Chastisement

[Flippityfloppop]

Who is in the wrong here (or not)
2 five year olds don’t want to play with a younger cousin so shut them between two baby gates on the stairs alone and ignore them despite hearing their cries. Adults hear and find two year old inconsolable about being trapped on stairs and alone. Five year olds are told off by mother of two year old. No shouting.
Later, mother of two year old is told off in family group (by both parents of five year old), as one of the five year old’s is ‘sensitive’ and shouldn’t have been told off. They claim it was the result of faulty stair gates and not deliberate by the children despite the children acknowledging that they did it deliberately.

Surely, if children are naughty, they should be told off and everyone moves on rather than this now awkward (ridiculous situation) of five year old’s parents of saying their child wasn’t to blame and should never be told off because they are sensitive? Whilst not acknowledging the distress of the two year old…

If they were told off with no shouting and not too harshly then I think it was fine- even if it was faulty stair gates (unlikely, especially for both to be suddenly faulty) then they should have told an adult that 2 year old was alone and stuck.

How long was a two-year old left solely supervised by two five-year olds??

You can't get a free pass on unkind behaviour just cos you're 'sensitive'.
What if they're sensitive because a naughty kid trapped them behind a gate when they were little?

Parent should have known where the 2 year old was at all times. 5 year olds can’t be expected to
“ babysit”
It’s fine to tell children off for being unkind though or how will they ever learn? A sensitive child won’t be exempt from a telling off in school if they aren’t following the rules.

Agreed to comments re not being supervised, they had been in a playroom adjacent to the adults (with a window) and were all playing well together and then went off with a grandparent who got distracted and left them but agree it won’t happen in future.

The bigger concern for me was why was a 2yo on the stairs without adult supervision. The whole point of the stair gates is to keep them off the stairs. If no one was supervising the toddler for long enough for this to happen, that's more on the adults then the children.

Ok thanks, points noted.