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 😂

OP read the Facebook comments they tell a very different story to the mumsnet ones.
I’d much rather my toddler got a ‘yank’ on her arm than a bite to her face.
It doesn’t matter that your nephew couldn’t fully understand what he did was wrong yet, teaching a toddler doesn’t happen over night and you’ve got to start somewhere.
obviously you didn’t threaten your nephew imaging others pain and how that would make us feel is how we learn empathy. A lesson most of mumsnet could use actually.
I’m not judging brother in law for not paying attention cause no one can all the time. Anyone who tells you they can is delusional. However if that was my toddler she’d of had a row off me as well afterwards.
In conclusion, a fuss about nothing.

Yes parents get things wrong all the time!

What you did wasn’t perfect, but understandable given the circumstances! I suspect your sister is a lot more “gentle” in her approach which may or may not work going forward. I think she’s being very precious and overreacting - it’s not as if you smacked or were screaming at him! It doesn’t do children any harm to realise they’ve done wrong (even at 2-3). He’ll hear worse as he gets older or have other children hit him at nursery/school. If he had continued hitting the dog the situation may have escalated.

I would just apologise for the sake of the family and just let it all calm down. Leave them to their parenting for the foreseeable.

Or the sister and BIL realise they fucked up and are taking it out on OP

Your BIL sounds like a twat.

so your sister won’t come over if you are there? That is her choice, not yours and you can’t be held accountable for her choices. She will relent once she realises her occasional free childcare has disappeared.

she is one of those parents who can’t have their kid told off by anyone else

No, it's the dog's home and he was sleeping. Far easier to just parent the child who didn't "hound" the dog but hit him.

It takes many many many teachable moments along with age for the child to understand that pulling fur/hitting/poking the dog will potentially cause the dog to harm them. Its not just a one off “no we dont do that” the child will want to “play” again/be inquisitive etc.

Not relevant to what I said. Also, many children are just naturally gentle around animals. My two never, and I do mean absolutely never at any time, hit a dog, cat or were rough with animals. Ever.

If you assume that's a lie, I will assume you are a liar, as liars always assume others are lying.

This little boy is not gentle and hit the dog. So he needs to be parented, constantly, if he is around vulnerable animals.

The dog, of course, can just continue to sleep peacefully in his own home in his twilight years.

All of this fuss over nothing will have had one good outcome, the sil and her lazy husband will now be fully aware they can't just ignore their child around animals and will actually have to parent him.

We have dogs, plenty, along with young children, if I am ever in a position where I cannot be 100% supervising them, even doing something simple like washing the dishes, the dogs are put in their safe place. When my brother visits with his dog, if we are busy, I take his dog to another room. My DD is 3, but when she younger, she would pull tails/ poke eyes/ provoke, not on purpose but as an inquisitive child. It is safer for the dog and child if you cannot fully 100% supervise to be seperate.

Indeed, as the child was visiting, and the elderly dog was sleeping in his own home, the child should have been fully parented at all times or taken to a safe room by his father.

What on earth are you talking about liars? What? Thats great thats your experience, not in this case obviously. Just get the bloody dog out of the way why is it so hard for people to do? God.

Why on earth are you pretending not to know fully that I was preempting your faux disbelief?

Yes, indeed just keep the kid away from the sleeping dog. Not hard to do if you are actually parenting him.

I will never understand why humans prioritise dogs before small children.

Nobody in this thread has done that.

Why would you preempt anything? Weird.

sure

🙄

I mean if the child was bitten, due to refusal to keep the child safe?

Oh please, resorting to insults because someone with your brain capacity cant do anything else to uphold a decent discussion.

Yeah… it’s a stretch. Every person disagreeing with OP has explained how they would tell the child no in a less aggressive way. For me it’s the choice of words that is the problem. If my 2yo hit a dog I would absolutely grab their arm and give a very firm “no”.
But a lot of people seem to anyone disagreeing with them = bloody woke gentle parenting nonsense refusing to say no to bratty children 🥱 it’s boring. And inaccurate. Open your mind to different opinions and ways of doing things.
And yes, I agree with you about the useless father, that’s not the point.

Exactly. If the parent had only been parenting, and not refusing to keep the child safe by refusing to parent him and leaving him to do what he wanted with a sleeping dog.

Just parent the child and take him out of the room when needed. So easy.

Why are you getting yourself so wound up about somebody else’s dog/toddler/family? Have you no issues of your own?

easy your right, we have eyes absolutely everywhere all the time.

Precisely, you just take the toddler out of the room and don't let him hit sleeping dogs who live there. All sorted :)