My daughter is very rough with animals, she won't listen

I'm so sorry to hear about the behaviour of your in-laws, it sounds absolutely horrendous. Well done for sticking to your guns and standing up for your daughter.
I was wondering about the possible causes of your daughter's behaviour as we had a kind of similar experience to yours. We have a small dog at home who is very well loved, very old, completely harmless but can sometimes be very very noisy. She has been part of our family since the age of 6 weeks (now 14 years) and has become progressively more naughty since we had the kids, but only minor things like stealing scraps of food.

My DD went through an odd stage about a year ago when aged 2 of being quite aggressive towards the dog and almost territorial. It may have been partly her age and I also wondered if it was a jealousy issue. She would talk in a very rude voice to the dog, shout at her and try to hit her if she walked by. I was very upset and puzzled as I have always loved animals and wanted to teach my daughter to respect them. I tried all sorts of things to get her past this and nothing was working. Then one day when the dog was barking nonstop and I was feeling tired and frustrated I found myself yelling at the dog to be quiet! I suddenly had a lightbulb moment when I realised that although I absolutely love our dog, there were times when I was telling her off in front of my DD. And perhaps she wasn't noticing all the quiet strokes and affection that I give the other 95% of the time. And being a toddler, she took this behaviour to the extreme (I never hit the dog myself!). Anyway after this I made a huge effort to talk to the dog just like I would a person, I always ask her very politely to move or to please hush, I say please and thank you and I am very careful of my tone. This has made a huge difference and now DD has come out of the aggresive phase and treats the dog very well most of the time.

It sounds like you have a very justifiable fear for your DD's safety around the in-law's dog, and a huge frustration with their unwillingness to put your daughter's safety before the dog, and I wonder if she is picking up on this as well and considers her behaviour to be self-defence? Could she then be relating this to other animals as well? It does not sound like it would be safe for you to try my approach with their dog, and I certainly don't pretend to have the answer. I wonder if she blames the dog (or animals in general) for your difficult relationship with your in-laws and that this is being expressed in a 3-year old way with hitting out.

I wish you all the best with this difficult situation.

Recent Threads

Recently Added Files

Stats

Members

Stats

Users Online