2 year old bully

Since my girls are 13 months and I'm a stupid first time momma I only know parenting up to 13 months. Today I took the girls to a party for my best friend's new baby. I brought my sister to help me wrangle the girls and when we got there I was pleasantly surprised to see a little room with toys and a gate right off the kitchen. There were other kids in there and I thought 'great! they can play while I watch from the kitchen.' HAHAHA!!!

We put the girls down and they immediately walked to the toy room and this little girl (I'll call her B ) walked right up to Meara and pushed her HARD and Meara fell face down on the floor. I was shocked because 1) Meara is a baby! and 2) I was standing RIGHT THERE (sorry for all the caps.. if you can't tell I'm a little upset). Anyway, I immediately picked M up (she didn't cry but looked stunned), and said to the B very sternly "We DO NOT push! She is a baby and you can hurt her!!!" The kid just looked at me like "Whatev's" and walked away. B's mom was in the other room and didn't see any of it.

My sister and I realized we had to keep a really close eye on the girls because every time B came near them, she'd try to push them or steal their toys or pull their hair. We took the girls into another room and she followed. I said to her mom (who I know from HS), "B is being pretty rough with the girls. How old is she?" She responded "She'll be 2 in July and she gets that from daycare. Its a dog-eat-dog world there." Huh. Then she walked away leaving me to shield my kids and discipline her kid. Not exactly the enjoyable afternoon and I barely got to talk to my best friend or really see the new baby.

So couple of questions... how much do 21 month olds understand? Did B understand "we don't push you can hurt the baby?" Also I had to act as crazy hovering momma to protect my kids from getting hurt. Do you think I should have said something to the mom about that? Oh and B was HUGE compared to the girls and I was surprised that Meara didn't cry the one time she got pushed and the other time she got her hair pulled. What would you guys have done? We ended up leaving after an hour and a half and I told my best friend that we'd get together later in the week just us.

 

Yes, they know better at that age. I put mine in timeout at that age and we did flicks to get their attention. Her mother should have stepped up and disciplined her. I'm sure the daycare doesn't just let it go on, and without the mom's support she will continue to get worse!

 

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So couple of questions... how much do 21 month olds understand? Did B understand "we don't push you can hurt the baby?" Also I had to act as crazy hovering momma to protect my kids from getting hurt. Do you think I should have said something to the mom about that? Oh and B was HUGE compared to the girls and I was surprised that Meara didn't cry the one time she got pushed and the other time she got her hair pulled. What would you guys have done? We ended up leaving after an hour and a half and I told my best friend that we'd get together later in the week just us.

It's hard to say how much a 21 month old understands if you don't know the child well. Some children at that age could understand you perfectly and others might not understand at all, it really depends on their language comprehension. Of course that does not make it OK for B to behave like that. I think you handled it really well; you could have talked to B's mom a second time and asked that she watch her kid more closely but as she was unwilling to address the issue in the first place I doubt it would have made much difference. It's a shame that this little girl is not being taught how to interact well with other children.

 

My girls are 21 months, and they understand everything I say, and they know that there are rules we follow. If I said to one, "we don't push, be gentle," they would understand. It sounds like this mother was just being too lax about watching her kid and making sure she was behaving well. Even when you said something to her (which I think was the right thing to do) she just wrote it off as being from daycare and didn't do anything about it. That was very rude in my opinion. I feel really bad for her child, who has to live in this "dog eat dog" world every day, with a mother who just resigns to it without trying to do anything about it.

I don't think you could have done much more than what you did. Unfortunately it was just a tough situation! Hopefully you don't have to see these people again for a long time!

 

i don't really have experience besides from my own kids on how much they do understand but as being a mom myself that would be unexceptable behavior from my child and i would want to teach them not to do that. it is really ashame when parents doen't want to teach their child right from wrong or how to behave properly. i would of definately said something to the mom like you did. i think you handled the whole thing perfectly. it was a tough situation and you did great. i would of been crazy hovering momma myself. i am trying now to teach my kids to play nice with each other. i think they are starting to understand. i know they know the word no :laughing: i am sorry your girls had to go through this.