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 😂

Post reported, i hope you don’t spend your real life going around insulting people

just place the dog in his safe place. Its the only full proof way.

PS, you should have said "you're", not "your" in your previous response.

You're welcome.

😂😂😂😂

Just take the toddler out of the room and leave the elderly dog who lives there in peace, sleeping. It's the only full proof way.

ok hun

Excellent. Glad you understand :)

Nah, its just easier to agree with a fool :)

Must fly, things to do, don't have all day to keep correcting irrational nonsense and incorrect spelling 😂

In summation - never leave toddlers unsupervised around animals. Ever. Parent them 100 percent of the time around animals - or others will have to parent them for you.

If you abdicate your duty as a parent and sit there like a lump of lard while your child hits a dog YOU, the parent are responsible for the child being bitten, frightened or otherwise harmed.

If another adult intervenes in a way you do not like YOU, the parent, are responsible for them having to do that.

YOU the parent are responsible for the safety of your children.

Fortunately, the toddler in this scenario was absolutely fine because fortunately his aunt was there to intervene when he hit a sleeping dog.

The OP is not coming back - and she's definitely not apologising to the batshit sister and lazy lump of a father either 😂

Ciao.

You started up the waaahmbulance when you were called a bit thick and tried to pretend to be above all that but as you cannot win the argument - because you're wrong - now you're resorting to insults 😂😂😂

The conversation is now over, but I give you my permission to keep posting.

And well done on managing to use capital letters and apostrophes this time - see what you can do if you try? 😘

You really do have problems 😂😂😂

FYI, your posts come over as really mean. Not clever, just mean.
#justsaying

I have kids and admit i have sometimes bristled at other people telling my kids off particularly if I am right there already dealing with it. But that isn't the case here. Lazy BIL was not parenting and nephew was doing something potentially very dangerous. (Even the most placid lovely dogs might snap if hurt suddenly while asleep and a corner of the coaster could also have injured the dog).

OP was entirely correct to act promptly, removing the coaster/preventing a second strike and to speak sharply to the child. When my kids were being naughty I would usually speak gently first time, firmly second time and loudly/sharply a third time if they persisted. But not when they are doing something dangerous - they would get a loud sharp reaction straight away because that is warranted in my view to avoid a risk becoming a reality.

I do wonder if BIL has misrepresented what actually happened. I would not be surprised if he slyly told sis he was in the process of dealing with the issue (he wasn't) and you muscled in shouting and "yanking".

I think "how would you feel if I hit you in the face" was going a bit far but not the crime of the century. As the little lad carried on wanting the coaster back I don't think he can have been terribly hurt or worried by those words.

NOT unreasonable.
They sound like lazy parents raising a spoilt entitled kid.
If they had such a big problem then they should have stepped in. If the dog had bitten the kid they really would have had an issue.

Tell your sister that the kid needs proper supervision and you can't be held liable for her laziness.
Don't apologise to her. Your parents are guilt tripping you but they can go visit her.

Did the OP overreact a little bit? Yeah possibly. Did the child's dad under - react? Yeah definitely.

At the end of the day OP is not a parent and so can't be expected to know how best to relate to a 2 year old. I have only recently become a parent myself and had very little exposure to babies/young children beforehand and wouldn't have had a clue how best to manage this situation before becoming a parent and researching about this type of thing.

I don't think it is fair to criticise her for behaving imperfectly. In reality she probably reacted out of fear/shock and thus acted in a way she wouldn't usually.

At the end of the day (and most importantly) the little boy wasn't hurt either by the dog or the OP. I am sure having his arm held and being told off is not going to result in any lasting damage. If the dog had reacted the results would almost certainly have been a lot worse!

Poor dog, you did nothing wrong. If she can't accept her child being shown right from wrong, then she has some serious issues!

You overreacted massively. I don't care if your nephew is 2 or 12 you don't threaten to smack them in the face!
Telling him off is one thing but to be so OTT is quite worrying. I don't think I'd want my child around you even if you did apologize.
You should have just taken the coaster and said we don't throw things at or hit our animals, you must use your kind hands.
Did you actually give your BIL a chance to intervene or did you just march in and start telling the child off (and threatening them)? Also he snitched on you? You sound about 12 . Why was it a problem he told your sister unless you knew you'd overreacted

No parents get things wrong all the time but good parents don’t continue to defend their actions, they apologise for their mistakes.

I don't think you should have grabbed him, 2to3 is pretty little, he wasn't choosing to be unkind, so i think I'd have knelt down and looked him in the eye and explained dogs don't like that, especially when they're asleep lets stroke him together kindly. Although given your BiL was right there, I'd be more likely to have elbowed him and said "can you please watch your son because he just whacked the dog with a coaster"
Having said all that, she's being unreasonable, you don't have kids, you won't know the "best" way of parenting and his dad wasn't watching him. Your dog is old and very important to you, you didn't hit or shout (unless you did) and presumably you didn't hurt him with the arm hold or bruise/mark him at all (if he was hurt, totally different!) She should just have rung you and said that isn't how we parent, please don't do it again and sorry my husband wasn't actually watching his own child. When mine were toddlers we didn't really ever stop watching them when at someone's house, especially with animals or anything fragile - it's a recipe for an issue (mother of a dd who was a cat tail puller...!!) Demanding an apology is a bit childish of her.

Except OP didn’t threaten him with a smack to the face. A question is not a statement/threat. Did she expect a little bit much from his comprehension skills? Probably, she still didn’t threaten him.

You did, but you need to learn from us since you have a young nephew.

The child’s father was RIGHT THERE!
You should have stood between the child and the dog and taken the coaster out of the child’s hand. Then, if the father didn’t see what happened, you should have told him right there and then - xxxx just hit the dog with this coaster.

You should not speak to young children in anger, and certainly not other people’s young children.

You did, but you need to learn from us since you have a young nephew.
^
What does this mean?

There is no right or wrong here. Nobody was present to make such an opinion. You may think your opinion is right but there are many others that don’t.

Knelt down for a gentle chat before removing him from next to the sofa within reach of the dog? Jesus H Christ, now I’ve heard everything.

You did, but you need to learn from us since you have a young nephew.

Who's the 'us' that the OP needs to learn from?

59% of voters think she was not being unreasonable.