I just can't wrap my head around this attitude!

Mommeeeeeeee!

Tue, May 31 2011, 3:58 pm

I have a friend with whom I spend a significant amount of time. The youngest of her 4 kids is 2 yrs 4 months old. This kid is very aggressive with other kids. She hits, bites, punches, pushes down, kicks, and pulls hair just at the sight of another child, for no reason at all. She will grab absolutely any thing any other child has in their hands, even a tissue, and yell "Mine, mine!". Heaven forbid another child should try to play with one of her things, even if it's not something she is using at the moment. She will push other kids off of chairs or bikes if they try to sit down. Seriously a difficult kid to play with.
Now, I know this may be developmentally normal and maybe lots of kids act this way at this age (though I will say I personally never encountered one quite so extreme as this one). But the thing that bothers me is that the mother doesn't even make any effort to teach the child differently. She doesn't feel she has to. She believes it's just the age and the child will outgrow this on her own when she is older, so she enables the behavior. If her child grabs something from another kid, she tries to bribe the other kid with something else and lets her child keep the item. If another child has something her dd wants, she tells the other kid to give it to hers and tries to get them to take something else. If her dd hurts another child she does nothing at all. She'll take some of the food another kid is eating and give some to her dd if she indicates she wants it. I have asked her about this and just couldn't believe the answer I got - she said that after the summer, this kid will be going to school, and she knows the teachers won't put up with this behavior, so the child will learn not to do these things. I have no words to even describe how I feel about this. Putting the burden of your parenting responsibility on the preschool teacher??? Seriously?!?
I no longer permit this child to play in my home and won't let my toddler go there to play. He's gotten beaten up one time to many and then started to learn these nasty behaviors as self-defense.

drumjj

Tue, May 31 2011, 4:05 pm

I have a bit of an agressive daughter, which I dont really know what to do with she is about the same age but I will definately not let her take toys of other kids and hit them etc. actually she usually gets pushed around alot by other kids because she doesnt hit back and is pretty small for her age.

shoshina

Tue, May 31 2011, 4:21 pm

OP, the ONLY thing I can think of that might explain this truly bizarre behavior, is if the mother believes that her daughter is being aggressive as an attention seeking behavior, and is trying to minimize the attention she pays it, so rather than yelling at her daughter/making a fuss over her, she's trying to redirect the other children's attention elsewhere, give them a different toy, etc. and not to give the monster an audience for her behavior/attention.

But I would do exactly as you have and never let my children play with a girl like this.

MaBelleVie

Tue, May 31 2011, 4:43 pm

I have no words of wisdom, other than to sympathize with you. I can't find any justification, but then, I see lots of seemingly good people practice terrible parenting, so. . .

pinkbubbles

Tue, May 31 2011, 5:30 pm

Sounds like she just doesn't have the energy to fight with the child anymore and is just trying to avoid the kid getting angry. Or she just doesn't realize/care what she is doing. However it feels like shes taking the easy way out and that is not OK. There is no easy way out with kids.