I have a DD (2) who was born in lockdown so I didn’t make any mum friends, none of my friends have kids, so I am clueless as to what to expect/how to react to other children’s behaviour and would really appreciate other perspectives here, plus ideas on how to respond.
We have two nephews on my DH’s side (both 4, not brothers) who live very far away, so we see them about 2-3 times a year. One of them (let’s call him George) is fine. The other (Alex) was a really kind and sweet toddler, but I am struggling to see anything positive about his behaviour over the last year, and I don’t know if I am being unreasonable by expecting too much from such a young kid, or if I’m right to think his behaviour isn’t great.
We are currently 5 days into a 10-day stay with Alex and his parents, and I am not exaggerating when I say I don’t think he has been pleasant to my DD for more than 5 minutes at a time. We were told he was really excited to see her and he talks about her all the time, which I am sure is true, but his idea of playing with her involves:
- roughly picking her up and carrying her around, no matter how much she cries, tells him to stop, or the adults tell him not to because he’s hurting her and it’s dangerous;
- pushing her down and sitting on top of her (again, ignoring her crying, and repeating it after adults have told him not to);
- whatever she’s doing, he has to annoy her somehow. If she’s playing with a toy, he'll snatch it off her/push her off it. If she’s drinking water he’ll snatch her cup and try to force-feed it to her (pressing the cup really hard into her face and hurting her). If she’s on a chair he’ll pull her off roughly, while shouting at her; if she climbs off the chair he shouts “No! You’ve got to sit on the chair!” and lifts her back onto it.
- He shouts and screams at her if she isn’t doing what he thinks she should be doing (which always seems to be the opposite of whatever she is currently doing).
- Several times I have had to physically stop him from putting a cushion/duvet on her face and sitting on it.
- Twice he has put a scarf/belt around her neck and tried to pull it very hard. Both times I was right there so grabbed it and shouted at him to stop, but he was very insistent and holding on very tightly/pulling with his whole body weight and I had to really prise it out of his hands.
-Whenever he is physically prevented from any of this behaviour he screams very loudly, swings his limbs around and throws things.
When my DD is obviously distressed/in danger I step in physically, although I have also been trying to encourage her to shout "stop" , but she hasn't yet. While all this is going on, Alex's parents are usually there telling him to stop, but he pays them very little mind. They often threaten punishments, but I have yet to see one actually happen.
My MIL seems to think this is just “normal boy behaviour”… except that the other cousin George never behaves like this at all. He can be noisy and chaotic of course, but I’ve never seen him be aggressive or purposefully hurt or annoy another child like Alex seems to almost constantly. (It’s also worth noting, Alex behaves in a similar manner with George too, but as they are the same age/size George can stand up for himself much better.)
Alex’s parents seem to think most of this behaviour comes from a desire to help people, and they are always going on about how caring he is, (eg. when he picks my DD up it’s because he wants to help her walk, when he snatches her water cup and presses it to her face he’s trying to help her drink, etc., and it’s just that he’s too young to know when to stop.) But I am inclined to suspect they’re a bit misty-eyed and just trying to put a positive spin on everything he does. For a start, he’s so aggressive and shouty when trying to “help” my DD that I struggle to see it as “caring”. When there’s no way to put a positive spin on something he’s done, his parents blame it on being hungry or tired or a tummy ache, (but if that’s the case then he’s been hungry and tired almost constantly for the last 5 days, despite eating and sleeping at normal times…).
I just feel like I’m in a bit of an alternate universe, as I keep seeing these patterns of unpleasant behaviour where Alex seems to be constantly, and purposefully, trying to hurt or annoy the other two children, but the other adults in the family seem completely blind to it.
So yeah, any perspectives welcome please. Is this really within the bounds of normal 4-year-old boy behaviour? Am I being too precious with my DD? Will he just naturally grow out of behaving like this? How would you respond if you were Alex’s parents? How would you respond if you were me? TIA