I sure hope you guys can give me some advice. Yesterday, my daughter (10 years old) was playing at the neighbor's house. She and the neighbor girl are close to the same age, and sometimes play together very well, sometimes they fight.
Well, yesterday my daughter comes home crying. She said that the friend was running down the hall of her house and bumped into her little sister and the little sister started crying. The mom jumped up and called the friend a "b" word, (that is what my daughter said), and proceeded to hit her twice strong enough to knock her head on the wall behind her.
The mom told my daughter to go home. She ran home, and cried for quite a while. She was worried that the mom would crack the girls head open or hurt her. And she was a bit traumatized by the whole thing. She wanted me to call Child services and report it. I did not see what happened. Although, this is not the first time that my daughter has seen hitting in their house.
She was upset for over half an hour, crying and yelling, because it made her so mad. I didn't know what to say. I didn't witness anything and I don't think that child services would pay much attention to a 10 year old. But, I did tell her to discuss it with her counselor at school, I thought she needs to discuss this with a professional as it was disturbing to her.
I don't want to start a war with my neighbor. She has been good to me and helped me with my daughter after my husband died and I believe is, basically, a good person. I believe that she just went over the edge and snapped. The other occurrences were not quite like this one. I never seen her hit her kids or use bad words around them.
I would like to think that she really feels bad about it and would never do something like this again, because she has always been so good to the kids. Taking them out to do fun things, throwing big birthday parties, and generally spoiling them. I just don't know how to proceed.
I guess I am just looking to people that I know can be objective and that I trust to have good sense for some advice. Thanks for listening....
Tammy this subject is one of my final selections for my dissertation. It is something I've studied extensively and mildly discuss in my parent meetings.
A parent who raises their hand to a child has lost control of their emotions. A parent who strikes a child in the head out of anger is a parent who began at the butt, moved up the body to the arms and back and advanced over the years to the head. It is a parent who doesn't know how else to react as it is a reactive behavior, not a proactive behavior. It is a parent who lacks communication skills.
So, what do you do? Tell her you want to have coffee immediately. Tell her the truth without making excuses. "My daughter came home really scared after she saw you hit your daughter in the head and into the wall." She will insert her excuse here. Continue you with how it makes
you feel without accepting her excuse. "I'm really uncomfortable with this..... but, I'm worried about it and wanted to talk to you." "I don't want you to lose your children and in many places people will take your kids away from you when they find any hitting going on in the home." "maybe in the future when you feel anger rising up you can practice taking a deep breath and finding another way to talk to your kids."
She will make excuses and act like it is a one time event and that she was having a bad day and over-reacted. She may tell you it is none of your business how she parents. Say that you understand and that you were worried because your daughter was so very, very scared. Offer her any help when she is having a bad day as she helped you when you had a bad day.
Leave it at that. You have put her on notice. I'm not saying this will be easy, it may be one of the harder things you have gone through with a neighbor (and you've already leaped some serious hurdles!) But, it will make her think and she won't do it in front of your child again or anyone else who can see her. She will continue to beat her children and it will scar her children for the rest of their lives. It will change who they are as people and as parents themselves. They will probably go on to hit others as well. Hitting comes from a legacy of hitting.
My family beat me severely and always told me I was lucky that it wasn't their parents doing it with a belt. It was always violent and out of control. We now know with science that parents who hit cause damage they can't even begin to understand in the name of "discipline." Children go on to experience lives of drug abuse, violence, hurting themselves, abusive relationships, weight issues and overall unhealthy lifestyles and choices.
We have the opportunity to change our legacy of hitters and spankers. There are so many other ways to discipline that actually teach a lesson instead of making the child fear the parent, which results in hate and lack of communication for the rest of their lives. many adults I talk to will say, "but it didn't hurt me permanently." They are almost always alcoholics, impulse spenders, screamers, binge eaters, emotionally disturbed adults but have no idea that their current behavior is a result of that initial parenting they had. This may put a small wedge between you temporarily, but you may save her children a smidgen of pain.
This won't be easy and nobody wants to hurt their neighbors feelings, but your responsibility is your own daughter who has experienced violence in the past year that no child should ever experience. She doesn’t need her mind and emotions cluttered with more violence in her life right now. By telling her that you are worried about her you are being honest and telling her how you feel. By telling her that your daughter was scared it tells her that it is about your child and guilts her into thinking about her behavior and how it affects others. You are speaking from "I" statements about how you feel. It is honest and she will see that you are just trying to protect your own children from anymore fear of life.
Good luck, Kelly
Gaylean sticks to sour grapes or that stuff that tastes like rubbing alcohol, so you can sip the good stuff with V and I. Speakin of which......Where are you my little Ho Ho?????
totally off topic but I was going to ask you if there was a pizza place close to DL that we can take the kids and they can play games and eat pizza. We are taking the kids to the DCA trick or treat thing and we wanted to go to a pizza place first.
Why don't you guys come along?
