What am I doing wrong? So frustrated with toddler and cats
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Anonymous
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My son is two and a half. He deliberately pulls our cats' fur, shoves them off the couch, pulls their tails. Today he full on kicked a cat. Hours later, when I felt like I was finally over it, he deliberately stepped on our cat's tail. These incidents happen every day recently, anywhere from once to four times a day. We had a nice period of at least 6 months or so when these incidents were very very rare. But he's been doing it again the past two months or so. I don't even know what to think anymore. It makes me so angry and I just want to cry because like I tell my husband, if a family were to visit our home, and one of their kids kicked our cats, I'd think "what the F is WRONG with these people? There's some serious neglect going on if your child is kicking cats." But here we are. WTF??? I'm just at a loss and so upset. DH tells me today that ds is just too young to understand the consequences and how it makes us and the cats feel. But I don't know...I've known plenty of 2 year olds who DON'T hurt cats. DS does like to sit and just gently pet the cats. He will stop to pet a cat on the head as he's walking by. He generally treats them like any child treats a family pet...nicely. He's perfectly kind to our dog, and doesn't try to hurt him. When he sees cats he says "awww, look at that cute kitty!" He's not an angry child. He doesn't have any behavioral problems.
We've been teaching him gentle pets, he shows me how to pet gently, he gets lots of praise for gentle petting. I catch him being kind and comment and praise him. We model proper behavior. We do time-outs, we do time-ins (where I take him to another room and sit with him), we have short little chats, we have long-winded over-his-head chats. I've taken away toys. I just don't understand this. I'd love to hear from people who've had the same problem and please reassure me this is solvable. |
Anonymous
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One of my kids used to chase our dog around with his cars when he was a toddler. Drove me insane. i took away his cars, put him in time outs, shouted -- nothing stopped him. He is now 7 and the most connected of my DC to our animals. He seems to have an innate understanding of them that is even beyond mine. The cat much prefers him to my other DC.
All this is to say, hang in there. That this is fun for your DC now doesn't mean anything in the long run. |
Anonymous
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I think there's a big difference between a toddler who chases a dog around with cars and a toddler like OPs who deliberately causes harm to a cat (stepping on tail, kicking cat).
We had two cats when DS was a toddler and now we have a dog. We have always modeled kind behavior and luckily for us, our son has always been gentle towards animals. I am frankly shocked that your cats are as well mannered as they are. DS came to us crying once when he was about two - he had a two inch scratch on his backhand from the cat. The location of the scratch made it clear that he was messing with the cat and he confirmed it. I didn't coddle him or yell at the cat - just said if he was going to mess with the cat that's what was going to happen (this was a particularly unfriendly cat who hated my son). I have suggestions for what *I* would do in this situation, but I am pretty sure I will get flamed for them on DCurbanMoms. So I'll keep quiet. Good luck to you and be thankful you have such nice kitties. |
Anonymous
| Are you givng him consequences for hurting the cats? He is not too young for a timeout. I would put him in timeout for 2 minutes each time he does something mean to a pet. |
Anonymous
PP with the kid who used to chase the dog with cars here -- it was no different IMO than what OP's toddler is doing. My DC was enjoying that the dog ran away from him. The dog ran away to avoid having his paws run over by toy cars, but my toddler didn't know that -- he just enjoyed the dog's reaction. OP's toddler is likely enjoying getting a reaction from the cats, not enjoying hurting them. That's my take on it. |
Anonymous
| He needs the cats to fight back. That's what he deserves. |
Anonymous
That's F'n ridiculous. He's still very young. Unless he's doing this deliberately with an understanding that it can cause pain I would not sweat it. |
Anonymous
OP here. Yes, thank you, that's how I feel too, that he just likes the reaction. He thinks it's funny. I don't believe he does this in order to make them feel pain. Of course, sometimes he pushes a cat off the arm of the couch because he wants to use the arm of the couch as a racetrack. He sometimes will pull a tail because he wants the cat to come out from under the table to play. Sometimes, like today when he kicked and then stepped on the cat's tail, I got the sense he just did it because he wanted to see them run away or jump. PPs, yes, we do timeouts (has not stopped the behavior) and all the other consequences I listed in my original post. And we model good behavior of course. He's been scratched by them and even bit by one (one cat gives little bites that amount to just putting her teeth on his skin, but not breaking the skin). But they are more likely to squirm and run away than they are to scratch him. |
Anonymous
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Does he get upset when you put him in time out? The key to discipline IMHO is you have to find each kid's currency....what they value and what upsets them enough to be punishment. Example: DS is an extrovert and DD is an introvert. Sending them to their rooms to be by themselves is a huge punishment to DS but fun for DD.
So if he's unphased by the punishment...you are doing it wrong. Super Nanny has some good guidelines about how to do timeouts properly. My DS used to laugh and laugh during timeouts b.c when he got up I picked him up and put him back. It was a fun wrestling game to him. Then I got wise and put him alone in his room! And 2.5 is old enough to learn not to hurt the poor cats. Pulling tails and fur can be very hurtful. When my 18 month old messes with my animals or his siblings too roughly he gets a timeout. It has been working well to reduce the frequency of him inflicting pain. Hurting animals without consequences that mean something to him is teaching him to lack empathy. You need to figure out what his emotional currency is. |
Anonymous
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We have a 2.5 yo and a dog and cats and we struggle with this too. The only thing that has worked is being extremely strict which for us means - she can't touch the dog without asking our permission, she can't touch his toys or fetch balls at all, and we do immediate time outs for violating. We had to do this after our dog bit her in a moment when we were paying enough attention and she'd followed him under the kitchen table and backed him into a corner and was messing with him. She adores the dog but can't quite read his signals yet and was getting to aggressive in trying to play with him. The cats are easier bc they crawl in her lap and she pets them bc she desperately wants them to
Stay. |
Anonymous
and during that time don't give him ANY attention. |
Anonymous
| Spank. Then plonk him on his bottom on the stairs. |
Anonymous
| Get rid of the animals. What the hell. |
Anonymous
| I really don't know what I would do but I do find his behavior shocking. We have a cat and our children would never be allowed to treat any animal this way. I would consider separating the two completely until this behavior problem is solved. |
Anonymous
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Sounds like he s a budding sociopath. Give the cats away, NOW. They are dumb animals and cannot protect themselves. One day in the very near future one if them may scratch and bite the daylights out if him, which he deserves, but the cats do not deserve to be put down because they are protecting themselves.
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