Sister angry I “yanked” my nephew’s arm and told him off

[Mmemm]

So I live with my parents (saving up for flat in London). My sister often visits with her child and husband.

We have a gorgeous 12 yo Golden Retriever who is enjoying his golden years sunbathing on the sofa. Anyway, I was in the living room on my phone when I saw my little toddler nephew go up to my dog on the sofa and hit him on the head with a coaster. Obviously it’s not heavy but I reacted as I am protective of my elderly dog, poor boy was dozing. I ran up to my nephew and held him by arm and said “we do not throw things at ‘Lucky’, how would you like it if I hit you in the face? That was very mean of you”. I took the coaster away from him and said if he can’t use it nicely then he can’t have it. Not a big deal. Pretty normal way to deal with it in my view. I may have been a little cross.

But sister is now demanding an apology. BIL was sat sort of to the side reading a magazine and snitched. Didn’t say anything at the time. Errr how how about you parent your child mate.

But apparently I was very overboard. I don’t think I was. I refuse to apologise on principal. Dog took it in his stride but you can’t be allowing shit
like that to happen.

In my mind sister can do one but parents have literally begged me as apparently she won’t visit whilst I am home 😂

I wouldn't invite them again. The parents are severely lacking. It's always somebody else's fault with these types of parents.

This is batshit. The SIL doesn’t think it’s her responsibility to watch her own child?

Good riddance, then.

The mental gymnastics to put the blame on OP here are impressive. The actual parent was in the room. It’s is child. He should have been keeping an eye on him simply because the dog was in the room. But he didn’t. And typically, shit parenting from a man is ignored in favour of heaping criticism on the non parent woman.

Ffs your DS is being ridiculous. And your drip of a BIL. They’d soon be moaning when DDog bit toddler in the face. You might have a been a bit heavy handed as pp said but you did nothing wrong. YANBU

I completely get this. And actually you could have saved your nephew as well. We often have dog bites come in our hospital from breeds you wouldn’t expect. Labradors and golden retrievers are known for their nice nature. But when they are snoozing and unexpectedly have an incident like this they’ll sometimes wake and snap by mistake. Children need to be taught young to respect animals. Your sister is being precious

If your nephew is a young toddler I think you were harsh - you taught him not be mean by meaning mean.....

However saying that, his parents should be teaching and parenting him.

Exactly this. You were over the top on your reaction.

@Hufflemuff . I disagree with you - BIL should have prevented this. As the parent in charge, he should have been physically between the child and dog.

You can't take a break or become engrossed in a magazine when young children are around dogs. You need to be aware of the location of dog and child at all time and be constantly assessing the risk to both.

This is what I mean by saying that most people are unwilling to supervise dogs properly around young children. This is why it is so difficult as a responsible parent staying in a house with a young child who is not used to dogs. You just can't rely on other people to be "on it" because they think supervising from the other side of the room is fine.

Unless the child is actively supervised, dog and child need to be physically separated. I take my child to the loo with me and in the bathroom when I shower when we stay with our relative.

Oh my goodness he’s 2!!!! “4 months off 3” is 2! It’s not even close to three.

Your behaviour was wildly inappropriate, I cannot believe what you said to him. If I were your sister I’d be furious.

Amazing isn’t it ? And the childs’ own father was in the room, wasn’t paying attention and blamed OP for intervening the way she did. So let’s blame the non parent female for the shit parenting from the actual male parent.

Of course his parents should have been dealing with it in the first place if they were there. Of course it's not on to hit the dog. He probably didi it because the adults were all boring and occupied with themselves, neglecting him and he managed to get everyone and Mumsnet's attention. He's clever.

@KarmaKameelion I absolutely would say it to a man. I have two brothers and a sister and all were loving and kind to my children, so that is my norm.
Don't be looking for sexism where none exists - parents generally want their own siblings to care about their nieces/nephews and have strong bonds, whether those siblings be male or female.

I agree with the above poster. My niece is the same age and she tried to hit my 3 year old son. I just stopped her and told her that hitting hurts and we use kind hands. I wouldn't say 'how would you like it if I hit you?' because she wouldn't understand.

If it was my 7 year old son hitting then my words would be harsher because he has the understanding.

This.

I think you handled it wrongly, you used inappropriate language and actions. You're not a parent so that's understandable. I think you should explain your side of the story calmly because you were protecting your dog and nephew, albeit too strongly.

However, you don't seem to take on board anyone's opinions and come across aggressively so I can't see this being resolved, which is a shame for your mum.

???? An "almost 3 year old" is literally 2. That is how ages, and indeed numbers, work.

I don’t think you did anything wrong. A tug on his arm will be significantly less traumatising than a bite in the face from the dog - for everyone involved. You want to make sure that the boundary isn’t pushed again, which I feel like the gently gently approach suggested by others could have led to.

Tell your sister you’ll apologise once BIL apologises for not supervising his kid properly. I’ve got a toddler and wouldn’t be that fussed if my sister told him off in the way you did even if it’s not the exact same way I would react. He’s not going to be scarred for life, most likely forgot about it two seconds later so she needs to get a grip or otherwise ensure she is parenting her own child properly 100% of the time he’s around animals if she feels so strongly about this. All the gentle parents will disagree with me but I dont see anything wrong with the phrase you used either, maybe the toddler is too young to understand or maybe it helps them realise not to do it again, either way I don’t believe they will literally think you are about to hit them in the face and be scared of you going forward, that’s ridiculous.

And yanking and 2 year old should never be seen in the same sentence.

“how would you like it if I hit you in the face”

Bloody hell OP. It doesn’t matter if you want kids or not l, this is a pretty nasty way to speak to a child. I have a 2.5 year old and they do stupid shit sometimes. It is hard not to get upset when they seemingly do something violent, but to say that you would hit them in the face is an absolute step too far and I’d be very upset if a family member said this to them.

You did threaten your 2 year old nephew. Thats exactly what happened.

It’s difficult to tell from the first post whether you over reacted or not and I agree that your BIL should have been more aware and dealt with it but you and your sister both sound very inflexible and I feel sorry for your parents. You are living in your parent’s house and they want your sister and nephew to visit. What harm would it do to give a half apology ( sorry if I overreacted but BIL was absorbed in his book and I didn’t want the dog to get hurt or react). Get down off your high horse . Your sister is also being a bit OTT in saying she won’t visit but you can only smooth it over from your side.

@Mmemm I think you were fine. His Dad should have stepped up and your Sis is probably annoyed with him, too. She doesn’t set the rules in your parents’ house and actually you are allowed to set your own standards. If nephew had been upset then you could have comforted him after “I’m sorry you’re upset but you know we should
be kind to animals”. BIL had time to moan about you but not parent in the moment. If Sis is stamping her feet, let her get on with it.

@Mmemm It's fairly obvious to me from the "" around the word 'yank' in the thread title that you don't agree that you yanked him at all. Don't quite understand why that's going over some people's head.

If indeed you DID yank the child or speak unduly harshly to him in front of his father, why didn't father intervene?

I suspect if your dog had nipped your nephew in response to being whacked with the coaster, there would have been far more than a 'yanking' of the dog going on by the parents (that's if daddy could actually be arsed to respond).

The grump should go to the dad who did nothing. He should have jumped up and disciplined his son himself. I wouldn’t be thrilled with how you dealt with it, but you’re not a parent and you did your best. What do they expect if they aren’t going to parent?

Says an awful lot about how this child will grow up if this is the parents attitude/attentiveness.