Hellobee Boards

My daughter is the pusher. She is actually a very good sharer at home. She always shares with us and others. DH actually witnessed her pushing another kid last week and he immediately went up and told her it was wrong and made her say sorry. We have also talked about it many times at home.

Personally, I don't think teaching your child to push back is the right thing to do. This particular kid has bitten my daughter twice and the second time was in reaction to my daughter pushing him. Neither are right.

I always talk to both LO's about playing gentle, sharing, etc. I don't think any age is too early to start talking about the right way to play. I don't understand why a parent would say, "he's just a kid" well, yeah, they don't always understand but it's important to teach children right from wrong!

I tell DS to walk away or find something else to play with if someone isn't playing nicely. He's followed that pretty well. I've also told him to tell a teacher if anyone ever hurts him. What's scary now though (at 4) is that kids seem to like to play rough, which I hate!

My general rule is it's not my job to discipline other people's kids unless their parents are blatantly ignoring the fact that their child is being aggressive or harmful to my child. In that case I will kindly ask that kid to be gentle or not hit or push or whatever. If that child continues and I have a good idea who his/her parent is I will go approach them. I haven't had to do that yet but it's something I've already talked about. Some parents need to control their kids better, especially when there are smaller children around. I used to get annoyed when parents would bring their older, school aged children to a toddler play area at the mall. Where we live in Asia, parents are SUPER careful, almost to a fault! Sometimes I feel like my kids are the wild ones.

My LO is very shy and doesn't understand when he gets pushed around. He will walk away from the situation and distance himself. Poor kiddo. I know this is going to be harder for him when he goes to preschool, and I'm not there to protect him.