Mean Mama at Birthday Party

This caused an outrage?
The stick was handily disposed of, there was no yelling or words exchanged.

A "mean look"? As in stern?

I'm wondering why it's the mother and grandmother of the kid doing the hitting that are so upset.

Just my opinion.

I think it was handled just fine.
ADDED:
Kids not only learn from their parents but from others. The mom was pissed, broke the stick, gave the 3 yr old the stink eye (3 yr olds are pretty darned smart).
No one should be mad at the mom that broke the stick and tossed it...
Sheesh.

Sorry, but the 3 year old hit with a STICK. Why is everyone mad that someone did something about it? She didn't hit the child. She took the stick away forever and gave a LOOK - OMG- will the child ever recover? (insert sarcasm). Why is the nephew talking about his girlfriend badly? Talking to a child sternly is necessary; mean, no, but stern - yes. Sounds like a big hullabaloo for no reason.

If a kid hit my child with a stick I'd break it and give them a mean look too.

Uh, seriously...chill out. She saw a potentially dangerous situation that could have been a lot worse. She didn't say a word to the 3 year old, just a "mean" look. What are you all so upset about? That she intervened before they did? Outraged?? By what, exactly?

If I understand correctly, the 3 year old hit another child with a stick. The injured child's parent stepped in, took the stick away, and gave the stick-wielding kid the look of death. If you want my take on it, it's no wonder the 3 year old is such a brat, with a family that thinks it's "mean" to take his stick away when he's just injured someone with it. Discipline that kid already! The mother of the 4 year old did nothing wrong.

I see nothing wrong here, She didnt scream or yell, she didnt do anything but what she should have done in this situation. She took the stick, broke it, and sent it to a place where the 3 year old can not be hitting ANYONE again. Hitting with sticks hurt. I am surprised no one did more to reprimand the 3 year old. People discipline in different ways. She didnt do anything terrible in my opinion. However, its likely she just made herself the outsider in your family big time. She may be over protective... MEAN no way.

Hmmmm. It sounds like SLIGHT over-reaction, but if this is the only example of "mean", I don't think it is harsh enough for her to have that label. Honestly, I'd be a bit pissed if a kid hit my kid with a stick. I wouldn't handle it the way she did, cause I have a different personality, but I understand where she's coming from. If she's fairly "new" to the group, I'd try not to judge her so quickly. Gotta make her feel welcome. Also, if the mom and grandmother of the 3yo are STILL mad and "outraged", then they need to loosen the reigns a bit, for sure!

Maybe she had a bad day, maybe something else happened that no one else noticed. Maybe she wasn't feeling welcomed. And, GOSH, does she have any chance anymore amongst such quick and harsh criticism? Really, give her a chance.

Well, actually it sounds like her child was being attacked and she diffused the situation pretty handily. She removed the weapon, DIDN'T discipline the child (rightly left THAT for the parent of the offending child), gave the offending child a stern look for his unacceptable behavior (3yr olds should know better than to hit with a stick), but didn't reprimand him, yell at him, complain to his mother, bad-mouth the child behind his back, etc. She obviously holds her child to higher standards than the parents of the 3yr old...I say bravo to her.

And the mother and grandmother of the 3yr old need a reality check.

Sorry, but if that was MY child that was hit with a stick, the offending child would be lucky not to go over the fence *himself* !! Of course, I'm exaggerating. But I don't think she was out of line at all. She was protecting her child from another with a dangerous object - I fail to see what makes her so "mean".

"Outraged?" Really? Because she grabbed a stick her child was hit with and broke it, then tossed it over a fence? A STICK. Then gave a look. She didn't chastise the other child.

She wasn't immature and she certainly wasn't mean. She was within her rights and everyone else needs to remove their own sticks from their own orifices.

I don't think I would have broken the stick, but I probably would have tossed it over the fence like she did. Your family is "outraged" over something silly like this? If I were her I'd also probably dump your nephew so I wouldn't have to go to any more parties.

Are the mother and grandmother upset because they should have gotten there first and reacted the same way as nephew's new girlfriend?? Probably not. I think the mom of the four year old probably made an impact on the three year old that will do him some good in the future. She didn't scream at him, yell at him, just broke the stick and gave him the evil eye?? Sounds good to me!

It sounds like justice was served to me, in a very quiet non-violent yet effective way. I think we need to remember that kids are just kids, and the simplest way of correcting behavior is to draw a direct correlation with them. You hit someone with stick, stick goes away for good. Enough said. It doesn't sounds to me like anything was wrong here. Sorry ;)

Where's the outrage over a 3 yr old hitting other kids with sticks?

I would have grabbed that stick out of the 3 yr old's hand too and yelled at her.

Sounds like you all just don't like your nephew's new girlfriend.

I tend to watch to see what my son does in response to a situation, give pause to see if the other parent corrects their child and if not I do something to drive the point home as well. I am a strict mother, I have expectations, I go over my expectations with my son frequently and when he does not do as expected we discuss it. However, I would have taken the stick away, said we do not hit, especially with things and removed it from the situation - breaking it - well quite possibly depending on how hard my son was hit. You can not judge based on one event and I would be quite pleased that she does not allow for any BS in her territory. I am sure my in laws find me to be the "mean mommy" because my son came home from school with a "red card" on the day he had a "date" with grandma and I allowed him to go for the hair cut (she takes him to a real/fancy hair salon) but not for dinner or back to her house. She knew I was very upset to the point where she thought taking him would help, but I do not like to reward bad behaivior - I told her he had to decline the sucker and tell his stylist WHY (owning his actions) and come straight home. If that is mean vs holding my son accountable for his actions then call me a mean mommy.

Sounds reasonable.
"Outraged" over destroying a dangerous object and giving a mean look?
How do you think kids learn?
Three is plenty old enough (as long as the child is verbal and considered to be developing normally) to know not to hit. Obviously time outs are not working :(

Sounds to me like she has a different standard for behavior and she got frustrated by what she perceived as a lack of discipline of the 3 year old. Now mom and grandma are embarrassed and angry that she stepped in and handled what should have been their job.
Birds of a feather flock together and my guess is that she won't be flying with your family long.

Why was the 3 year old hitting a 4 year old with a stick? I mean, the mother and grandmother were surely watching him, right? So they should have run over before the 4 year old was even hit. What if he had poked the 4 year old in the eye with the stick? (A neighbor of mine had a child blinded in one eye this way.)

I don't think the mom of the 4 year old is mean, any more than I do the mother and grandmother of the 3 year old are not for allowing it to happen. If my child had been hit with a stick so hard he cried I would have gone over, taken the stick, broken it to show him he wouldn't be hurting anyone else with it and glared at him AND his mother for not being proactive in preventing the hitting.

Discipline; training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character isn't mean, setting boundaries for children is how they learn. Now it should be reinforced to your nephew that hitting is not acceptable. And anyone outraged in your family needs to thank God the 4 year old was not seriously hurt.

Was anyone as "outraged" about the 3 yo hitting with sticks? Time outs are obviously not working well with him. None of my kids would have done that at 3. Guess I'm way too stern too.

Should she have broken the stick and thrown it? No. That's weird and angry and immature. My kids have been hit and treated wrongly by bratty 3 year olds before and I just let the parents handle it. If they are ineffective, I avoid them from then on.

Sounds like the 3 yo needs more discipline, and sounds like the stick-breaking girlfriend isn't a very nice person.

heh. at our homeschool co-op there was a delightful period where a bunch of the kids were 'expressing themselves' by running around with sticks and hitting each other and anyone else they could reach. one of the hittees was my son, who was about 4 years older than the wolfpack at the time. they nailed him right in the jewels.
he refrained from vengeance. somehow.
there were some tense words with the parents of the 'let them be kids' parents (a sentiment i'm totally behind up to a point) which ended in me 'expressing myself' by assuring them that my son would 'express himself' if happened again by picking up the stick monster and pitching him into the pond.
your family needs to take a chill pill.
khairete
S.

Good for the 4 YO mamma. You can't allow a child to have a stick and then have him hitting other children. How would you like to be hit with a stick. That kid probably needed a stern look more so than a time out. And guess what, if I hit you with a stick, you would cry too.

Sounds like the girlfriend is pretty immature, but beyond that, I don't really see why everyone is so upset about this. The stick SHOULD have been taken away from the 3 year old. It isn't okay to hit people with sticks.

Breaking the stick and throwing it was immature (I would have TAKEN the stick and set it next to me where I was sitting), but also makes me think that PERHAPS, the 3 year old had BEEN hitting with the stick in the minutes leading up to that exchange and that the girlfriend was waiting for someone else to intervene and no one did. So when it got to HER kid, she took care of it.

It seems like the mom of the 3 year old only ran up BECAUSE someone else had stepped in. She should have been there as soon as her child hit another child. SHE should have taken the stick.

Anyway, hope this helps.
T.

Can't say I would have done differently if I saw a child hit mine with a stick. In fact, I would have been pretty peeved... glad his mom gave him a timeout, but I would let this one go.

I think the parents of the children should handle it between themselves which is what they did. Its no one elses business and you and your family and the grandmother should all butt out and let them raise thier own kids. Good for the girlfriend for not letting the 3 yr old get away with it, and Id be please with the 3 yr olds M. for handling it the right way too.

I don't see that he did anything wrong. She stopped another child from hurting her child and she took away and destroyed a weapon. What did she do wrong? Is she expected to let the child hit her child just because he's a member of your family? Why didn't the 3 year old's mother get there first? Probably because had the other mother not done anything, she would not have either.

I would have done the same thing. I would have gave a stern look, and because no one else to do their job with the 3 year old, I would have taken my anger out on the stick too. I then would have said something to the mother. She did nothing wrong.

As the new girlfriend, she sure isn't trying to endear herself to the family. The breaking of the stick is what bothers me, because that's an act of anger. Three year olds do this kind of thing, and she is expecting that child to act older than the 3 year old is. She most probably expects too much out of her 4 year old too, seeing that your nephew says she is mean. Which bears the question, why does your nephew want to date her? I hope the 3 year old isn't his kid...

That said, SOMEONE needs to discipline the kids. A 3 year old can't just keep hitting somebody with a stick. In this instance, the mother of the 3 year old did just right. It's best for the parent of the offending kid to do the disciplining. Only if that parent is not around or is allowing the misbehavior to occur, should someone else be doing the disciplining.

I assume someone (or maybe in your family, everyone) has told the nephew how upset they are all at his new GF. Perhaps not inviting them over for a while will make an impression.

Dawn

Getting the stick away from the 3 y.o. was a must. Grabbing it out of his/her hands, breaking it and shooting a mean look is not. How does she think either child is going to respond the next time one of them has a sharp, pointy object in their hand? By ripping it away from another of course because that is what mom did.
The 3 y.o. should have been corrected because it is dangerous/hurtful to poke someone else, should have apologized to the other child and so forth, but empathy and grace would have been more impactful here by the adult managing the situation. My child would not be playing with that child again if the mom is going to react so emotionally to situations like this. I would have been upset too.
HTH,
A.

I don't think she did anything wrong. In fact if I were the mom or grandmom of the child who was hit I may have said something like 'we don't hit' and walked away.
Put the shoe on the other foot, would you have stepped in if your child was the one that was hit?

A few months ago I was at my daughter's for a get together. The kids were playing with toy guns, I was losing it because the kids kept pointing the guns at each other. I was raised around guns and from the time I could hold somehing in my hand I was repeatedly told never point a gun at another living thing, unless you are in grave danger or have nothing else to eat. With video games and such our now kids don't have that same awarness of the dangers of guns. But I just couldn't keep my mouth shut. I just kept repeating don't point the guns at each other.

Its really not okay for the mother of the older one who knows what its like to have a three year old not to be gracious as possible, while still taking charge of the situation. Sure, we all want to stare daggers at other people's children that hurt ours, but if we were remotely wise, we'd remember that our little ones misbehaved at someone else's expense. You can't make someone else be gracious, wise, or understanding, the woman acted on her emotions. Your hurt feelings may be valid, but there's nothing to be done about it is there?

I think whoever is upset should brush it off. I don't have children of my own but if someone, no matter the age, were to hit my nephew or any of my nieces with anything I would step in. Maybe the mean look and breaking the stick went too far but what if she didn't step in, would the other mom? If not, what if that kid "got their eye poked out" I know its a line parents use to say you shouldn't play with sticks but seriously? I think you would rather see me "mean" taking a stick away than seeing how I deal with a child REALLY getting hurt. I don't know how she acted before this or after this but if that is all you are outraged about I would ask you....how would you have handled it?