When do toddlers get their feelings hurt?

My daughter is a shade over the age of 3. My question is, when do they get their feelings hurt?


I've been noticing a pattern where my daughter's nighttime sleep gets interrupted on the days she plays with one of her friends - a friend whom SHE really likes, but I've observed some hurtful behavior from her friend towards my daughter. (grabbing toys that my daughter has, ignoring my daughter when she doesn't want to do whatever my daughter does, hitting my daughter when my daughter doesn't want to do what she does.) Yesterday, my daughter woke up twice in the night (generally sleeps from 8:30-7:30 straight) screaming "no no no" and sobbing inconsolably. Earlier that day, she was playing with this friend, and at one point her friend found an older child to play with and started ignoring my daughter and not paying any attention to her at all. I watched from the sides, and I couldn't tell if my daughter's feelings were hurt, and I asked if she just wanted to go home, but she kept saying she wanted to play with her friend. There were other minor incidents of rude and mean behavior but I didn't really think of them as significant because that is how this girl plays.


Can a 3-year old's emotions get hurt by friends? Just wondering if I'm making up the connection or if there really is one. There is definitely a pattern of sleep interruption on the days she plays with this friend, and not so on days she plays with other friends. Am I imagining it?

Of course you're not imagining it! Let's not talk about 3 year olds... my son, who is now 19 months gets his feelings hurt by many incidents.... a lot of times, it's my older one that hurts his feelings. You can see it in his eyes right away, he might not be crying with tears, but there is defintiely a feeling of hurt in his facial expression, and eyes. Then he would drop his head... walk away from the situation.


What I do find is the younger they are, and depending on the temperament of the child, it's how FAST they get over the bad feelings. The little one forgets quite fast.... like in 5 minutes later, I can give him a cookie or something, and he would smile again.


But the older they are, they remember longer.

I have a 3 year old girl too and yes shes very capable of feeling such emotions such as hurt and jealousy. Shes got few older friends who are 4 and 5 yrs and they play with her very well one on one but when all of them are tog she does get ignored and then she comes and tells me that she wants to go home. they are really tender and sensitive at this age so I would suggest u limiting her contact with that friend for a while.

sigh...someone just told me very recently it's much easier being friends with people who have similar parenting styles to your own. I'm discovering how true this is.


This mother is my friend, but she has A VERY different style from me - and it's causing me a lot of problems in the way her daughter deals with mine. Her mother's philosophy is, "Whatever my daughter wants we follow" which includes incredibly late bedtimes, obnoxious behavior in restaurants, a massive amount of toys in her home (and extreme possessiveness to go with it), following her daughter around with food trying to feed her, massive amounts of sugar, artificial sweeteners and colors in the food in their house, and the clincher that made my husband so mad - her daughter blew out the candles on my daughter's birthday cake, and in the background you can hear the mother giggling like it's so adorable. (we replayed the video tape and it started a rampant amount of cursing on my husband's part.)


we are REALLY different - and I think I could handle it IF her daughter wasn't such a bully, as Cara put it. I've hinted gently that perhaps her behavior isn't always the best, but her mother says, "she's just a baby - I don't want to discipline her yet." Thankfully, because of her daughter's whacko sleep schedule, it's not easy to get together, because my daughter sleeps early, but often her mother says, "let them just play - what's the harm" and then it's too late of a bedtime for my daughter.


So another question, if you see bullying behavior towards your child - do you step in? I've tried teaching my daughter to say, "Don't do that. I don't like it." But my daughter generally holds it in, or she comes running to me asking me to comfort her - and I then ask her to tell her friend NOT to do it. My daughter's general response is, "No mommy. You tell her for me."

Hi hkchoichoi,

I would step in until you child is older, maybe school age. I feel if you don't then you are allowing your baby to be bullied. I always step in when I see children mistreating each other anyway. It's the teacher in me. But seriously if your daughter has a friend at your house you need to lay down the law about behaviour. It is fine for your friend to let her do what she wants in her own house but in your house you have the say over how children behave. Just tell her you will call her mother and ask her to leave. She will freak out that someone actually cares enough to give her a boundary!

Thanks for all the replies guys - I'm a teacher too - older kids, and have never had a problem stepping in and stopping the bullying action.


But - the toddler thing is so tricky for me. The thing is, her mother NEVER lets her daughter play at my house without being present herself. (or her helper.) if her mother wasn't there, I would be HAPPY to let her daughter have a piece of my mind and stop bullying behavior, but my friend thinks I am SO strict with my daughter and TOO strict about behavior and ridicules me for my parenting style. So if I do say something, my friend often minimizes the situation by saying, "oh - you know you're overreacting." I'm really particular about the way my daughter treats other people and her own sister. So I don't allow any sort of bullying or mean behavior when my own daughter does it.


Do I tell my friend directly that she's raising a bully?

Confucius say "you ask credit I no give, you get mad. I give credit, you no pay, I get mad. Better you get mad"....


The parallel here is, if you don't speak up, either you, your hubby and your bubbs get mad, and if you do, your friend and her daughter get mad! Better she gets mad, I think! Actually you'd be doing her no favours if you don't say anything about her childs behaviour, after all, she says LOTS about YOUR parenting style.


Guess it boils down to how much you value this friendship. Many parents cannot handle criticism of their children and she may not take it too well. It's a good lesson to learn if your child gets ostracised because of your parenting style...


As a case in point I have a friend whos child was a little brat, and would sulk everytime she was disciplined. Well, didnt really stop me from disciplining her (telling her she couldnt have this or that, or touch the electric wires etc, in front of mom and dad). Mom and dad were fine with this, but they were pretty cool parents and pretty cool friends, still are to this day. It was a risk I took and have taken before. I'd do it with this little one... Cheers

HKCC, my daughter is 2 years and 9 months. I can tell you that their feelings can get hurt at this age. In the past, you could take toys from her and she will say, "Gone" and don't feel too hurt by it. Now she does. In the past, we could scold her and she'd stop and would say, "Sorry".


Now I've noticed that if her daddy scolds her, she'd bend her head and cry... sometimes she'd hit me too because she doesn't know how to handle that sadness in her.


I've seen how timid she is too with her friends. My daughter speaks English and all her friends speak Chinese (she's in the local stream of her kindie)... and sometimes she'd wait ages for her friends to invite her to join in the circle. I knew that was NOT going to happen because they were simply too busy playing... my daughter was just standing there and saying to me, "Wait... wait.....not my turn yet". So I took my daughter's hand, brought her to the circle and told her to ask if she could join in. She asked and joined in.


She also has a friend who does not want to share her toys when we go over to her house. My daughter loves this friend of hers and is always upset when her bestfriend bosses her around and refuses to share. Sometimes her friend would tell my daughter that she was naughty for taking her toys. I could see how hurt my daughter feels because she would always sulk in the corner. These are the things I've done which have worked:-

- If her friend comes over and takes a toy from my daughter (because it is hers) and her mother doesn't do anything about it, I would pick my daughter up and go to a new toy and would say, "Let's play this instead". I would TOTALLY ignore my friend's daughter. Her daughter would follow us each time we played a new toy and I would continue to ignore her daughter. I would also say to my daughter, "I have two blocks and I'll give you one. Sharing is good. One for me and one for you". After about a minute of this and when I see her friend getting impatient with us, I would then say to my daughter, "Sharing is so good, isn't it? Would you like to share with xxx too?". I have not disciplined my friend's daughter.


If her friend hits her, I would just say to my daughter, "Go tell xxx that hitting is bad and it's painful. Tell xxx that if she continues to hit, you will not play with her". And if my friend's daughter continues to hit my daughter (and her mother does nothing), I simply remove my daughter (and she'll tell her friend "no" herself) and I would then get my daughter to play something else. Ignoring my friend's daughter seems to work.


When my friend's daughter shares her toys and is affectionate to my daughter, I would get my daughter to say, "Thank you", kiss her and I would give her the "good girl" stickers.


In the past, I would have just let it be and would just tell my daughter to stop her crying or I would say, "Just play something else".. but then I said to myself that at this age, I still have to be the one teaching her HOW to cope in difficult situations.


It's not easy... as you say, HKCC... they are still toddlers.... and then you have the parent that you don't want to have a "fall out" with.


But I think this book, "how to teach so your chidren will listen..." has helped me so much.


My daughter is no angel too....so she gets disciplined when playing with her friends too...

she too gets removed and ignored if she strikes her friend.


Good luck ;-)

Hi everyone,my son is 3-1/2yrs, he doesn't bully, but he has this bnest pal of his who actually hits him,boxes, kicks hiom etc, and my son wouldn't do a thing, he doesn't talk much with outsiders as much he does with us, I keep telling him to talk back and tell his friend not to hit, but he won't say it. On the other hand I was called by my son's teacher and told of his method of playing,he wouldn't talk much but when anyone is playing he would slowly creep in and start to interfere in their game by slowly moving the blocks or put some toy in between and interupt their game but not rough very slowly, take a toy and not give it back and when the other kid gives up then he wouldn't be interested in the toy anymore, teacher says it won't be good in the long run. He does the same with his older sister, attention span woudn't be for too long and then when he's fedup he would start destroying the game,making noise etc.I'm always teacing him, I can't remember any instance where we played without any interuption from him, & i end up scolding him!How should I deal with this behaviour. At times I feel he wants to join in the game but no one knows it because he wouldn'talk,he would only show it by actions.

Whats actually bothering me is his style of playing with other kids, would opnly share if he wanted to, he wouldn't comply with how the other kids want to play, but very silently and slowly without a tantrum and fuss. Will this behaviour get better with age?

Hi MayC u mentioned about this book in ur post" how to teach so your children will listen"..can u tell me whos the author of the book..

It is by Faber. I looked it up already and I think it is called, "How to Talk so that Kids will Learn" but I'm waiting for MAy C to confirm the actual title.

I'll have to check tonight. I'll give you girls the exact title + the name of the author tomorrow. For me, the book is by far the best in terms of parenting techniques.

I've been horribly overridden with guilt since posting - that I've been letting my daughter be bullied - and that I haven't tried to step in and stop it.


The lightbulb really went off in my head after my daughter played with her bullying friend on Saturday, and we went off to another friend's house on Sunday. With this other friend - JUST beautiful playing together and lots of laughter and loads of fun. NO fights, no tears (and most of all no nightmares in the night of sobbing uncontrollably.) just lots of laughter and mutual affection. The mother of this friend also commented on HOW MUCH her son enjoys playing with my daughter and how much fun he has too.


So the other sort of philosophical parenting question that I've been mulling over is this - in a world where most of our children are probably going to meet their share of unsavory, undesirable, mean, cruel, bullying, cold, rude people - friends, acquaintances, and bosses alike - I've always had the philosophy of my kids should EXPERIENCE these things as a young kid, rather than be protected from it all the time. If they don't learn it when it's sort of mild, "I take your toy, I don't want to play with you stuff" how do you teach them when it's much more vicious and hateful?

I'm going to have my son learn tai chi or some other martial art.


I dont think anyone needs to be exposed to hateful or violent behaviour - they'll start thinking its normal and get desensitised when they see it happen to someone else. Kids should be taught when something is not right. Not all kids are born assertive and bullies pick on the mild mannered ones, especially if they seem better loved or have something the bully envies. Bullies NEVER pick on someone who can fight back.


I say Ostracise this bully!


Cheers!

HKCC, the book I was referring to is called, "How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk".

Author: Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish


I share your concerns too - because kids, when they get older CAN get be really mean. I'm sure that we ourselves have gone through it and have had to cope with it. The book I'm reading actually suggests methods on how you could talk to your children when that happens and how you could help them think of a solution themselves to solve it. One that I found very helpful was getting my daughter to go to a group of children and saying it herself, "Can I join?" and on another occasion (last Sunday) going up to an older boy in the playroom (a bully too) and asking him if he could return her toy to her because she's not finished with it (and when she was finished with it, I reminded her to give it to him). The boy probably didn't expect a toddler would approach him because he's probably so used to taking things from others but it worked!!! (luckily for me, anyway and I think given what happened, the boy's mother would have probably ordered him to give it back anyway). If it wasn't for the book I'm reading, I think I would have gone up to the boy and asked him for it myself or I would have asked the children to let my daughter join instead of letting her do the asking. I don't think we can ever stop bullying from existing in our children's lives but we can provide our kids with tools to cope in such situations should they arise.


It's really, really hard sometimes because you're almost always thrown into a situation where you don't even have a chance to think about a solution until it's too late and you end up regretting whatever action you took.... but I think that the book does help because sometimes I pause to think about what I'm doing whereas before I would have just yelled or would have just taken full control of the situation without giving my daughter a chance to solve it herself.


My daughter and her bestfriend play beautifully together too (when it's under 2 hours). After that, they send their parents in grief.


I think we are all already one step ahead because we are doing something about it ;-)