When another child hurts your child?

[Aster]

So, what do you do when another child hurts your child and the mom of the other child doesnt do anything about it?

DS doesnt get the chance to play with other kids very often--so i dont really know what the 'correct' way to deal with this is. I basically made sure that ds was okay, moved him out of harms way and we left (we were at an indoor playland in town). I feel like we just ran away. There's got to be a better way to deal with this kind of thing...this kids mom is the breastfeeding support group leader in town and i dont want to have to avoid going because my kid's getting clawed up by her kid.

[geekmom]

Children hurt each other all the time. It's not a result of bad parenting or anything. How you handle it really depends on the children's ages. If they're under 5 then make sure your or the hurt child is okay and just tell the other child nicely "hands on your own bodies" or "touch gently" or soemthing and just stay near your child. My kids play with other kids a ton. They hurt others and get hurt. They're toddlers. I try to stay close to my kids and just gently talk to the other children around if they hurt them.

[Aster]

My son had several bleeding wounds after the last bf'ing support group. Is that normal?

I wouldnt have a problem with this, if the other boys mom was trying to prevent her son from scratching all the time. Today, she was nowhere near her kids.

I know i should have said something to her about it, but i'm such a coward when it comes to confronting people.

[Dot.mom]

What I try to do with dd (2 1/2) is guide her through the responses I hope she would make if I were not right there. After we are sure she is OK, I prompt her to use her words to tell the other child how she feels (Anywhere for a strong"Stop That!!!" to a gentle "That hurts my feelings" depending on the situation). If the other child doesn't seem to understand, I reiterate what she has said and attempt to get some acknowledgement from the other child that they understand. If the other child still doesn't seem to "get it", I tell my daughter that the child is having trouble understanding our words and we need to find his/her mommy to help him/her. We then go to the other Mommy and I prompt her to explain what has happened (she's really good about this b/c it gets really good results from the other moms). I've only had to get another mom a couple of times-most of the times just reiterating what dd says to the other child is enough.

[Mothernature]

I have to ask, is the other mother aware of what is going on? Sometimes being around other moms gives a short break to each of us at some point. If your child and mine are playing together and you were talking to another mother, I would have no problem paying attention to our two. If at that time your child hurt mine, I would make sure my little one was ok and then I would tell your child that biting/hitting/scratching/pinching hurts and it made my dd cry. I would leave it at that. I would expect the same from you if my dd hurt your ds. If it became a consistent problem I would let you know and make sure there was a mother in very close proximity to our two until they grew out of this stage. This kid's mother needs to know if he is being aggressive. She can't deal with it if she doesn't know. If she knows and chooses to ignore it maybe she doesn't know what the best way to deal with it is. You could aproach it from a friendly perspective and tell her you are willing to help figure out a way to deal with aggressive behavior so everyone knows what to do if a situation arises. It's hard when your kid is hurting other children too, possibly harder than when your child is getting hurt. Be as sympathetic as possible when you deal with this situation.

[Aster]

Thanks for your insightful replies mama's.

Hopefully we wont have to deal with this kind of thing again, but if we do, at least now i'll have some idea of how to deal with it.

[Piglet68]

Actually, I'm glad you brought this up. DD and I were in the play area on the ferry last weekend, and there was a child there (maybe 3 or 4 years old?) who was hitting and scaring (deliberately) the other children, especially the younger ones. At one point, he shoved my 1 yr old and she fell down.

My gut reaction was to go over there and belt the kid. Nice huh? lol. Boy, that mama bear reaction was strong!

Anyways, luckily DD was not hurt and looked more pissed off than upset, lol. But it made me wonder how I should handle such situations in the future. I have to admit, I'm tempted to just say to the child "hey, hitting is mean and it hurts" or something like that, and then leave or at least get DD out of the kid's way.

So I'm reading this thread with interest...

[Evan&Anna's_Mom]

I think its perfectly OK for you to help the offending child realize that what they are doing hurts, so "hitting hurts -- it isn't nice" would be fine as far as I'm concerned. I certainly don't have any problem if a mom says that to my son (other than to be annoyed at myself for not catching it in time myself). If it were a one-time random thing, I would leave it at that. However, if its a chronic problem with a child you see a lot, then I think you have to bring it to the other mother's attention. You need to do this gently, but you need to do it. Maybe you could suggest that the other mother watch the children play together and she'll notice what's going on. Sort of "Hey X, come see how much fun the kids are having doing Y".

The only time it becomes confrontational is if she sees the action but takes no action to correct the child. THen you have to figure out what you want to do, and that's when it gets hard!