quite upset

Again, you are more focused at all costs on your friend not being upset.
How do you think that attitude is helping her? Or her little boy?

There have clearly been multiple incidents with other children.
Your friend needs to face up to this, & the more you value her as a friend, the more urgently you should be helping her face the problem & address it, with additional professional support as necessary.

This is not a problem that can be dealt with by you trying to pretend it does not exist. Unless you intend to "prevaricate" successfully for the next decade or more, which would obviously cost you your friendship anyway.
So woman up, tell the truth, & start encouraging your friend to get to the bottom of her son's behaviour. You don't want her still dealing with this when he's a strapping 12 year old, do you?

@katewhinesalot the options are only supervised play from now on or completely ending the friendship over concerns that he may not grow out of it

@namechangetheworld it was a split second thing. He heaved the cord, put it around her neck and pulled. Completely out of the blue. If it was a game that would be different (and they both would have received a long lecture from me but this just really shocked me).

No way would I be allowing unsupervised play with a child who had tried to stab or strangle another child. It wouldn’t be fair on either child.

Either supervise or don’t have further play dates with them.

@messolini9 there’s only him and his mother. I really really doubt she’s strangling him with lamp cords. In regards to prevarication I meant only supervised play (whether having outside play dates only of telling her what I’m concerned about) sorry, I wasn’t very clear. I’m not sure whether I should allow them to continue seeing each other supervised until he gets better or whether he’s just going to get worse and whether it’s better to end the friendship now before they’re old enough to insist on being alone together. Obviously I’m not going to leave them unsupervised but I wonder whether it’s worth putting off situations where they’ll be together like I have done today, telling the mother what the issue is and causing her upset but then carrying on the friendship at the normal pace or just cutting all contact now in case he ends up being a completely psycho (my instinct is to do the latter but as I’ve mentioned up thread I have a tendency to overreact to threats so I was wondering what would be proportional here).

Re hurting mothers feelings I figured that I could draw it out until he issue is resolved or I could just plausibly disappear from their lives and spare her feelings that way as opposed to confronting her now.

No no no. I'm a mum and a grandmother and this not normal. But - neither is your reaction, are you a people pleaser generally? I'd have cut friend and her DC off long ago. You need to tell her that her child is too violent to play with yours, so you're ending the playdates. She won't be surprised as you said other parents have had issues with her DC. She's probably amazed that you've lasted so long!

Btw, nice middle-class families experience DV etc just as much as the nasty lower-classes They just hide it better.

Can we all please stop with the middle class people can be low life’s too posts. I made the middle class comment in relation to films/video games. DV isn’t a factor because the household only contains the mother and child. Which makes it more concerning for me tbh because this child has seemingly got it from nowhere.

I'm sorry but what you describe as "normal", biting, hitting, hate pulling etc is not normal in 4 year olds. "Normal" at 2 maybe, but not at 4.

Lunging with knives and wrapping lamp leads around another child's neck is not normal at any age.

I'd be making my excuses and not meeting up if I were you.

hair pulling*

@messolini9 there’s only him and his mother. I really really doubt she’s strangling him with lamp cords.
You say she is in the process of divorcing the father, so presumably he had some presence in his son's life over the past 4 years. Maybe this father is the role model - it's not unusual for abused women to keep quiet about it, is it?
Maybe the son has developmental issues. Until you have a proper discussion with your friend about it all, you are never going to know.

Frankly, if she is divorcing & all alone with just her son, there is even more reason to urge her to engage with professional advice.
She either needs parenting help, or her child is acting out DV or television he has witnessed, or he has some form of special needs. Whichever one it is, your friend needs help wih him, & the best thing you could do for her is help her realise that & find it.

However, sad as it is, I don't think you will do that, because you are obviously more intent in sparing yourself from what you perceive as "confrontation" than actually knuckling down to help your friend:
or I could just plausibly disappear from their lives and spare her feelings that way as opposed to confronting her now

How on earth is that going to "spare her feelings"?
You'd rather disappear than give her the courtesy of truth & the helping hand of genuine support?
Here's a hint - REAL friends challenge each other. Real friends tell each other the truth. Real friends are there through difficult times, dealing with difficult & embarrassing emotion.

By all means, you absolutely must put your DD first.
Why you seem unable to do that while kindly letting your friend know that you want to keep enjoying her company but will no longer allow unsupervised play, is beyind me.
This could have been the springboard you used to launch your friend into accepting that she has a real problem with her son, with you supporting her as she accessed expert help for him.
Instead of that, you talk up a storm on here about "a tendency to over-react to threats" but in fact all you are prepared to do is scuttle away from the situation & hope that ignoring it, & avoiding your friend, will eventually make it, & your friend, disappear.

Why not choose to be a proper friend, allow your DD to play with this little boy you say she "adores", insist on supervision, be there for your friend as she goes through her divorce, & support her in finding the proper help she needs for her son?

You seem to be viewing any truth-telling as a "confrontation" that will "upset" your friend. It absolutely does not need to be - but of course only you can weigh up which is more valuable to you - your friendship, or avoiding witnessing the friend being "upset".

I definitely think you need to make sure the children are never out of your sight when together. You don't need to tell the mother that he's bad or forever untrustworthy; just that at the moment he's already done a couple of dangerous things around your child, so that for the time being you want to supervise. It occurs to me: Might 'the other things going on in the mother's life' also be affecting the child?

DV isn’t a factor because the household only contains the mother and child

Has the divorce been going on for 4 years then?
Or did the father used to live at home with his child?