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 😂

No, she didn’t. You are making things up. Read the account again.

You advocated for the dog. And as you say there is a big difference between just turned 2 and 2 months off being 3. An almost 3 years old understands more than people make out. As someone who has been through the kids and dogs phase, a few harsh words at the time generally stops slip ups later on.

It’s not nasty / it’s called explaining things to them. Which you are meant to do

of course it would be more accurate to say how would you like it if the dog bit you because that was a possibility

Absolutely shouldn’t say how would you like it if I hit you. My daughter has just turned 2 and we have a dog and always telling her to leave her when she’s sleeping or if she walks away she doesn’t want to play, be gentle, don’t touch her ears etc. if she hit my dog with anything I would be stern and say no we don’t hit the dog and she would say sorry to the dog. At this age they have no impulse control and it’s not easy but my view is anger breeds anger and certainly violence breed violence. If I was you I’d apologise to your sister for how you reacted.

Well you're refusing to accept you were wrong so I don't know why you posted? Did you think people were going to congratulate you?

It sounds fine to me op. You stopped a potential nasty incident - they should be thanking you.

Ignore them.

You fid the right thing. Potentially saved toddler from being bitten and the poor dog blamed. Most sensible people agree with you. Children who are not taught to treat animals kindly and are never told off can and do become horrible adults.

People (including your sister and useless BIL) are failing to see the bigger picture here. No one was ever harmed from a panicked telling off.

She wasn't angry, she was firm and raised her voice. Nothing wrong with that.

And, I'm not a believer of gentle parenting techniques or their effectiveness, so your comment does not resonate with me.

I think make that the basis of your apology/explanation. You got it wrong. We teach empathy by making a child think about how the other party feels. So 'don't do that, it'll hurt the dog and make him sad'. I'm in the camp that physically stopping something is fine. What principle aren't you apologising on? You are putting your Mum in the middle and considering she is housing you, that's unfair. You might not want children (my eldest and youngest didn't), you have to co-exist with one, while in your parents house. Boys in particular need to be taught empathy, Dad should have done better. The child is a couple of years from full impulse control and empathy, though.

You may think it's batshit but the OP would be the one up in court facing charges of having an out of control dog if it savaged her nephew. Unfair perhaps, but the law puts the onus firmly on her to ensure her dog does not injure anyone.

She's not wrong, just because you say she is.

At this age they have no impulse control

this. OP keeps saying “in my opinion he knows better” (cos he’s 4 months off three).

This is someone with zero understanding of child development with wildly unreasonable expectations and willing to try to aggressively enforce them to boot. I would not want my toddler around them.

But in terms of understanding and development of a child, it's disingenuous to say that a 2 year, 1 month old is the same as a 2 year, 11 month old. Even a few months make a huge difference.

No, what you did was fine! Just be careful with pulling one arm though, 'pulled elbow' is easy to cause in some children, and if that happened you would never hear the end of it!!

She wasn’t wrong. The BIL was for not supervising a toddler around a sleeping animal. He should have thanked op, not cowardly bitched about her to her sister.

Are you just arguing with me for the sake of it? Are you the OP?

Have we really wandered into OP has no clue how to treat children so whatever she does it's OK? Sounds like another excuse. And OP has said she does babysit him, so I imagine she's picked up some idea how to childmind along the way.

I don't actually think this is a massive deal, but can understand her sister's POV. As OP is living with her parents, in her shoes, I would apologise or, at least explain, for their sakes.

Why ?

Did you grab his arm?

Don’t be daft - asking him if he would like to be hit in the face is giving him an opening into seeing how wrong his actions were. It’s really important that little children learn as early as possible how to behave around animals.

What you said to your nephew was not appropriate in the slightest. ‘How would you like it if I hit you in the face?’ JFC. There was a better way to handle this and you should apologise to your nephew and sister.

This!

Some of these replies are a joke. She didn't yank him. She tried to get him to think about how it would feel to be hit in the face because he'd just hit the dog in the face and was about to do it again.

The BIL is a piece of work. Watches his kid try to hurt the dog. Does fuck all. Then tells tales on OP for having to step in.

OP Supernanny would be horrified by your behaviour.

I think I'm on Team OP but thinking it was a shame the dog didn't bite the child is a bit ... niche.

Parents may want them to and if they do that’s amazing.

but they absolutely don’t have to. No one owes you anything in terms of childcare or supervision.

op has already said she has a close bond with her nephew anyway..

I thought Supernanny had been more or less debunked?