Dear friends, My son is 3.1 yrs old. There is a 2.8yr old kid in our apt bldg. They both became friends abt 1 month back. Both his parents are working and they are doing some ecommerce on weekends and in the evenings(mostly) they are busy with office work that they bring home. They have a full time maid who looks after that kid 24/7.This kid talks fluently in hindi. My son has speech delay but he can speak & understand hindi,tamil & english(not very good). he is slowly picking up. The maid brings that boy to my place almost everyday directly from school. They sometimes eat lunch & dinner together at my place.when its time to go home both the kids cry very badly..so his mom stays for more time when she comes to pick him up....because of this they end up playing till 11 in the night. It's affecting our schedule.I was happy that my son has a friend until few days back. His mom said they will play in their place for sometime..i was ok with it. When i went to pick up my son..her son started hitting me with all his toys because he doesnt want me to take my son.he took a toy gun and pretended to shoot me in my stomach and shouted at me using bad words. He was not listening to his mom. yesterday her maid left him in my place..my husband was there and this little guy did not like my husband. My hubby tried to make him comfortable by talking to him softly and tried to play with him. but he started crying and said he wantd to go home.His parents were on their way back home and i called them. As soon as he saw his parents he ran to them and said that he wanted to shoot my hubby with a gun and kill him. I was so disturbed after hearing that. His parents did not respond to this. My son is naughty too and he wants to play all the time..but he doesnt hit others or say bad things till now. I am afraid that he will learn from his friend. What should i do?
Talk to his parents. May be it is an issue with the Nanny. Monitor for a while and check whether the kid is improving. If not, stay away from that family. It is sometimes okay to be a mean parent than having your kid learn all the bad stuffs.
Wow! abusing to the extent of taking a gun and shooting?! Actually I see multiple issues here. A toddler is not supposed to stay up till 11 PM. Its going to 10 times harder when he starts pre-school. Lets take this one thing at a time: 1. Pretend shooting: Extremely disturbing. However its possible he doesnt know the meaning of killing. He probably saw some cartoon character do that to scare off someone and thought its OK to shoot and kill others in his life. He is also watching too much TV it looks like. It would be advisable to take his parents into confidence and tell them that he has been doing that everytime you attempt to take your son. It looks like kids are very attached to each other and the older one is taking it personally when his friend is being taken away. I remember an incident which happened 4 months ago when my daughter was just a few days short of 15 months. I took her to swimming lessons and when the lesson was over, she threw a fit that she wants back in water. What helped the next time was to repeatedly tell her that after certain time (30 mins), her lesson is over and that she is expected to leave the pool without fuss. I told this lovingly several times and that did the trick. When the kids get together, maybe you can try telling them that when the clock strikes 8, its time to wrap up. 2. Staying up to 11: You have to tell your friend that while you do appreciate the kids playing together, its cutting into the family time with DH and DH. See how she responds. If things doesnt seem to improve, very slowly distance from that family. I say slowly because at this point the kids are very attached to each other. breaking off abruptly is not good for any of them.
I agree with the above two posts. In my neighborhood, it is a norm for the Indian families with small children to stay awake till 11 or 11:30 (Sorry, no offense) but my dd has the habit of going to bed by 8 or 8:30 since she was an infant. Otherwise, she becomes grouchy and it's hard to manage her. So, I invite other kids to my home during day time for playing and in the evenings no later than 6:30. Some parents went to the extent of sending their kids after 8 pm to invite my dd for playing but I firmly rejected them saying it's our dd's bed time and they can play the next day morning. I faced back biting and rumors and some people said that I don't mingle with other families. Initially, it did hurt me but when I realized I'm doing this for my dd I give rats back what they say about my family. I never criticized/ pointed fingers at their routine ie, stay awake till 11:30 and wake up at 10:30. My dd had a friend (4 yr old boy) who is very fond of guns, and I saw several times he and his mom played the pretend play of shooting and dying. When I asked her about this, she said boys are fond of guns and it's fun shooting and dying. My dd also wanted to do the same with me when we were in their house, and I told her she can play with the gun just for the lights and sounds they make but don't aim at other people. After this incident, I limited the time between my dd and the boy gradually and finally stopped not just because of that but this boy's mom made my dd clean up the toys when both kids are done playing. I expect both the kids to clean up but his mom felt superior just because her's is a boy. As a mother, it's my responsibility to protect my dd from such toxic people. I think the other boy was over tired when you went to pick your son up and acted like that but you didn't say what you did to protect yourself from that behavior. It's his parents responsibility to teach him how to behave. If you are comfortable with them, talk with them and see what happens. If the outcome is not desirable, you may need to limit the exposure between the two kids.
