best friend is a bully - can you help?

[suzywong]

My DS, 27 months, has a best friend 'J' , also 27 months, who has a violent, impulsive streak that regularly results in attacks to my DS. The impulses come without warning usually in the middle of a jolly nice game they are having together and manifest as scratches and bites to DS's face, head including pushing and hittine with anything that is to hand.
Yesterday J hit my DS in the face twice with a cup and the week before J closed the lid of a shell sand pit on top of DS. Generally J is an OK child but he has always had violent impulses he cannot control going way beyond any phases and, oddly he always candidly admits to the attacks. My DS, although no cissy, is always on the receiving end but, you guessed it, loves J dearly and always asks for him.

My concerns are twofold - 1. that J will do some serious damage to my DS and 2. that my DS is beginning to accept assaults as part of a normal relationship. I worry for his self esteem and his sense of personal safety.

Then there's the discipline issue:
J's mother, a dear friend amd thoroughly nice woman disciplines J by pointing out the bad behaviour in firm voice and making J say sorry. Then everything continues on as normal. My DH has had enough and wants J to be removed from the situation immediately and never mind 'sorry' before DS loses an eye. I can see the great value of the boy's relationship not to mention my own relationship with J's mum but after the most recent assault DH doesn't want J in the house again.

So it's the eternal question are we over reacting or should we insist on firmer discipline of J so that he knows not to bash my DS. And do you think DS will grow to accept being assaulted if 'sorry ' is offered as an excuse for the behaviour.

I would really welcome advice.

Suzywong

I could have written that post myself. I also worry that my DS will be the subject of bullying later on because of how one of his friends now behaves. Both are just 2.

Part of me loves the fact that my child has never been aggressive to any other child, the other part would like him to retaliate. I look forward to some replies to this dilema

I have never been in this situation but I would have to tell the other child's parent that as the attacks are not one offs, next time I will end the play session by saying if you can't play nicely together so and so will have to go home or something similar. This gives your child the message it's not acceptable to be hit and shows the other child there is a consequence to his action. If the other mum is a good friend she must understand this is necessary as when he goes to nursery she will be lynched by other no so patient mothers.

I have a friend in this situation- except she has the child who hits (also called J). She has tried everything, she has approached professionals- she is really trying hard, and is at her wits end and spending a lot of time crying and desperate. I really feel for her. Does your friend realise her ds is agressive? If she does I would be very careful as she'll already be feeling bad. Doesn;t help your ds of course. She may already be trying to get help her her ds- but it can be very difficult to get to the right people. Banning her son would just make her feel dreadful.

My ds2 (18 mnths) gets pushed a lot- mainly becuase he spends a lot of time around autistic children. I know their parents can't do anything about it- so I just watch very carefuly, don't leave him alone with the ones who do hit/push, and pick him up an move him away if it does look as if he's about to be pushed. Ds2 is generally being pushed/hit by chidren who are about 7- he hasn't come to any harm yet (although I do watch like a hawk as I already said)- I would imagine it would be quite hard for a 2 year old to inflict much damage.

Thanks for so much advice in so little time! (this is the first time I have posted a question)

This has been very useful for showing DH that we are not alone and that everyone's feelings, including those of the other parent, need to be considered. So we have decided to gently but frankly tell the other mum that there is a new house rule at our house - the first bash and J has to go straight home because we want this behaviour stopped and also we want the boys to be able to continue to enjoy their close relationship without being watched all the time.

So thanks very much everyone

Suzywong, I too could have written your post but dd's friend is now 3.5. His mother has done everything she can think off none of which is very effective, I think your desision is very wise, perhaps approach it in a "What are we going to do...?" conversation to J's mum. She probably does feel terrible and what with the disciplining police out there it is difficult to know what to do for the best - even raising your voice is frowned upon in some circles.
I have found effective methods of discipline to be removing the offending child so that he/she is missing out. Such as what you suggest, or sitting on the stairs (they do stay there for some reason), or sitting in the corner of the room watching the mums play with the "victim". Children hate to be ignored. At 27 months you can't really withhold privilidges but if I am looking after several children (between 3 & 4) and one is REALLY terrible at say biscuit time they don't get a biscuit, lolly etc as they are on the stairs. Once they reach 3.5 though you can explain why they are being excluded, at 27 mo they still function on very basic emotions. As I say at that age I have found that instant exclusion from the "circle" is effective. Hope this helps.

suzywong,
I too could have written your post word for word. Including the dh who wants to ban the offending child from the house. In fact I posted with a similar appeal to yours after the child (M) gave my ds (G) a black eye. My ds's (2.5 yrs) playmate's mother knows that her child has a problem and has tried everything from firmly chastising to smacking. We have discussed this together and decided that she will no longer try to punish her ds by making a fuss as it seems that he (M) is perhaps doing this to get attention. Instead at the first "attack" of the day we are going to try me and my ds picking up and leaving and saying something like "oh isn't it too bad that you hit G, as now he doesn't want to play with you and is going to go home." We are hoping that this "peer pressure" will work. Our childminder (both children go to the same woman) insists that M will grow out of it.
Anyway, all of this is to say that I would suggest trying to open a discussion with J's mother rather than "laying down the law." She will probably be happy to follow your suggestions if it isn't seen as an attack on her child.

I too sympathise, we too have "J" in our lives, and again ds loves him as his friend. The unfortunate thing is that ds when he plays with other children, thinks taht this is the way to play and can be violent to them. I have had to tak him away from houses etc, and explainthat he doesn't like it when J does it to him so he shouldn't do it to anyone else. It seems to work as long as J doesn't come to play too often.

Now how can I hid for the next 6 weeks (school holidays). My ds is bright enought osay but mummy they are in, their car is in the drive

www.successunlimited.co.uk/

This site may offer some suggestions on how to deal with bullys in different situations

Have to agree with SofiaAmes- sounds like a good approach. I think you do have to aproach this carefully- depending on whether the mother knows her son is a problem. If she thinks it is OK to hit etc that is one thing, but if she is trying to stop it and can't then that is another iyswim. Having been the mother with an "odd" child (although he's never hit anyone thank god) who turned out to have problems - if anyone had laid down the law in any way I wouldn't have been able to go near them again. I was having enough trouble keeping eveything together as it was. I know my friend who has the "J' at the moment would be the same- she is really struggling.

I do know what its like to have a child hit all the time because ds2 does get clonked a lot. But I do also see if from the mother's pov. I guess what I'm saying is if the mother does know there is a problem and is trying you may have to put up with it a bit if you want to stay friends with her. Have to say I think 27 months is a bit young to be described as a bully! The last time ds2 got shoved over the mother of the child who did it did say to me "this is why we can't see normal people". It's so easy to get isolated if you have a child with difficulties. Of course if the mother is totally oblivious and just says "don;t so that dear" then that is something entirely different. I doubt she'd change her approach though.

I did have another friend who's little boy used to throw everything he could lay his hands on at head height. It was a real pain, and even more annoyingly the mother did nothing. In the end I just stopped seeing them very often until he grew out of it. She wasn't a hugely close friend though so a bit different.

I think both jimjams and sofiaAmes have made some good points. If you can have this out in the open with your friend (who sounds very nice and reasonable) and agree to end a play session if your son gets hurt, then do it. But having been the 'nice' mother of a toddler hitter, I know how easily this could cause hurt.

My first son ( aged 2 - 4 ish) hit out sometimes when he got overexcited. He would aways own up afterwards. Apart from this hitting, he was a friendly and sociable little toddler and made friends easily. I tried everything to make him stop hitting and I used to dispair that he would be seen as a bully and friends would stop inviting him to play with their children. On occasion I did feel unfairly judged by my friends for my son's behaviour and it was really upsetting.

My other son now nearly 4, has (touch wood) never had a hitting problem, though he's prone to push past others and he's very lively. It makes life much easier when we meet other parents and children. But hand on heart I can say I have done nothing different with son number two. It is not my parenting skills that made son number one a hitter and son number two not a hitter.

The point I'm making is that your friend may have little real control over her son's hitting behaviour, considering his young age. Especially if the hitting is random and unpredictable, and for most of the time he plays well. And since he's only two and a bit years, he is still very young to be reasoned with and talked out of it, I think. He probably doesn't even understand what a bully is anyway, though hopefully he's grasped that hitting hurts others and is bad. I agree that removal from the situation is the best ultimate solution, perhaps the only one considering his young age.

But as Jimjams has said your friend may be more upset about his behaviour than she lets on. If someone had approached me about ending play sessions if my 2 year old son hit out, they would have had to tread carefully. I would very possibly have taken it personally as a criticism of my failure to control my son's behaviour. And would also wonder if my friend didn't like my son full stop, and that's hurtful too. So if you like this little boy in other ways, do say so lots!

I remember talking to one friend (whose son had been hit by mine) and we speculated on the causes of his hitting. She threw in the suggestion that it was because I worked full time while his father looked after him, so he didn't get enough attention from me. Ugh!

Incidently my son did grow out of his hitting phase - I don't think this was principally because of my handling of him, but was more to do with his own development.

You know your friend and she sounds reasonable. If you can imply that the problem is a joint one - sometimes your sons don't seem to get on - rather than her son causes your son problems, you can still get your message across ie if one boy hurts the other, the play session is over.

Or discuss with the mother if a temporary halt - ie taking the child into another room for five minutes - would work. Or try damage limitation and make play sessions no longer than half and hour, say. I found that if my son hit another it was often towards the end of a play session when he was at his most tired and excited.

Good luck with talking to your friend. It sounds like this is a problem you can solve in the long run.

Thanks so much for all the wise words.This had been very helpful in developing a strategy.

I'm having another son in 6 weeksand J's mum is having a baby in 11 weeks. So DH and I are going to introduce a new house rule of immediate removal and of hitter, whomever it my be, ostensibly so that DS knows catergorically that hitting is not tolerated and therefore doesn't get any ideas about behaving aggresively towards his new brother. We want to put the emphasis on setting an example to our DS o that sibling wrangling will be easier in the long run and that we want to start right now.
(Beetroot - I'm with you on the 'say sorry' thing. I personally believe that the concept of repentance is vastly beyond anyone under the age of 4 and that the child may as well be saying 'conveyor belt' and what's more it has never stopped J repeating his behaviour or soothed my DS's sore head)

We won't lay down the law outside our house, although I will be removing my DS if he hits or if he is hit and be using SofiaAmes' strategy of 'too bad there's been hitting we have to go now'- that's a really good one.

And all your advice to tread carefully with my friend are is well received and understood and I wouldn't want to criticise her anyway as she does a bloody good job under a lot of pressure - her husband works very long hours and comes home exhausted and she has 2 stepdaughters to run around after for part of the week. So I hope that by explaining what we are doing in our house and by emphaising we want to set a clear example to DS she should get the message.

And I hope that J gets the message too as he and DS really are best friends and we want their relationship to continue because having a special friend to play with independently of everwatching mums is really valuable right now. We hope their friendship will get them through the tough times ahead in their unasked for role as big brothers.

So thank you once again for all your advice.
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