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 😂

This is the problem with having dogs around small children.

The debate becomes so polarised - "my dog wouldn't hurt a fly", "my child is more important" - that people ignore the blinking obvious.

Which is that dogs and young children need constant supervision when around each other. It doesn't matter if the dog is sleeping. It doesn't matter if the child is usually fine with dogs.

Schrödinger's 'toddler'. Simultaneously too young to understand not to hit the dog, while also being old enough to feel threatened by being asked how it would feel to be hit.

If it hadn’t been an elderly golden retriever this could’ve ended really badly. You’d pull your child away from a busy road, you pull your child away from a fire; you should pull your child away from tormenting a big dog.

This.

Dogs are wonderful but NEVER ever expect a dog not to react especially if it’s sleeping and woken suddenly - even if it caught the child be accident by jumping with its mouth open - it could nick the kid’s face.

It is foolhardy to not be vigilant however soft your dog is. My dogs are incredible but I watch them like hawks around youngsters as they’re more used to teens and if they did do something I could not bear the consequences for my dogs or the kid.

All of this!

I definitely think animals need constant supervision around young kids - I’d never leave either alone together. In this case, OP supervised and reacted to a developing hazard.

The parents didn’t like her approach, including the one who did nothing in the actual moment but roused himself enough to snitch to his wife after the fact.

If OP’s nephew had been bitten, guaranteed she’d cop the blame for that too.

Maybe she was having a bad day. Are you 100% patient with everyone all the time?

🙄 yes this is exactly what I meant. My toddler sees a sleeping animal, she simply must bash it.

If I left a non-horse experienced person to deal with one of my horses while I sat passively and watched, I’d be a bit of an arse to then slag the person off for not knowing how to handle the horse/handling it wrongly.

Yeah she was hungover. She’s already said that. And was unkind to her two year old nephew as a result of that.

Sure I’ve been impatient but no I don’t think I’ve ever done that.

You’re the one who responded ‘yes’ to a direct question asking you if there have been many instances when your sisters have had to intervene to prevent your child bashing a sleeping animal with an object.

You were asked a specific question about a urgent danger to your child and you responded that yes, there have been many such instances.

I was fully expecting you to say ‘no, of course not’. But you confirmed this is something that happens to you so here we are.

There have been instances where they’ve intervened in something or other. Not necessarily the bashing of a sleeping dog. But other nonsense that toddlers get up to. And they’ve always been kind about it.

That’s it, really.

And then he went whining to his dw.
What an idiot

Actually yes you're right. The sister did do the best she could I suppose. I would still be annoyed though, if my sister had reacted like that to be honest. Maybe her sister needs to explain to her how to deal with young dc for any future occasions and tell the husband to buck up his parenting. Despite doing the best she could I don't think her reaction was appropriate toward a 2 year old. There have been 2 occasions where people have done "the best they could" or reacted as they thought appropriate, and I've have been very very angry. Just because it's their best, doesn't mean I'm going to accept my children being treated how they were treated.

That was not what you were asked - you were asked about a specific situation which involved imminent danger to your child.

No point trying to backtrack now. Just start your own thread asking for advice on how to handle these situations that apparently keep occurring.

@AthWat You are very invested in this thread, you don't need to reply to disagree with every post. A nod at your phone or an emoji is okay.

I didn’t want to write this ….. but if this saves one child.
a friends adult son had 15 stitches in his head from a black lab.
different circumstances granted , but just to emphasise how much damage a friendly big dog can do.
op was protectiving her nephew from the dog as much as protecting dog from the newphew.

I think you were a tad OTT, probably because you were hungover.
But, you did right to step in, as the Dad was being so fucking useless.
I wouldn't apologise if you genuinely feel you weren't in the wrong.

What does she want you to apologise for, specifically? Does she think you hurt him? Was he upset after? Just trying to get some context

I'd probably offer some kind of non apology along the lines of I'm sorry he was upset, I was trying to teach him by physically preventing him (gently) from doing it again as it looked like he was going to hit him again. We know that family dog is gentle but I was truing to keep him safe, as if he doesn't understand we don't hit animals and hits another dog, who knows what will happen.

The only thing I'm not sure I'd have done is called his behaviour mean. It was, but holding his arm, telling him not to do it again, and taking it off him would have been enough

I don't think anyone disagrees it could potentially lead to a dangerous situation, however, not once in the paragraph was OP concerned about her dog biting the DC.

💯 tell the child off, but do not ask a child, a toddler, how would they like an adult to hit them in the face. Extremely OTT.

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.
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No concerns about biting or nephew's safety.

Exactly. Total loser.
Her sister should be focused on what a lazy loser her child's father is.

Lazy parents are the worst for getting their backs up when someone else does their job for them.
A nearly 3 year old knows it’s wrong to hit but he doesn’t understand the full consequences.
However, it’s preferable, imo, to say his action was mean rather than tell him the dog may bite him.

In future I would pick toddler up, dump him on his dad and tell dad to parent his dc.

Just because there was a low likelihood of that particular dog biting does not mean the child should have been allowed to hit him/not told why they shouldn’t.

Agree it is mean, what good does mincing words do? Kids need to be told when their behaviour is mean.