To be annoyed with my friend

[Toddlerproblems]

My friend and I both have 2 year olds. We see each other fairly regularly. We live in a very small village and they will go to nursery and school (small, single form classes of about 8 - 10 kids) together. There are few children of the same age living close by. They will both soon start nursery together.

Last week, her DS hit mine hard enough to leave a decent lump on his head with a heavy and solid toy. It was on purpose and for attention.

This is not a one off. Her DS is often aggressive in his behaviour towards my DS. I know they're toddlers and some challenging behaviour is normal, but his behaviour is becoming more frequent and more severe. I don't feel like I can keep my child safe around hers.

The only reason I haven't ended this friendship is because we will see each other at the school gates the whole time our kids are at school and they will be in the same class right up to secondary school, so I need to make it amicable going forward.

*also posted in behaviour, but posted here for traffic.

@tandora no, my older child was a toddler in a large town though. Tiny village life where everyone knows everyone is a bizarre concept. It seems you upset one person and it's a village issue. Where my eldest was a toddler and at primary was a totally different world in comparison - if you didn't agree with someone it wasn't a big deal and friendship circles were much bigger and more diverse.

That does sound exhausting 😫

@tandora Honestly, my eldest is at secondary school now, so I don't need to deal with the mum politics there. With my youngest, it's horrendous. There will be between 8 and 10 kids in his year, everyone knows everyone and 90% of the parents were born here.

This mum is known by everyone locally and is often the 'life and soul' of the party. In the past, I'd have just found other play dates...

@Tandora yoy need to do something when your child hits someone, otherwise they learn it’s acceptable.
Doing nothing helps no-one (and you’ll have no friends either). If your child hits at that age you pick them up, sternly say ‘no hit’ put them down and make a big fuss of the other child.

I used to love being put on the naughty step! I got to sit in the hall on my own, away from my extremely energetic, loud, and demanding younger brother, and would just look at the posters and daydream. It brings back happy memories. If only my mother knew! 😂

Calm down, the posters talking about toddlers here. Not advocating teens or adults go around bashing each other

I wouldn't advise having toddlers bash each other either but bringing up PRU is really ott

If her child is taken into another room for one to one attention or to be breast fed then they are being rewarded not punished. They will learn if mummy isn't giving them attention all they have to do is hit your child and they will get what they want. She needs to remove them from the situation and give them no attention.

Yanbu, the other mum sounds like an idiot. There are plenty of parenting choices I disagree with but accept that it's none of my business and not my place to judge, if it is a parenting choice that affects my child that rule no longer applies. I used to know someone like this and ended up cutting her out as her child constantly hit mine and she'd ignore it, if I'd continued allowing it to happen I'd have been demonstrating to my child that he didn't deserve to be protected from harm. Another very lovely friend had a child who went through an aggressive phase and she was constantly watching him ready to step in and that was a totally different situation