To expect a 4 year old to know right from wrong?

[Bubbaloo]

I went over to a friend the other week with both my ds's,who are 26 months and 4 months old.She also has 2 boys-a nearly 2 year old and a nearly 4 year old and both her boys drove me mad from the moment we arrived.Ds2 was asleep in his car seat but they wouldn't leave him alone and were prodding and poking him so much that they scratched his face.After a few minutes they woke him up and we had screaming for about 40 minutes.I explained he was trying to sleep,but they took no notice and were even climbing over me to get to ds2 when I took him out of his carrier.Anyway,the boys eventually went and played in the garden and ds2 went to sleep again.After an hour or so my friend did us some lunch.Beforehand her eldest boy must've asked me 5 times if ds2 was going to have lunch with them and I explained that he had no teeth,was still a baby at 4 months old and that he only drank milk.He seemed to understand.While the boys were eating their lunch and ds2 was asleep I went into the kitchen to get my coffee and within about 2 minutes he was screaming.I went back into the living room to find her eldest son bent over ds2's car seat and I couldn't believe what I saw-ds2 had 2 large chunks of cheese and bread shoved in his mouth and bread all over his top.I was absolutely livid and told my friends boy off,telling him that it was naughty aswell as dangerous and that the baby could've choked.I was even more annoyed due to the fact I had explained to him earlier that he only has milk.After about another 20 mins ds1 was getting tired so I made my excuses and left...pronto.
My friend has since emailed me but I haven't replied yet as I'm still really wound up.
AIBU to expect her son to know right from wrong,when it's already been explained to him?

Oh just one last thing and then I am off:

I am not lambasting the poster specifically for leaving the baby alone; I am lambasting the poster for blaming the children/mother of the children after she had left her baby alone. What can you expect. When those children are 15 and 17, if they are still shoving loaves of bread into babies' mouths, there's a problem. I think you just need to put this one down to experience, ie, don't leave baby alone with these children again, even though they weren't actually being nasty, just maybe cheaky but most likely 'helpful'.

I hope you don't fall out with your friend as you've many years to come where one of yours will do something to one of hers or vice versa, and IMO it really isn't worth falling out over, unless she has actively encouraged her children to hurt your child.

...and its horseywoman ready for the off.....[in peter o'sullivan voice)

If I put myself into the 4 year old's mind I would've just been thinking that I'd be helping out mum's new friend by introducing her baby to the sort of food I like!

I wouldn't have been thinking I was doing anything wrong. Then the ungrateful woman yelled at me - how rude!

Hey, HorseyWoman - why aren't you grumpy and old any more?

LOL, Grumpy and old!?!

PMSL at pagwatch!!

yeah agree with horsey. Although I really don't hang around people who can't cope with noise or boisterousness or boys in general. Can't bear all the lemon sucking that goes with it.

I did sometimes put ds3 down around the children with LD's, & turn my back, but I didn't them shout at them when they did something scarey. Just remembered to take a sling the next time.

I think the problem with this thread is that some people see the actions as curiosity, some see them as terrible disobedience. Some think that one telling of don't touch the baby or the baby wants to go to sleep should be enough for an almost 4 year old to understand that that also means 'don't feed the baby'. Gnerally I think you have to be more specific. Don't feed the baby means don't feed tha baby, dont touch the baby is something else and so is 'the baby drinks milk'. It's how kids learn- by getting it wrong.

I love boys! My girl charge was lovely, girly, pretty, into fairies, did as she was told. My two boy charges were cheaky, boisterous, fun, excitable! Brings out the inner child in me. Even so, I still wouldn't have left the oldest one (6), with a small baby, despite never seeing him poke one. I would just expect to come back and see him trying to undo its back to stop it crying, like he does with his sister's Milly doll!!!!

Um... gess, how are they supposed to learn if we never say 'be gentle with the baby'? Just 'oh, its boys they're supposed to be violent'

My dd is a reckless, adventuring curious little minx - and that's all learning. But you can do that and be considerate of others. There is a difference between investigating a baby, and prodding and poking while it cries IMO.

ds3 is our real boy. He'll cuddle a teddy then suddenly throw it across the room with a hiya. Ds2 wasn't particularly boyish until he went to school, when he morphed. He's more of a nightmare now (aged 5) than he was at pre-school- he's hit a silly phase (never realised how silly 5 year old boys were). And ds1 is well, just ds1, but if people cant cope with boys they can't cope with pterodactyl shrieks and general oddness, so he acts as a good sorting mechanism.

I like boys too. I like thier rowdiness and physicality, find them funny. Cuddly too.

While girls just sit in a corner and play nicely with their dollies I suppose

FFS

who said not to say 'be gentle with the baby'. Of course say it, you might just have to say it 55 times - and in the meantime to keep the baby safe you pick them up.

It's about expectations. I expect ds2 aged 5 to be safe next to a road. I don't expect ds1 or ds3 to be safe next tot he road, so if I don't have 2 hands to deal with them they go on reins/harness.

I wouldn't expect a 3 year old (ir a 4 year old for that matter) boy or girl to be necessrily safe around a baby -especially one they don't see very much. So I wouldn't be surprised if they did something hideous when left alone with one.

HorseyWoman - so aren't you GrumpyOldHorsewoman? In which case maybe you're baffled by refs to Peter O'Sullivan?

I think you're reading too much into it mummymagic- but generally yes I do find boys and girls quite different. Especially once they reach school age. Total division there (although there is one boy who only plays girls games and one girl who only plays with the boys- according to ds2, otherwise big division). I have also in general found houses full of boys far louder than houses with the equivalent number of girls. No judegment attached to that, just something I've noticed (always feel we rather shatter the peace).

" 'be gentle with the baby'. Of course say it, you might just have to say it 55 times - and in the meantime to keep the baby safe you pick them up. "

TOTALLY AGREE!

The OP is just feeling guilty that the fault lies with her for leaving her baby unsupervised in the presence of very young children. Lesson learned, hopefully...

Lol, no mummymagic, but I love the boisterous nature of boys and the usually more gentle nature of girls. My girl was able to be boisterous cause she was the middle one of three kids, two of whom were boys. I was always a boisterous child as I also had 2 brothers.

Oh, no, not grumpyoldhorsewoman, lol. But I did find pagwatch inference funny. Linked it to me saying I was off!

Oh gosh, I am a complete liberal when it comes to explaining and allowing explorative behaviour (eg I do believe the feeding was probably a misunderstanding. I guess a lot of 3 year olds aren't that smart to 'read between the lines'.) And I do agree that you can't be too careful as you can't rely on other children to respond as you might expect. Eg I will happily let my daughter play with older children but she is my responsibility to keep her safe if older children don't play well with her.

But I don't think its unreasonable to expect a 3 or 4year old child not to prod and poke a baby while it cries. I think that's quite nasty.

I just find it depressing the 'boys and girls' are so different thing - as a throwaway comment too. I think differences are probably largely due to an acceptance of certain behaviour in boys and not in girls.

Personally I don't think YABU. I would expect an almost four year old not to be constantly prodding/poking a baby or feeding him, especially as he has a younger sibling himself and probably knows better. It was prob. just an intinctive thing for the OP to yell at the child and there was no malicious intent. Bubbaloo - If you really like this friend, then I would give it another go and see how it goes. If things are much the same the second time around, I would just leave it. Different parenting styles can bring tension, especially when you have such a young baby yourself and are probably pretty tired anyway.

mummymagic, I find that comment really interesting, as on my degree we looked a lot at stereotypes and whether the very real differences between boys and girls shown through many research journal articles and by many a psychologist over the years, is nature or nurture. It's something I have never, to date, concluded an opinion on. But I think it's a bit of both. Conditioning is more apparent when there's, for example, an only girl with two or three male siblings, who has to 'keep up' with the boys. It might be apparent if there is a single father involved. It could be that the parents expect/encourage boisterous play. The same happens with boys the other way round. But there's also some nature in there that cannot be denied. The instinct of females to care and nurture is apparent from an early age. Having said that, who said blue was for boys and pink for girls? THAT isn't nurture! That's social conditioning, and now boys will baulk at the thought of wearing pink. LOL.

Sorry, re the blue/pink comment, that isn't nature. It IS nurture!

Actually I would not only expect a nearly 4 yo to leave a baby, esp a sleeping one alone, but I would also expect a child that age to stay at the table for 2 mins without an adult in the room.
I would also expect a 4 yo to stop climbing all over me if I told it not to, and I would expect the mother to tell it off if it kept doing it.
I would also want other parents to tell off my children if they were being naughty, as I think the more adults that tell them the same thing, the more they might be likely to finally believe that I am telling the truth and they are not allowed to do said thing.
My DD1 is now 3.9 and her sister was born a year ago. She understood then that the baby only had milk and not ever to feed her anything, tho she did have to be told often. At her age now I would be very cross if she disobeyed that rule as she fully understands now at 3.9 that it is NOT okay to feed little babies.

Surely if she is a good friend, then you can just ask her to explain to her boys that you don't want them to behave like that towards the baby.
If she is your friend then she will not mind doing it. I would also say that if she did not tell them off then I would. She can then feel free to say Don't bother coming round then, or she can tell her child off when he is misbehaving.