What would you do? Toddler interacting with other kids

[Mamabear04]

I would really appreciate some advice - my DD (20mo) is scared of my friends toddler (2 weeks older) and I'm not quite sure what to do or how to handle it....

Full disclosure, this is a bit of a long one...

I met my friend when our LO's were just babies at a social group and we have stayed in touch ever since. She has been part of a wider support network which I couldn't have done without during all the covid lockdowns. As the restrictions have started to lift we have started to meet up more for play dates and last month my friend and her LO came round to my house....and it was absolutely horrible! I know toddlers are bad for sharing and that they are learning to play together but my friends LO would take my DD toys out of her hand - not because she wanted them but just so that my DD didn't have them (she wouldn't even play with them after she took them). It got to the point that my DD just came and sat on my knee and wouldn't play or move and I felt awful that she was made to feel that in her own home. As soon as my friend had arrived that day she instantly said "xx isn't good at sharing!" practically before she got in the door and I thought (because I'm a FTM) OK well it's OK this will be an experience to help them LEARN to share. When her DD was taking toys from my LO she would just say "xx share" but didn't actually make her give back the toys or make her share. It was quite obvious my LO was upset but I didn't feel at the time I could say anything because 1. I'm not her mum and 2. I thought that it was my LO who should be sharing because it were her toys. Now I'm not so sure...

Today we met at the playpark and I thought this would be a good idea because of well...no toys! But as soon as my LO saw them both she was on her guard. Whenever she went to play on something my friends LO would run at her and try to push her out the way. I was furious but didn't say anything because my friend again said "xx share" when she did it but did nothing about it. In the end I just let my LO go to different parts of the park and didn't bother catching up with my friend. I said to my toddler "you don't need to be scared of xx, mummy is here and I won't let anyone hurt you". Then towards the end my friends little girl ran towards my LO (not in an intimidating way just normally) and my DD ran immediately away. My friend remarked on it and without thinking I said "I think she's scared of xx". She didn't say anything and I ran after my toddler. I just felt I had to say something.

Before we left my friends LO kept taking a little tupperware box out of my DD hand and this time my friend did make her give it back but when she went for my DD toy I had to say "no xx that's my DD toy." The girls got tired, we left on good terms but now I just don't feel like I want my DD to be around someone who makes her feel like that. I've been trying my best to get my LO play dates and taking her to the park a lot so she can begin to interact with other children (she's not at nursery - with my parents x2 days a week and also a result of covid restrictions). She is doing really well and takes it all in and will often make an effort to interact if she meets another kid she likes. I know she will come across other toddlers who aren't good at sharing (she's no angel but generally very good) but I think my problem is more with my friend just letting it slip and not taking responsibility for her DD grabbing, pushing and what felt a bit like bullying today.

So I guess I'm asking - what would you do? I want my LO to be able to stick up for herself but how do you teach that to a toddler who also needs to learn to share and be nice to other kids? My OH thinks that it's just down to different parenting styles and that my friends LO might have learned the behaviour at nursery (its worth saying she's an only child so no older siblings to be mean to her) although when I told him about the interactions he was livid too!

Any advice or words of wisdom would be really helpful!

I’m not sure I could be friends with someone who’s child bullies mine. I’m not sure how it’s salvageable either as your friend isn’t disciplining her DD and it’s impacting on your DD.

Taking toys from another toddler is perfectly normal toddler behaviour. The problem here is your friend isn’t dealing with it. She should be removing the toy from her child and handing it back to yours and saying it’s Ys turn now and it’s your turn next.

It's a hard one, can you speak to your friend and work on it together?

@Pissinthepottyplease I wish this worked with my 3.5 year old who won't let his 1.5 year old brother have anything. Sometimes, he plays beautifully with him, but mostly he doesn't.
Having said that he wouldn't display this behaviour with other children...thank god.

Any tips though, I'm listening.

Meet your friend without your children. At this age, it's as much about compatible parenting styles as it is about children's behaviour and wet parents will put you in an impossible position where you're either telling their kids off or letting your own child down.

I'd see if you can find some groups to go to or hang out in a playground at the same time every day and try and connect with parents of children your DD does get along with. You don't have to want to be their best friend forever. If your kids get along and you can have a chat and cup of tea, you'll be grand.

At 20 months, they’re too young to share. Children don’t even start developing traits like empathy and impulse control until they are aged 4+ - it’s just not a reasonable expectation to place on a child who isn’t even two. Talk of ‘bullying’ is irrelevant in respect of children this age; they don’t have the emotional or intellectual capacity to understand concepts like sharing, friendship and kindness.

That’s not to say your friend shouldn’t intervene if her child takes a toy from yours. While neither of you can expect her child to know that it’s ‘wrong’, or to exert any control over her impulse to take someone else’s toy, it’s still possible to correct the behaviour by removing the toy and distracting the child with something else. I think it’s fine for you to do this if your friend won’t. Just take back whatever your daughter was playing with, and distract your friend’s child with something different.

If you don’t want to do that, spend time with your friend without your children present. Children that age are going to take things from one another and are unlikely to place nicely together for any consistent length of time. If your friend isn’t dealing with that effectively, just keep yourself out of the situation entirely .

Thanks for all your responses - I think they are just reaffirming that I shouldn't meet my friend with the kids there. And I do feel like I've been letting my DD down because of it @clymene

I do understand that toddlers take toys and this stage is about learning a lot of things about this but I do think toddlers have some capacity for empathy and I can honestly say my DD will share even though she finds it hard. It could be that she just listens to what I say but I met with another friend around the same time. We went to their house to play and my DD picked up her 2.3yo toy and she started to cry and my DD just walked over and gave it to her. This isn't the only time this has happened. So I do think they can understand just not like an older child.

I honestly never thought that different parenting styles would clash in this way! But then I've thought a lot about motherhood that turned out to be BS!

meet my friend *without the kids there

I have two separate mum friends who I meet for lovely catch ups without children. Our parenting styles clash.

This is an awkward one. I agree with PPs - children that age just don't have the capacity to understand things like sharing and empathy, and I personally think people expect far too much of their young children in this respect.

The problem here is your friend's parenting style is very different to yours, and I would feel the same in your situation. One of my closest friend's little boy is very boisterous with my daughter and they dont get on particularly well, but our parenting styles are similar and I trust her to set firm boundaries with her son. If she didn't, I don't think we could carry on with playdates.

Maybe do a few child-free meet ups? Also, I don't really think there's much wrong with you setting some boundaries with your friend's child in the right circumstances. So, if snatching or hitting, gently tell her off - "that's DD's toy, we don't snatch" - if a friend said that to my own daughter, it wouldn't bother me in the slightest! I can see why you might not want to though!

I had this happen with one of my friends, and i kept putting it down to age and theyre learning to play, but it got worse as they got older and dreaded meeting up as i knew my ds would end up getting upset. Wed have the odd good day out but very rare and my friend just wouldnt tell her ds off and used to just say 'hes just playing' when hed push and shove even when my ds was telling him to stop and laugh when her son would steal my ds snack everytime .
After lockdown we started meeting again and things got worse and i think lockdown gave me perspective of how nice it was without them, so i made a few comments about how different they played and how my son kept saying he didnt want to meet with her son... she ended up exploding at me and being very nasty and were not friends now.... so i put up with her sons behaviour to preserve a friendship that she was happy to throw away!

So id just stop meeting now, its definitely different parenting styles and some children just dont get on.

@Opalfeet

It's a hard one, can you speak to your friend and work on it together? *@Pissinthepottyplease* I wish this worked with my 3.5 year old who won't let his 1.5 year old brother have anything. Sometimes, he plays beautifully with him, but mostly he doesn't. Having said that he wouldn't display this behaviour with other children...thank god.

Any tips though, I'm listening.

I’m not saying it’s easy but I’m saying the Mum the OP is talking about is just not even trying to deal with it.

With my two children the older child keeps her special toys in her bedroom and the younger child is only allowed to play in there by invitation. For other toys whoever picks it up first can play with it and if they put it down then the other person can have it. Of course there are tantrums over from both children but tantrums are the way of life of small children.

My dd was similar at this age, she wanted toys simply because others wanted them. She would cry though, not take them from others, but it still made play dates miserable! She didn't comprehend sharing but she did understand taking turns and I'd phrase that with other child. No, my dd is at the slide now, it's her turn, and then it's your turn after! Good! Now it's my dad's turn. Etc etc. If you cba with this, since it's not your child, I would leave the friendship for a bit, but you did say the mum has been great to you, so maybe a booked activity might be better for meet ups. Like a dance class or something? Then quick cafe trip after. Or go and feed the ducks etc. Things that don't involve toys.

I’m not sure I could be friends with someone who’s child bullies mine

They're not even 2 years old

When her DD was taking toys from my LO she would just say "xx share" but didn't actually make her give back the toys or make her share.

This isn’t about kids learning to share; this is about your friend parenting ineffectually (or “differently from you” if you want to be kind about it). I’ve had this happen twice. The first time I made excuses for the other person, let it drag out, said “Oh, she probably didn’t see that” again and again. Friendship eventually ended after I just couldn’t bloody watch it happen any more and blew up at her. Second time I saw it coming, we tried two playdates, child was vile at both, mum did nothing, I politely refused to meet up again. I love having a wide circle of friends for DD and doing all sorts, but this is my red line.

If you’re good friends you can have a go at speaking to her and explaining that you either need her to intervene if this happens, or permission for you to intervene. But be prepared for defensive BS and an end to the friendship anyway.

@Pissinthepottyplease yeah he sometimes shuts himself in his room. Its hard because the one year old is in the destructive phase too so anything which he gets out to do like puzzles or building gets messed up. Then he just takes stuff of the one year old because he can. There's only so many times you can put them on the stairs. And now the one year old is learning to snatch too. 😭 As I say, he wouldn't dare display this behaviour around others, just his baby brother it seems. 🤷‍♀️

This is all very interesting to hear your points of view! I'm not sure I could speak to my friend about it but maybe i need to sat things like "xx just pushed DD our of the way" or "oh! Xx doesn't want to share!" But if I'm honest I'm not sure I want to deal with it at all especially when my LO is getting used to interacting with other kids. It's just such a shame because I do like hanging out with my friend but like I said for now I think without the kids (so once every 6 months maybe? Lol!)

Has anyone ever had to teach their toddler how to stand their ground and not get pushed around? Or is it that I have to stand up and say something? I feel so inexperienced to say something to another mum...

Is there a reason you can't say, really nicely, "Oh XX can you just wait till LO is finished on that? It will be your turn next". You're presumably bigger than both of them, and used to gently re-directing/stopping your toddler doing things. Think about how you'd react if it was your toddler, and do so. But do it in a super nice way: you're not telling off, you're helping them behave appropriately. This is 100% how all our friends parent: you don't overstep the line with someone else's child, but if you're standing closest you gently start to redirect the toddler and then the mortified parent jumps in and takes them away/has a conversation.

Agree at that age they're developmentally incapable of empathy, as we understand it, some will have better impulse control than others. Its really just about being comfortable with how your friend will react. If she says 'Oh I told him to share" you can do a breezy "Oh I know but LO will get a bit upset, lets make them take turns" if she clearly doesn't like it then the parenting clash will get wider and you can decide to meet without kids next time. No point silently seething.

@leakymcleakleak yeah that is really helpful. I guess I just feel like if my friend is standing right next to me then surely she should step in? I'll try what you said but it's hard because her little girl is relentless and I don't want to have to correct her every 5 minutes. Tbh my friend is more interested in talking than doing anything about her DD's inability to share. I'm not angry at her I just don't want my LO to have negative associations with other kids more than anything...

I get that you want to protect your DD, but you need to be careful about how you approach it.

You can't expect a child of that age to share or even to take turns. My DS is a similar age and sometimes he's been the kid who has toys ripped out of his hand and other times he's taken the toy off another child. At that age, their thought process is simply "ooh there's a toy. I'll go and get it".

Does your DD interact with other children? Does she go to nursery/any groups/soft play? If this is her only form of social interaction I'd be wary of stopping it just because of this. Kids need to learn to socialise. Taking her away until the problem is solved won't help imo. For all you know, in 6 months she could be the one who is snatching toys. They change so quickly at this age.

My advice is have a gentle word with your friend about how you both approach it. She needs to take any toy that her child takes off them and give it back to your DD with a gentle "no, x was playing with that. You have this..." Maybe start the conversation as a general chat about what your plans for discipline are for your DD as she gets older and asking her opinion, if you don't want to to be too confrontational.

Firstly, either you or your DH being 'livid' about this situation is absolutely mental. Have a word with yourself.

Secondly, they're babies. There is no intention behind the behaviour in the way we understand it as adults. It would be good to research child development so you can see the behaviour for what it is/get some perspective.

Thirdly, your friend should be dealing with the behaviour, but remember that she's also a first time mum who has spent most of her child's life in lockdown. The fact that she doesn't know how to deal with it isn't exactly surprising is it? She's probably finding it stressful and embarrassing even if she doesn't let on.

I would take a break from playdates with her for a month or so and then try again. Children at this age change very quickly. Parents learn and change their approach too. If her child is in an unpleasant phase just give it a bit of time and try again. In the meantime I would talk to her and see if she's struggling with the behaviour/needs any advice. Maybe point her in the direction of Mumsnet?

Your child will need to learn to stand up for herself, but not yet as she's also a baby! Just like your friends child.

FGS, 20 months old is basically a baby still! I think you’re being a bit precious talking about this child being a bully and getting so upset about it, saying you’re ‘livid’ and talking about punishment for the child.
This is completely normal behaviour at that age, and even harder for children who haven’t had much interaction during lockdown to now suddenly have to learn how to share.
It sounds like your friend is trying to deal with it, by reminding her DC to share, perhaps she could do a little more, but realistically there isn’t really much reasoning you can do with a 20 month old. Try to have some sympathy for your friend too, we’re all just figuring this out as we go along aren’t we, perhaps she doesn’t quite know how best to deal with her child’s behaviour and needs some time to work through it.

@Incywinceyspider yes I take my LO to play groups and have play dates with other friends and their kids (similar ages) and always make an effort to take her to the play park (soft play is on the to do list). She does make an effort to interact with other kids. Will hold hands with them as they jump on the trampoline etc. I'll try to broach how we will approach discipline as they grow up.

@nuffsaidsam I guess livid wasn't the right word to use. He felt protective when he heard about it as I'm sure all parents would. I'm not saying my friends LO is being intentionally bad and I understand she is a toddler and it's normal not to share etc but I don't want my child to have to feel scared because of her behaviour. I've never seen her react that way to any other child. I wouldn't spend time with someone who made me feel like that and I certainly won't make my DD either. I'm not giving up on my friend but she also doesn't talk about anything negative/struggles to do with her DD and has once outright lied about saying something to a group of friends and then denied it completely so I feel even if I were to try and ask her if she was ok that she wouldn't tell me. It's just different people's way of coping and I'm not judging her.

Just for everyone - livid was the wrong word to use, we were annoyed and felt protective! And I wasn't saying my friends LO is a bully at all - again the wrong word to use. She was watching my LO and pushing her out the way whenever she tried to do something or play with something, in other words she was making a deliberate v-line for her and it was constant. I've not had experience of another toddler (or child) treating her like that even if they are not good at sharing etc.

I think it's all very dramatic tbh - you shouldn't be standing by not saying anything and your friend should be making more of an effort to get her child to share.

Children don't really "play" together until they are three. They tend to play alongside each other till this point although it is good to have them take turns and learn to "share" I don't think it's worth losing a friend over.

Tbh I think you need to just encourage your child as much as possible and when your friends child is taking things encourage her to give it back/play/share.

They are very little. I think learning how to deal with difficult people is a very very useful life skill and hearing you say (very gently because she is not yet two) 'toddler 2, it's DD's turn with that now and you can have a go after' or whatever is setting her a good example for the future.

Hopefully your friend will then feel able to do the same when your DD does something you wish she wouldn't and you're not sure how to handle it either, because it will 100% happen to you sooner or later.

ps you can say anything you want to toddlers as long as you use a very nice tone and say 'darling' at the end.