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 😂

Yep, easy to dissect everything after the fact.

Holding arm, taking coaster both fine. Better to scare the kid than let him get bitten for doing it again. You had to react quickly to protect both kid and dog. Bil should have been supervising properly.

I am not sure how bil knows what happened. He was was not watching enough to.prevent DN from hitting so how come he saw the whole thing anyway?

He's either lazy and let your nephew be at risk for hitting a dog who might react.
Or lazy and making up half of it as he was reading and not paying attention and painting you as the bad guy to get out of it having supervised properly

It's absolutely fine to speak crossly to children when they are being naughty. Put simply they should feel sad for being bad

She isn’t ‘lightening’, she’s clarifying. I can’t imagine your family is drama free either with your kind of supercilious ‘tut tutting’.

She didn’t shout or manhandle. She took his arm to prevent him from hitting the dog and then took the coaster off him. OP says she did not shout.

Modern parents, how would you prevent the child hitting the dog in this scenario without touching the child? Snatch the coaster away from them, even though we teach them that snatching is wrong? Do you then allow the child to continue hitting the dog without the coaster? I’m not sure when we reached the point where holding a child’s arm is ‘manhandling’. Are we still allowed to hold their body parts in other situations? Is holding their hand ‘manhandling’ them across the road?

So as her sister would your reaction be "why did my sister say something sharp to my toddler who she doesn't really understand because she doesn't have children" or "why is my husband coming whining to me about an incident that happened while he sat there and did nothing to prevent it, which could have ended with my toddler bitten if my sister hadn't stepped in, even if not perfectly"?

The kid was whacking a sentient creature! You need to be cross not kind!

I take it you don’t have kids of your own, OP

you don’t shout at kids nor do you yank their arms. He’s 2 he doesn’t understand fgs

absolutely kids need to be taught how to act around animals but he isn’t 12 and purposely set out to do something to hurt your dog. Would you like it if someone shouted and yanked your arm whenever you did something wrong?

If the dog had woken and snapped/woofed and scared the toddler that would have been worse than you telling him off.
Sounds like you have a bil who leaves it to women to parent. Next time they come round I'd be busy and not able to spend time with toddler.

Are you serious?!

the kid is not naughty nor was he being bad!!!

You used too many words for a 2 year old to understand but you absolutely did the right thing.

Your BIL is a wet lettuce. If he had a problem with how you handled the situation he should have said something directly to you at the time.

Sadly the kid (young toddler but let's say kid) was then shouted at and manhandled by a non-sentinet creature.

Even worse if the family dog had taken a snap out of his face @Mischance
Remove the kid quickly from this type of scenario however well behaved the dog is.

This.
They have offered you the opportunity to save money in it has backfired on them.
Once you move and return the dynamic changes, you are no longer their teenager who can rant, you're an adult.

Of course we (parents) get it wrong. But we apologise to our children when we do, learn from it and move on. There's no "refusing to apologise on principle". I always apologise if I overreact/go overboard. That doesn't mean saying that whatever my child did to make me react was ok, it just means acknowledging that I didn't handle it very well and saying sorry for that element. It usually leads to a calm conversation, which is much better for reinforcing good behaviour than being reactive.

I think it would be best to acknowledge that you didn't handle it brilliantly, say sorry and that you've learnt from it, and move on.

It takes a village to raise a child, as the saying goes and you were watching him because you saw what happened.

Grabbed him by the arm to stop him hitting the dog again. What ? Did you want her to wait to see if the dog would bite ?

No, apparently 2 year olds can't process language sufficiently to understand if someone says "you were mean there." and it will traumatise them. Therefore the proper thing to do is sit them down and read them Aristotle's "Ethics", after which they will say "I see the error of my ways and will go apologise to all and sundry"

Kindly OP, why did you make this thread when you're not taking on board anything that anyone is saying? I have a child the same age as your nephew. We have a dog who he adores, but is still trying to work out right from wrong so sometimes gets it wrong. I can understand why you responded in the way you did in the moment - you're protective of your dog and presumably you don't have kids if your own so haven't thought about where you stand on disciplining etc. But I do think it sounds pretty heavy handed and I can therefore understand why your sister was upset, particularly if that's not how they like to assert boundaries. No one's suggesting that you/ an adult shouldn't have responded - children do need to learn, it's just in the way that you do it.

Your brother in law is allowed to read for a few minutes, that doesn't make him a crap parent. It would be so painful if every time I did anything that took my eyes off my child - even for a minute - I had to spell out 'please watch x' to a family member. However, he absolutely should have stepped in and responded to the situation. Bizarre he didn't, but I guess he was a bit shocked, I don't know.

To be honest, I think you could all do with apologising to one another! Id 100% apologise to a dog owner if my child hit their dog. It does sound like you were heavy handed and I'd want some sort of acknowledgement of that if I were your sister because that's definitely not ok. And your brother in law should have responded to the situation and intervened. Situations like this aren't black and white. Just please try to see each others perspectives

So hitting a sleeping animal in the face is.....kind?

Omg!!! Why does no one read past the title… she says she DID NOT yank the arm. That is what her bil who wasn’t watching said and what her sis is accusing which she denied. She blocked the arm to stop hitting again. What was she supposed to do… bleat ‘kind hands kind hands’ as the child keeps whacking the dog

Finally, a sensible, succinct answer! Totally agree with this post.

I would have said firmly that we don't hit, taken the coaster off him and moved him on to something else. I think you were over the top but everyone involved could have handled it better.

Good golly. There are some righteous parents on here…

I completely understand that the M in MN stands for mum and this is a parenting board but if there was ever a thread which highlighted how too far ‘gentle parenting’ has gone it’s this one.

The child will be absolutely fine with no long lasting childhood trauma that will need therapy in his twenties as a result of being told off my his aunt. This will leave no imprint on him at all. If the sister carries on this way the only change will be one less child carer in her family because I certainly would not be putting my hand up to babysit my nephew in future.

@ANiceBigCupOfTea

But the OP has also said she takes her nephew out for days out.
So actually it sounds like the sister is all too happy for free childcare but isn't happy that someone else has spoken to the child about how she speaks to the dog.

Sister sounds like one of these ones who nobody can do right for wrong with the child but will then start asking 'wheres my village' when nobody can be bothered with the drama anymore.

Sister believes her child had his arm yanked while being told off - no parent is going to be 'happy' about that

You did exactly the right thing and the kid’s Dad is a pathetic prick for snitching. If he had a problem with it, he should have had it out with you himself at the time instead of involving your sister and Mum who have turned it into a ridiculous drama.
Too many fucking snowflake parents round here. Bet the kid won’t do it again 🤷🏼‍♀️ he wasn’t arsed about being told off, but lesson learned and no harm done.
I’d have done exactly the same thing