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 😂

You can tell from the replies this ‘telling off’ was not age appropriate from an Aunty.

Dad’s a tosser. Dog safety is paramount. Aunty over the top with discipline.

Dad knows he’s been a tosser so tells the sister to avoid blame. Aunty gets defensive because she knows her delivery of discipline was poor.

Apologies all round, move on.

It’s in inverted commas (commonly used as quotation). Very basic use of the English language tbh

My daughter is 3 in a couple months, if she had hit an animal, especially a sleeping animal I’d have reacted the same if not more than you. Children need to know not to hurt animals for both their own and the poor animals safety.

No the phrasing isn't threatening. It's common language.

The tone might be, but anything can be threatening if said in a threatening tone. You're making an assumption it was.

Because her reaction could have traumatised him because he didn't understand.

Your BIL owes YOU an apology for sitying on his arse and not minding his child.

Let the twat apologise first and say you'll give some thought to apologising for stepping in when his father clearly couldn't be arsed.

Presumably, as she's his aunt and been around for most of his life she has some idea of how to deal with him? Common sense? It's not that OP stepped in, but how she did it. I doubt OP waited for BIL and then responded, I expect she just reacted (as you would).

In our family we don't all sit on our hands and leave it up to the parents of the little ones, we also step in when needed. I thought that would be pretty normal?

It says "yanked" not yanked.

Your sister is OTT demanding an apology. She can be annoyed at you, ask for you not to do it again, but I think she needs to get over it.

And that is why we have out of control feral teens, because they have only ever herd soft voices. Maybe we should wait until their brains have matured at 25 before the ever hear a stern voice reprimanding them for, i won't say naughty or bad behaviour because no doubt that will "trigger" someone, instead i will use the words "not their best behaviour".
Here on our continent there are 18 year olds at war, fighting hand to hand combat or being shot protecting their homeland yet here we are raising children that have never been talked to in a voice that tells them they are in the wrong.

Traumatised is hyperbolic AF.

Oh come on Mn a 2.5 year old child knows not to hit a dog. The father would have parented here. Sorry op you having a hard time on it. If the dog has reacted it would have been awful so better your nephew was told to not hit the dog. Bil at fault here for not being a parent. Yanbu.

Oh for gods sake.

No wonder there are so many feral teens around these days. I’ve found the kids who got a gentle ‘kind hands’ after walloping another toddler have grown up to be little horrors. I once witnessed a 3 year old spitting and dragging his mothers hair around, while being met with a ‘gentle hands, we don’t do that’!

My ds is 3 and at your DN age would have known not to attack a sleeping dog. I’ve never grabbed his arm or smacked him and never would. A firm no is needed in situations like this. His lazy father should have been parenting him. Imagine if the dog had retaliated. I presume that would have been your fault too.

This you were hungover and took it out on the child

Omg, I have a 2 yr old if I saw him ready to hit a dog let alone an elderly sleeping one I’d be grabbing his arm as he raised it to stop him. Apologising if I was too slow to react and I absolutely would say no we don’t hit and probably something along the lines of you wouldn’t like that too terrible aren’t I? But then my child is more likely to understand that than no we don’t do that cos he tends to then retry whatever I said don’t do. All those criticising OP are totally missing the valid point his Dad should have stepped in before any of that and OP has had to deal with the situation due to his failure to parent. A love of both your kids and dogs is not something OP has, she protected the poor dog and some ppl have rightly pointed out the reaction would be very different from sis if nephew had got bitten! Now if she’d have sat back and said serves you right when the dog repeatedly got hit and bit nephew I’d say terrible behaviour, however she saw a bad situation and stepped in to prevent escalation, fair enough. She doesn’t have to find the right words, supervision was not her responsibility

The patent in this situation should have parented but he did not. He sat in his arse.

whilst a clumsy reaction, the aunt was right to intervene and as she is not a parent and hasn’t swallowed the latest guidance. But she intervened because parent did not. Lazy parent is at fault. Aunt knows better for next time.

I may have been a little cross

It sounds as though you're minimising and were too cross.

"4 months off 3" is also "2 and 8 months"; closer to 2 and a half. Children that age are immature and impulsive and need close supervision.

The issue wasn't actually the child, it was the fact that they were unsupervised and were able to grab a coaster before "hitting" the dog with it (I say "hitting", because in their 2.5 year old mind, they were probably stroking or testing to see the reaction, no actual "mean" intention). The people to have "been a little cross with" are the people in the room (including you) who didn't prevent the issue in the first place. Why didn't someone remove the coaster as soon as it was picked up ("no, let's put it back, it's not a toy")? Why didn't someone move closer when he was approaching the dog to make sure he was behaving appropriately and stroking gently?

It's fine to guide a 2.5 year old and firmly say "no, we need to be gentle with animals". It's not fine to "be a little cross" when they are not experienced with animals and have not had adequate supervision.

I suspect that as you were "a little cross", you didn't (and still don't) realise how harsh you were being or how strongly your grabbed your nephews arm. It sounds as though you did go overboard and you need to acknowledge that. All of your posts here have been minimising and defensive. I think it would be good to really reflect on that. It's not easy to be called out in such a public way in your own home, but sometimes it's good to reflect, admit you got it wrong and move forward.

Going forward, if you don't want to supervise your nephew, I suggest you move out of the area he's in. It's not unreasonable for family to think that everyone in a room is keeping half an eye out without being told (you're an adult, why would you need to be told to do the obvious?). The other solution is to make it really clear that you're not on duty "I'm going to read my book/have a nap, so I'm not actively supervising, please can you keep an eye on nephew as I can't", but do be aware that you may be perceived as churlish if you do that all the time.

I mean, if you believe that all that is necessary to learn how to deal with children at various stages of their development is occasionally to be visited by one, I don't have any data to really convince you otherwise. It's not something I believe.

I may be misunderstanding here but presumably your nephew had spent time with this dog before? In which case he should have been taught by his parents not to go near the dog whilst it was sleeping AT ALL. Let alone be whacking it with a coaster. So should have been giving it a wide berth.

what I’m getting from this is that nephew had maybe done this kind of thing before, got right up in the dogs face, and they are very lucky the dog hasn’t bitten him.

Yes you maybe weren’t “gentle” but far better for nephew to have been reprimanded than have his face bitten. So any apology you make to your sister should be on the lines of “I’m sorry if I didn’t correct him properly, I was scared he would hurt the dog or the dog would bite him”.

I would have been okay with you telling my DC off if they had done that, in fact I would have been upset that they might have hurt the dog. They were taught from babies to be kind to animals.

If someone had yanked by child arm at 2 yes it would have been traumatic. A huge person yanking the arm if a tiny child. How could it not be

I reckon a dog bit would've been more traumatic

I agree. It also sounds like you did ‘yank’ his arm. Nothing in your post suggests you needed to physical remove his arm from some where.

Totally agree.
people are forgetting what ‘could’ have happened if the dog had retaliated.

4 months off 3 isn’t nearly 3. It’s a third of a year off 3, closer to 2.5yrs!

Get a grip.