baby bullies

[flea]

M. at the park was at it again with Casper this afternoon, and I'd like some reality check and/or advice. M. is three and a half, was very precocious verbally and socially (I met her when she was 18 months old, and she said, "Hello, how are you?") She has a younger sister who will be 2 in December, thus 4 months younger than Casper. M. is demanding, attention-grabbing, was a very difficult two-year old for her mother to manage, though she's settled down some now. What they call "spirited," meaning, "we're nice yuppie types, so we won't say 'pain in the ass.'"

M. has figured out that she can do things that make Casper cry. And she does them on purpose. They're subtle things - growling like a lion at her, getting too close. M. probably tries these things with lots of kids, and the other kids either aren't bothered, or something. I've only seen Casper have a problem with her. M. and her sister are close, but her sister is very laid-back and yet still feisty enough to take no guff. I think the bad dynamic began because M. didn't understand that Casper was much younger than she is, since Casper is big for her age and is just enough older than the cluster of kids M.'s sister's age that M. probably doesn't class Casper as "baby sister." M. couldn't get Casper to play with her the way the 3 year olds play, and in trying, found she could make Casper uncomfortable, and now she enjoys it.

I'm not sure what to do. Casper is actively reluctant to stray from my side when M. is at the park now. I try to encourage her to play with the other children and not treat M. as different from the others. But M. will seek Casper out and bother her. I think Casper is too young to really be able to defend herself against this kind of social bullying - and I do see it as that. It's well done, and it's subtle - as subtle, for her age, as the cliquey righteous sniping we see done at b.org where everyone is oh so polite as they snarl. At b.org we're all adults and have the responsibility to respond ourselves, but Casper is my kid, and she just turned two, and I want to both protect her and equip her with the skills to either defend herself against this ill will, or treat it as the pettiness it is and ignore it, whichever she feels is appropriate. And yet, you know, TWO.

M.'s mother wasn't there today - M. was with a friend - but she is laissez-faire. As we were leaving, another woman asked me if everything was okay - having seen what was up. I am clearly not making this interaction up - M.'s mother and I have discussed it a little (without me letting on how much it upsets me) and other people see it also. I spoke to M. about it as she was doing it today - repeatedly asking her to give Casper space early on, and then when she got very aggressive right before we left, telling her that she needed to be kind to other people, and continuing to do something that she knew was making Casper unhappy was not nice. M. responded that she wasn't doing anything to Casper - she was talking to her sister (who was 100 yards away - M. had followed Casper and me as we went to a new area of the playground to play by ourselves.)

Can I do anything? How can I help Casper learn to cope with this? How can I help flea to learn to cope with this?

Comments

[ste-noni.livejournal.com]

flea, I'm so sorry for little Casper. She is such a sweetie and I hate to think of anyone being mean to her. I don't have any good advice at the moment. I think the best option would be with M's parents, but they don't sound like they would be very helpful. Are you willing to actually have a "lay it on the line" conversation with M's mom? She might be willing to do more if she understood how much this is bothering Casper and you. My gut is that Casper is too young to really be able to "defend" herself from someone that much older. If you can't talk to M's mom, I would hope that given time and distance, M would get tired of torturing Casper.

Of course, I have no real experience with this.

[orthoepy.livejournal.com]

I haven't had to deal with this (i don't spend enough time at the playground) but DH has. LB is also a little sensitive and big for his age, so when bigger kids were picking on LB, DH did something that impressed and appalled me -- he came up behind the mean kid, put on a very scary face, and said "IF YOU DO THAT AGAIN YOU WILL BE SORRY."

Kids know when they're doing something wrong, but they don't really know whether the consequences are serious or not. If you show them that the consequences could be serious they will stop -- even if you aren't clear what they are.

Of course, scaring a little kid is always bad, but if the parents aren't going to enforce consequences other people have to. I would not be shy about telling M. that Casper doesn't want to play with her because she's being mean and telling her to go to another part of the playground 'cause you were there first. If she whines you can say "sorry, but you're making Casper cry and we don't want to play with you." That usually has an effect on girls more than boys. If M's mother gets upset (which I don't think will happen) you can say "Casper's having a sensitive day, so we only want to play with the little kids." How can someone argue with that?

Good luck!

[richtermom.livejournal.com]

Frankly, your DH rocks.

I wonder if maybe distracting M away while Casper is playing could help? Let Casper play with the other kids, but then call M away and show her something else. Even if it's just a leaf, get her AWAY from Casper, get her distracted. Point out other kids on equipment and bet her she can't do it. Hardcore redirect. Unfortunately, it means YOU are parenting M instead of playing with Casper. Which sucks.

Maybe if the parents/friends notice you're actively distracting M away from Casper they'll get the hint, although it's a super non-confrontational way to do it.

[hecubot.livejournal.com]

That's tough, flea. Emmett had to deal with several biters in his daycare at Casper's age, and got fairly adept at dropping on his back and kicking them in the face. But I didn't really realize how stressed out he was about it until we moved him to a new place and he really blossomed in the bite-free environment.

I've recently done the scary face trick on Emmett's school yard (where he's generally very popular, but in this instance a bunch of boys ganged up on him). So, it's not something that necessarily ends as they get older.

Honestly, I'd recommend having a serious talk with M's mother about it. You'd have to be careful to couch the language so it wasn't blaming, but try to enlist her help in giving Casper some more space on the playground. This type of situation isn't usually fixed by one simple solution, but gradually by degrees. You ask for the mother to talk to M, you ask for the mother to keep M away for a while (sometimes just breaking the pattern of behavior makes a differnce), you try to go at different times or playgrounds. Anything to make some space in the incidents so that they lessen in impact. Ultimately you get to a tipping point where it's not much of an issue anymore.