Kids being cruel to new kittens

[maggiethemagpie]

We've just got two kittens and our children, 6 and 3 keep manhandling them and on two occasions have trapped them in enclosed spaces deliberately. I'm not sure of the best way to deal with this as we've told them a million times to be gentle, and used naughty step when we've caught them being rough.
Eg - throwing the kitten, holding/lifting by paws, putting in laundry basket and closing lid.

Final straw was tonight when one kitten went missing and i heard it mewing and found it in a box in the kids room with the lid on, in quite an enclosed space and it had been there at least an hour.

Don't know how to get them to stop- wwyd?

One of my most traumatic childhood memories is giving a baby rabbit to a neighbour for her kids when I was maybe 6/7. 2 days later the neighbour came bacl and.asked if there were anymore baby rabbits available as the first one had died after being stabbed by one the children with a fork. My mam was furious and rold her to fuck off.

Every single one of those dcs dcs ended up a bad un. I would seriously look at those dcs and get some help.

Really? I don't think putting a kitten in a box is akin to stabbing a rabbit with a fork.

I do actually have a friend whose son crushed a guinea pig to death, quite purposefully, it was obviously a very disturbing action and it was dealt with as such (the child concerned has grown up well-balanced after support and appropriate intrrventions).

I really don't conflate thoughtless rough behaviour with considered actions where a child was taking out their anger with the world on the only thing that had less power than them.

You really aren't helping OP with such comparisons.

@ILikeyourHairyHands people are concerned because when a small child hurts an animal and doesn't show remorse or empathy it's usually a sign of one of two things:

1. The child has experienced a similar treatment themselves and is acting it out to try to gain understanding. Children who abuse animals have often experienced some form of abuse themselves.
2. Nearly ALL perps of violent crime have a history of similar animal abuse as children. It doesn't mean every child who pulls a cat's tail will become a rapist. But when a child repeatedly abuses an animal and doesn't show remorse or empathy (which are indicators they can change their behaviour) it's very concerning and should be addressed immediately.

Writing it off as a non-issue is delinquint parenting.

Something not right there OP. Rehome them before something really horrible happens that you can't undo.

I'm not writing it off as a non-issue, I'm just not seeing it as deliberate cruelty.

It's thoughtless in the way children can be, and it's not kind, but it's not deliberate cruelty. Far from it.

And hysterical responses of that nature are not helpful, OP may be struggling, as many of us do with various aspects of parenting, but to suggest her children are victims of abuse or will go on to become violent criminals is so off the mark as to be laughable.

I remember being at primary school, we had a large field with woods, and a pond, in Spring we would be flooded with froglets and the levels of cruelty inflicted on these froglets were horrible, they would have their legs pulled off or similar, and I used to run round in tears, trying to save as many as I could, very few other people gave a shit.

But you know, they were just kids being dicks, who couldn't relate to frogs on a meaningful level.

Not one of these former (middle class) frog torturers has been had up for major offences.

Not to say some of them didn't grow up to be dicks, but the childish mind is a lot less formed and a lot more thoughtless than some of you would like to believe.

Have you managed to rehome the kittens OP? Hope you can find a suitable home where they will be looked after and cared for. They've been through a lot poor things

If the animal ends up dead because of cruel actions its very much the same thing.

I have 2 dcs. One is almost 13, one 3.5. The 12 year old is not what I would call an animal person. The 3.5 year old very much so. Neither of my dcs would intentionally hurt another animal. We don't even kill spiders in this house. We have various animals and they always come first even to the 12 year old who isn't that interested apart from in her old pony which we had pts yesterday. She has been heartbroken about the pony but knew it was the right thing to do because we automatically care and cherish animals.

I have a nephew who has a collection of animals. To be honest I wouldn't even let him look after a houseplant. He is cruel and will end up with serious issues when he is older. He has already been expelled from 2 schools because of his behaviour and he is 9.

Cruelty to animals is abhorrent. Thoughtless behaviour is one thing. But cruel is something completely different.

I wouldn't have given the kittens back yet but I would have stepped up my supervision by 1000 and punished the kids harder.

I've got a chihuahua puppy. She's 15 weeks now and about the size of a kitten.

I have a 2 and a 4 year old. Not once are they left alone with the puppy. If I leave the room the pup comes with me.

I am strict on them not picking her up. If they dropped her, she could be seriously hurt. So far I've had to tell my little boy off once for picking her up. Once in three weeks.

I don't tolerate any smacking it pulling of ears and tail. I make sure they are stroking nicely. If they get heavy handed, they are immediately distracted and the pup is taken away

It's hard sometimes but I'm determined to see this through and that means I have to be on the ball all the time.

But when I see how happy my children are when they see her and how happy My pup is to see them, it's worth it.

Why the hell aren't you supervising properly.
I have a DS with SEN in the early days he was sometimes over enthusiastic with our dog and needed lots of reminders of how to behave around the dog i.e. not teasing it with food, letting it sleep peacefully, not trying to pick it up etc. Basically he lived it a bit too much and wanted to play with it too much. As a result I NEVER left them alone together for even a minute until DS was old enough and mature enough to behave appropriately. Even now when things are fine I keep a close eye on their interaction.

You must stop this cruelty now and if you think you can't rehome the kittens asap. No excuses.

Rehome the children

This is peculiar twisted behaviour. It's not in the same category as "not being gentle".

People saying 'rehome the children' is disgusting. Give your heads a good fucking wobble.

There is a MN thing that 'slight meanness to animals = right-wing monster=repugnant human being'.

It's an odd one.

I really do find the hyperbole a bit hard to swallow.

'Twisted'? You're talking about kids.

Behave yourselves.

OP, you did the right thing by coming on here and asking for advice.

Your kids are way too young to be handling kittens and to be honest, the post made me feel incredibly upset for the poor things. 6 years old is certainly not too young for a child to tell a lie, God knows how many lies I told at that age and got away with.

I'm very concerned that the longer you keep those kittens, the more likely it is that they will have an untimely death at the hands of your children.

Please, please, please have them rehomed ASAP. It's very rare for rescue centres to re-home kittens and cats to households with very young children.

Hope it all turns out well.

People saying 'rehome the children' is disgusting. Give your heads a good fucking wobble

This

Totally as I said above a three-year-old is too young to know how to treat a living creature and a six-year-old is too young to supervise a three-year-old with a kitten.

Please update when you've rejoined them op

It's not slight meanness to animals. You behave your fucking self.

Most of these responses are very unhelpful. Yes rehome the kittens, yes you shouldn't have put the kittens and your children in a position where this could happen. But they are still small children. Nobody here knows whether it was your 6 or 3 year old so please don't believe these posters are psychics. It is disturbing behaviour, but not as uncommon as people here seem to think. Just as small children can be very cruel to baby siblings and to each other, and if they are in healthier states of mind, with toys and through their play. One reason people say don't leave young children alone with pets is because contradictory to what most are saying, somewhere they know that small children can act out in this way- or in less extreme ways like pinching younger siblings. Nobody here can know what was happening, but you do need to think about what was going on for them, what they might be feeling, communicating, what is happening in their lives more generally. They must not be able to hurt the kittens, of course for the kittens, but also for their own healthy development. Dont get furious with them at this point. Rehome the kittens, say to your children that you think its not a good time to keep cats, and maybe when they are older. That they are not yet able to be safe with them and so you cannot allow that to happen, but keep the word yet in. And then be honest with yourself about their behaviour, are they struggling with other behaviour, behaving cruelly, or strangely in other ways, if so then do get some help. It really does not mean that you or they are bad but that you may all need some help to understand what is happening.

Thank goodness for some more balanced views. OPs children should have been better supervised. Trapping kittens in a box, lifting them in the wrong way - all things that shouldn't be allowed to happen but not evidence in and of itself of psychopathic tendencies and children who will grow up to be evil little shits.

Think the word "cruel" in title is very emotive, and the mention of throwing them conjures up images of awful out of control kids chucking animals in the air. When the reality could be less dramatic- dropped them onto the sofa instead of placing them.

Still bad behaviour, still dangerous to the poor kittens, still needs addressing, kittens probably best rehomed if the supervision cannot be addressed.

But not necessarily out of the ordinary range.

To read this thread all DC everywhere are innocent gentle compassionate sweethearts from birth. And we all know that's not true.

Are you going to come back OP?

I think you won't and are probably going to write all these posts off as hysterical. I would be amazed if you actually rehome the cats.

I hope you weren't trying to insinuate that your children were unkind to the cats because there may be SN (mentioning ASD assessment). That would be very offensive. My child has complex SN and is very kind to animals.

Aside from re-homing the kittens, I'd seek out a child psychologist. No pun intended but according to many child psychologists research since the 70's has consistently reported childhood cruelty to animals as the first warning sign of later delinquency, violence and criminal behaviour. In fact, nearly all violent crime perpetrators have a history of animal cruelty in their profiles. Some of the children were as young as 2 years. Just thought I'd add that to the numerous advice you have already received.

Oh come off it HafenmelLondon1980

The cruelty the OP describes is the cruelty of ignorance, nor intentional cruelty, so, so very different. I have seen both kinds. My dsis, when she was small, accidentally killed a kitten out of ignorance and grew up to be kindest, sweetest person you could meet, especially to animals. I had to rehome a kitten when my dd was 2 because she had no concept that carrying a kitten around by the neck would be sore and dangerous for the creature. But she has always been a magnet for cats and once she was old enough, no problem.

I'm at all these claims of psychotic children.

Most children don't automatically know to be gentle with animals. Especially baby animals. If they haven't been brought up around them they can be a bit too rough.

Which is why it's the parents job to teach them how to act around them. How to treat them.