3 year old son keeps getting hurt

[CowboysfromL]

My best friend and I both have sons, her son “O”(age 4.5) is a year older than my son “F”(age 3.5) and they have grown up together. As time has gone on whenever they meet up, “F” always ends up in tears because “O” has hurt him in some way… when confronted said it was an accident every time but “F” seems to think it is on purpose.

Both my friend and I practice gentle parenting, but what bothers me is that he keeps hurting my son and there are no repercussions from it and it happens over and over again. A recent example is when “O” marched “F” out of my sight with his arm around him and helped him climb up a huge climbing frame (he was too small to get up there on his own) and then proceeded to push him backwards off the top of a 9ft climbing frame, it was a miracle he didn’t break anything.

After this happened I vowed I wouldn’t let my son out of my sight at the next play dates to make sure I could intervene when something inevitably happened… and that worked well for a while. However my 1 year old daughter has just learned to walk so now I have to split my attention between the two and yesterday another really serious incident happened. The boys were playing pirates in the play park with some of those flimsy plastic cutlass fancy dress swords and “O” ended up embedding his one into the back of “F”s head when he had his back turned. Loads of blood and a huge hole in his head!!! My friend just said “Oh well, no more playing with weapons for you two” and that was it. She asked “O” if he had apologised, he said yes but he hadn’t. My friend puts it down to “O” being physically bigger and more boisterous and “F” being small and sensitive, their personalities clash. I feel like for some reason “O” is picking on my son and maybe actually even enjoys hurting him.

Can anyone help me? Am I wrong to think this? Can 4 year olds be that spiteful? Should I just stop seeing them in order to protect my son or am I totally over reacting and is this just a case of boys playing rough and I need to just get used to it?!

I don't think you are being unreasonable to be concerned, however boys often experience a testosterone surge at 4 which enables them to think and respond differently. You are seeing this, I double very much "0" is spiteful however he is making choices and is too young to understand consequences. As such you need to monitor play and supervise closely to keep your child safe.

I would look to arrange future contact with your friend when you are childfree as it's not fair on your son if he doesn't enjoy the playdates.

This doesn't really sound like gentle parenting to me, gentle parenting still enforces strong boundaries and one of the most important boundaries is keeping your child and other people safe. The situations your friend is allowing sound unsafe - as you say you're amazed your son didn't break something when he fell 9 feet. Either she needs to start enforcing proper boundaries or you need to remove your son from the situation.

I would remove your son from the situation. He can't, you need to do it. It's up to you if you want to try and discuss it with your friend. I had a similar situation, although not as severe, and I chickened out of the conversation and distanced myself. I still see the mum occasionally but I've never been able to really tell her what my concerns were .Dd is much happier away from that particular child.

Oh OP I'd struggle with this one. My boys are 4.5 and 2.5 and while we're quite relaxed parents, we don't allow hurting each other. DS2 is surprisingly more 'boisterous' so we have to reinforce the gentle hands, no pushing, way more with him. I'd struggle with playdates where my sons are regularly seriously hurt, it's not normal.

He pushed your son backwards of a 9ft climbing frame??? That could have killed him. You need to protect your son, that has to be the priority. I wouldnt meet up with them with the children until he has grown out of this phase (if the does).

This isn't gentle parenting, but lack of parenting. Your friend is going to regret her lack of boundary setting big time. The testosterone thing mentioned above is a thing at this age, but your DS should not suffer & absolutely should not be getting injured. Your friend needs to step up her vigilance too when her boy is hurting others.

Don't take your DS there again & I'd tell her why too. Meet without kids, or not at all

I had this with a friend’s DS kept hurting my DD. Same she and size but every time we met she ended up in tears. I was asking the same Qs as you and a friend said to me ‘ you’re her mum, your job is to protect her’. Obvious but I hadn’t thought if it like that.

Your DS’s safety needs to be your number 1 concern, not your friend’s feelings so i wouldn’t be doing any more play dates if I were you. And if just say ‘Evert time we meet My DS end up getting hurt so let’s meet without the children from now on’ I wouldn’t beat around the bush.

You need to protect your son. No more meet ups with O until he's learnt to stop the violence.

The testosterone surge is a total myth, it doesn’t happen and isn’t an explanation for poor or aggressive behaviour.

@zoeydollie

The testosterone surge is a total myth, it doesn’t happen and isn’t an explanation for poor or aggressive behaviour.

^this

My ds did nothing like this and I would have come down like a ton of bricks if he had!

You need to stop meeting this person and mixing your children.

Stop putting your son into dangerous situations.

Help!

My son started primary school in late august and initially loved it, but after a few days starting getting hysterical at the thought of going in, I persevered and we were on day 6 today of no tears! I then get a call from the teacher today who wants to meet with us to say he is hitting and biting a boy in the class. He won’t be 5 till January but what is concerning me more is that this is completely out of character for him. We have never had a bad report from pre school from him. He’s the one we worried wouldn’t stand up for himself. When we questioned him- he said that a boy hit him and was constantly kicking him (shins are black and blue) so he pushed him. I also don’t want to come across to the school as my son is perfect, but don’t want to come down too hard on my son if this is the case but also don’t want this behaviour. Any advise would be greatly appreciated. TIA Gene xxx