2 year old - enjoying violence or am I paranoid?

[iamsoreadyforbednow]

Hear me out.. 😂 this is about to get weird.

My daughters just playing in the lounge, she’s got a little foil balloon shaped as a unicorn head and a bottle of water. She throwing the bottle onto the ballon and make it bounce quite far.. and hysterically laughing. I initially thought it was sweet and funny as her laugh is infectious. But then I got paranoid and thought.. is she doing it because she’s throwing a bottle on a unicorn.. or laughing because it’s bouncing so far?

So I ask “is that funny? What’s the balloon doing” praying her answer is “bouncing” - it’s not said said “hurting” - so I double checked and ask again “what’s, what’s the balloon doing?” Again, she says “hurting”

wtf?

Now she’s a normal 2 year old, she’s got cousins of similar age and she is just coming out of a ‘pushing’ phase where she would push her cousin - we always reinforced this is wrong, it’s not nice and not to push. She would always say “big cuddle instead?” So she knows it’s not nice and she’s learnt not to do it - I guess what I’m saying is we don’t condone anything like this.. so where has she picked up humour in hurting something?

Am I thinking too much into it? Obviously when she said hurting I said oh well that’s not very nice then we don’t want to hurt.

Is my child going to grow up to be a serial killer? Today balloons, then kittens then me and her dad in the middle of the night?!

No idea but why didn’t you just stop her doing it?
I mean the balloon popping & her being upset, or the bottle splitting and making a mess, are reasons enough tbh.
I think actively bashing one item with another is a bit rough & kids need to be told not to do things. fine to bash a drum or a toy tool bench with a toy hammer, but I don’t think throwing everyday items around is okay & personally I would have stopped it.

Because (I thought) she wasn’t causing any harm, she’s not got the strength to split a water bottle open I’m pretty sure, she wasn’t launching it with all her force or being aggressive (in her head she might have been though!) she was just dropping it on the balloon and laughing at the reaction 🙈

Plus, she’s two. If it wasn’t for the fact she thought ‘hurting’ the unicorn was funny and not just the general reaction of the balloon shooting away then she was having fun and enjoying herself, I wasn’t going to stop her. I did however stop her when she said about it hurting and explained it wasn’t very nice to hurt.

This is completely normal behaviour in a 2 year old. It’s an evolutionary instinct to want to hurt people / things - she may eventually even move onto you. It’s a way for her to test the boundaries of her world. At this age it’s nothing to worry about. If you want to do something then buy a ‘first emotions’ type of book or ‘hands are not for hitting’ so she can start to recognise the effect of her actions on others.

My 2 year old’s dinosaur toys eat her sisters Barbies. It has never occurred to me that she might grow up to be a psychopath!

Young children are funny things!

@Ozanj ah yes we’ve been through the hitting phase once already. It didn’t take very long to put an end to that thankfully, she also bit me twice when she was about 1 but that never became a ‘thing’ thank god as it bloody well hurt!

Haha yes realistically I’m likely being dramatic. But I do wonder where the want or idea of violence is picked up, she’s not even in nursery at the moment so everything she’s watched on tv or on the iPad has been monitored by me!

Thinking about it too, she’s also started shouting at me and DP when we’re either laughing about something or if we’re having a ‘serious’ talk, she’ll come right up to us and say “Stop it! Don’t fight!” we very rarely argue, I can’t remember the last time we actually had an argument at all, we usually iron things out with a normal decent conversation and come to a compromise without getting shitty with each other. So I’m not sure why she thinks we’re fighting when we’re talking I suppose louder or more directly than normal 🙈

Kids are so strange 😂😂

Is my child going to grow up to be a serial killer? Today balloons, then kittens then me and her dad in the middle of the night?!

That did make me laugh 😆

I guess this is the age they learn/copy empathy? I’d be overdoing the ‘ahhh poor little unicorn’ and giving it lots of love, even though it’s a balloon 🤣

DD, like many toddlers, was a little sociopath.

She grew out of it. Empathy is not innate. It develops.

Oh god, @whoare, I'm so sorry but I laughed. They just are quite funny, aren't they?

My toddler headbutts me. I've checked she doesn't do it at nursery, I know she doesn't do it to any other family. Nope. Just showing her love to her lovely mummy by headbutting.

Oh I’m so glad it’s not just my child, I feel much better! 😂

I need to stop watching crime documentary’s on tik tok of killer children.

You're overthinking :)

I'd probably say something like "oh, poor unicorn!" But in a light-hearted tone, not a chastising one. Because you know it's not real and she knows it's not real, so it doesn't have to be a whole serious thing.

TBF, she would probably laugh even more at this response, but that's okay. Often young children like to play with things that they know would not be allowed, or are impossible in real life. It doesn't mean that they are going to act it out on person.

When he was around 4, DS 14 spent one Christmas day smacking his baby doll on the head and saying "wah!" for it over and over again. I don't think he's going to be a serial killer?

@TheLovelinessOfDemons there’s still time!

DD saw a bird die on a program and said, completely deadpan, "bye bye bird". Sent a right chill down my spine.

Turned squishy hearted later and now can't even think about animals being harmed.