What do you do when a friends DC is always lashing out at your own DC?

[ThinkIveBeenHacked]

Theres seven months between them (mine is older) and they are both under three so still in that lovely "testing the boundaries" age so I am.trying to make allowances but its hard when my dc is getting their hair pulled or being shoved in the face frequently during meet ups.

Its resulting in my dc screaming when their dc comes towards them (during the same outing, theyve forgotten by the next).

Friend is trying to teach her dc how not to do it, and attempting to get her dc to apologise to mine - I bring my dc to hers so that she can apologise - and i try and tell.my dc to just get on and play and stay away from hers if they would rather.

But its hard. Its especially hard when this behaviour isnt tackled the way i would tackle it, though I accept that itls probably more my issue as frankly she is free to parent her child however she sees fit. Its just hard to have it be my dc on the receiving end.

What do I do?

I think that you need to accept that you need to supervise more closely. When children are at this stage you can't sit & chat as much as you would like.

My dd is nearly 3 and I've been on both sides of the fence. I actually found it harder to be the parent of dd was she was hitting than when she was being hit. I think if the friendship is important to you, you just have to suck it up and distract your child. Praise them for playing nicely and explain that the other child shouldn't hit them but they've said sorry. Where do you think your friend is going wrong?

I get that - i watch them closely, believe me, but this child will simply turn and act. There and then. No build up, no aggravation on my dcs part (which I would call them on instantly). I do watch.

Even if you are watching it can be difficult when with another ther mum. I for one wouldn't take it upon myself to tell off or try to discipline my friends child if they were sitting right next to me. One of my friends does this and I find it intensely annoying that she takes it upon herself to tell off my dd. If discipline needs to happen I'll do it.

The friendship is an old one, so I dont wish to do or say anything to jeopardise it - we have been friends longer than we have not known one another if that makes sense.

i suppose if it were the other way around (and I agree, that would be a harder situation for me to be in), I would scold my child for being physically agressive and say that if it happens again they will come and sit next to me in time out if they couldnt play nice - i would then follow through on that if it happened again.

Friend has a softly softly approach of "no we dont do that" on repeat which imo only works if it stops the behaviour. It didnt, and so my next step would have been to remove from the situation - not just let it happen again and again.

I dont know. Im all bothered by it and prpbably shouldnt think too much on it however I am also heavily pg and hormonal and frankly just want to parent my own child and any bad behaviour they show. I dont want to have to worry about other peoples kids.

No, i didnt discipline her child at all. The first two times it happened she asked her child to apologise to mine and they didnt. The third time it happened she asked her child to apologise to mine and because they didnt i got my child and brought them to hers and basically waited for her child to apologise. Then i made them hug and said "all friends, play nicely the two of you" and off they went.

Sorry I wasn't saying you had, I was just responding to the you should be supervising comment that Esk made. Even if you are watching you can't always do anything.

It is difficult, I'm two weeks off giving birth myself and my daughter is constantly being beaten by a friends little girl. She even hit me the other day. I've got masses of sympathy for the mum though as I've been that mum. They are bloody quick when they want to lash out! I didn't tackle it in the same way as my friend either, it sounds a lot like your situation. I think you just have to hold on to the fact it won't last for long hopefully and perhaps steer clear for a little while if it is upsetting you.

My friend's DS is 15 months older than my DD and went through a phase where he would regularly hit /push her, unprovoked. It's a power trip for them. My friend always apologised and put him on time out then made him apologise. I've always been careful not to show irritation, even if it does get past the joke, as you never know when your own child is going to start doing the same....whilst DD has never hurt a friend, she had hurt DS and her cousins, quite frequently! DS was picked on by a 2 year old last week (he's 15 months) and the mum, who is a friend, was mortified, but I'm well award that my little bruiser may well be doing the same in a few months time.

I guess the biggest issue, for me anyway, is how the other parent deals with it. As long as they make it clear to their child it's not ok then I'm ok with it, but if a parent was being washy-washy whilst their child repeatedly pummelled mine, I'd probably have a word.....in fact a 3 year old did once race up to DS when he was 8-9 months and try to snatch something and I automatically said no to him as his mum was ages away (and thanked me) and similarly an unsupervised child in soft play the other day of around 3 started trying to smother my DS while gritting his teeth aggressively...I said no very sharply twice and he got the point His my was drinking tea in the cafe so I'd have dared her to take me up on it....

*mum not my

Ah, soft play, the law of the wild often reigns there! I agree it's annoying when the other mum is nowhere to be seen. I watched a little boy of about 2 and a half repeatedly hit other children at a toddler group the other day. He whacked my dd 7 or 8 times on the face before I could get to them and I was only a couple of feet away. He then legged it when I picked my dd up! He didn't get told off because his mother was off chatting somewhere.

It's not nice when you see your child getting hurt. How is your friend about it? If you are as close as you say then I'd have a conversation with her about it. If you are keen to continue the friendship then presumably want to have the children liking each other.
Why not meet to do something structured, a walk perhaps where you can be on hand constantly, or even meet without the children occasionally. Her child will probably grow out this stage within a few more meet ups but it might ameliorate the stress of having to watch so closely in the meantime.

I have had this for over a year with my friends ds. He would hit, scratch, push my ds every time they came to my house or we went to hers.

In the end I had to distance myself from her as my ds would cry every time I mentioned his name. We arrange to meet at the park or play centre as her ds didn't seem to do it there as much at first but then began doing it there too and not just to my ds.

My friend is very soft though and used to say no don't do that in a wishy washy voice. It used to annoy me a lot, as my poor ds was constantly being hurt.

By chance her husband got a promotion recently and they have moved away. I miss my friend but unfortunately not her little boy.

It's so hard when it's a friend's child to say something, I really wish I had said something to her or acted sooner. As my ds is very worried when I child gets too closed to him as he thinks they are going to hit him.

Im on the opposite end. My DD is the grabber and pusher. Shes not doing it aggressively, she just hasn't learnt to be gentle yet. She more does it to be affectionate but ends up pulling the other child to the floor or manhandling them very roughly. Shes 2.3 yrs. Its really hard for me to discipline it all the time and I feel very upset and drained by the end of it. I don't take a softly softly approach. Im quite strict with her but I do encourage gentle hands every time she approaches the other child. Its just impossible at the moment though as she just doesn't do as shes told or listen to me when i tell her to be gentle and ive been considering stopping the play dates altogether until shes older but I do feel that she needs to learn now so shes better equipped later on. Its horrible being on both ends but its no walk in the park for the mother whose child is doing the hitting/pushing etc. Ive kind of decided to distance myself from one mum and child whose child just cant cope with my DD as its just no fun for anyone at the moment. It makes me sad but its just the stage shes at which is a very difficult one. Wish I had the answer of how to stop it but its all development and quite common at this age.