My daughter is on a waiting list for a bilingual international school. It's an English-French school and they said that we can start her on the first year learning reading and mathematics etc entirely in English and she can learn French for a few hours a week as the foreign language and then repeat all that she had learnt in English entirely in French the 2nd year and then study English for a few hours a week or start her entirely in French and then repeat all that she learnt that year in English the 2nd year just to adjust them to a bilingual education. I think to start off in English as it's not the language she will hear the most or often besides from hearing it from me at home since we live in France and French is all around her but my husband insists we start her in French since we live in France. Any idea which way to start?

what animal would be suitable for a 3 year old who is in that hitting and rough stage with animals? Would it be wise to wait till after this phase or getting one now will hopefully teach her to be kind? I was thinking a rabbit for a 3rd birthday present or not a good idea as they are fragile?

I'm sure all you mothers look great. I'm a mother who looks like I haven't even had a baby and the baby that stole the only small little bit of 'fat' I had on my child like frame, now I don't even have a bottom nor do I even have watermelons anymore, I have deflating plastic golf balls I now call my own breasts. I envy all of you. If only we could body swap with a machine.

@ TMT - dinolingo is very boring for 'active toddlers' and up. I consider it more appropriate for babies
@ Luvn4 - thank you!!!

Kballent thank you!!! Your pinboard is fantastic!!!

Could it be that their priorities in life have changed and feel there is nothing there as friends anymore? I prefer to spend time with my own family than with my friends because that is most important to me.

Could it just be that you are taking it all the wrong way? My sister has 3 kids all under the age of 5 and sometimes she just cuts me off or makes a call so quick and I get offended like she doesn't want me calling but I really don't know her kids and how well she handles them or really understand how busy she is when I am not physically there to see her daily life. Having more than 1 child can be difficult to handle, they usually play up when you take the attention away from them.

You will make new friends at mothers group or talk to other parents at the park but they may never be close friends or they could turn out to be the best of your friends. Life is never boring nor when you have a child, you are always meeting someone new, even if it's just small talk.

A name is a name. The most important thing is to be spending time with the child and having a good relationship with the child and the child having a good relationship with them and no one is feeling robbed of a relationship just because of a name. If a name sounds to much like a name they already have for someone else chances are they won't end up with the name that they want. Some grandparents get lucky and get the name that they want and some others don't but to create such a bad environment over a name is ridiculous and childish. The most important is the love, not the name. I would be absolutely heartbroken if I didn't have a name AND didn't have a loving relationship with the child but I would rather wait for the child to call me what she would want to call me then to have no relationship at all. There will always be problems in a relationship with in-laws when children are involved and many parents make the mistake of not setting the boundaries clear from the start. You tell them not to feed her but chances are she will still do it, whether to annoy you or not, when she would be alone with her. It's something all in-laws do. It does sound like she is doing it deliberately though and you need to put your foot down NOW.

My daughter doesn't see animals and in-laws together with animals at the same time often enough, her behaviour with most animals right now is typical at her age like not knowing her own strength when hugging an animal and poking the dog in the ears etc but her behaviour to the neighbours cats is what I am concerned about and only concerned about.

I think most of it has to deal with her age but I am not quite sure about the strangling, rock throwing and kicking. It's not that she is actually strangling it, just she puts her hands around their necks indicating that she is going to strangle them but loosely, not often though and has done it with me too. The cats don't retaliate.

My daughter, in-laws and their dog/s issue was quite a while ago but they did/do encourage behaviours from her that is only putting my daughter at a risk of a dog attack or any animal attack because they are the behaviours that provoke aggression, I'm sure she will meet other dogs and animals when I'm not around.

We don't have any animals ourselves and we had issues mainly with my SIL dog but haven't seen the dog since 2010, My daughter grew up with a dog for the first 3-4 months and the often saw it frequently until he died and this dog died about 8 months ago or so, but I never had any problems with my daughter and this particular dog being together, so long as I was there to properly supervise.

Their latest dog showed no interest in her during the first few hours we were there until It just came out of nowhere and went for her for whatever intentions the dog had in mind (first time we met the dog), she wasn't with me when she was teasing it but I seen her from a distance when I came walking towards the room they were all in. I've never acted anxious or fearful around them.

It's never really going to get anywhere because they still insist a cat is more dangerous than a dog because they will go for the eyes.

My husband told me my mother-in-law said that I shouldn't have done what I did because he is fragile and unpredictable and they still insist on bringing the dog. Needless to say that I sent a very unloving email to her showing how much of a bad person I think she is for showing my daughter that the dog and it's life is more important than hers.

The dogs are allowed to disrespect my daughter but I'm not even allowed to respect my daughter. The problem is not the dog, it's their natural instinct, but such a shame I have to even consider them blood to my daughter and the dog is "family".

They expect me to just "wait" and see if the dog will have attacked or not? I think not, would rather relive WW1 with the family than to let this issue go. I will do some research on empathy and see how it goes.

Good thing you brought that up, he has her watching funniest home videos and I never thought of it myself as anything wrong for a kids to watch. She is laughing when she sees something funny happen.

It's been a problem with the 3 dogs since the day she was born and they have known that since I have strongly stated my concerns. They refuse to remove the dog or keep them separated. If we are going somewhere and they are coming, they don't tell us they are bringing the dog. Today there was a family gathering and I refused to go with my daughter so my husband went alone.

I know that dogs have good memories and I know he was going to be there as my husband asked his father the day before but I said that we were coming. I told the entire family my concerns and fears but they are very defensive of their dogs, as well as their adult children who they think can never do wrong. They think I have a fear of dogs (not true) and that I am over-protective and paranoid with dogs (not true). I try to avoid talking with my MIL about serious issues now as she is quite selfish and verbally abusive when she's not getting her own way with me or hears something she doesn't want to hear.

They used to remove the dog (SIL dog) for a few minutes into a different room but as soon as he would come back out, straight at her again. Needless to say, I only see her about 4-5 times a year now after she slapped me in the face after I asked my husband to leave as I had enough of the dog and don't see her dog anymore. I last saw all the family on Christmas Eve at a relatives house after the incident there, my husband went alone to his immediate families house on Christmas day, and they knew I was going to originally come today with my daughter at the family gathering at a lake, but they still insisted in bringing their dog. 3 years and no progress with the in-laws. I haven't seen any of the family but the MIL since the Xmas eve incident and about 4 times. FIL never bothers with my daughter nor one of the Sils.

The dog is family to them, they think they know everything about animals and it's arrogance that is blinding them. They don't know anything about dogs or animals but can't argue with ignorance. Is it that hard to search the internet? obviously the dog is more important than my child. My husband is JUST like them please don't scare me even more than I already am!

I have never made a big deal about in the past, I remove her if she doesn't listen the first time and did what I had to do to show her that it's not nice to hurt living things, they feel pain and have feelings too. I feel that it could have been over with by now if I understood the situation better. With my in-laws, they think that it's OK for the dog to knock her down really hard and come charging at her like she is a rugby player ready to try and score. When my daughter really learns to respect animals, she will know that it's hurts the animals, and she won't do it again. What worries me the most? How is my daughter ever going to learn to respect an animal let alone a human being when she sees that it's not OK for her to annoy/hurt the dog (in-laws dog) but it's OK for the dog to hurt/annoy her even when/if her behaviour never encouraged the dog to respond like that in self-defense? My daughter will hopefully outgrow this stage sometime soon but with the in-laws not reprimanding their dog immediately, and the fact they never reprimand him at all, there is ALWAYS going to be a problem regarding animals and my daughter for a very long time. Now for him to think the Simpsons is not violent? If strangling/stabbing each other and blowing animals head off is not violent to him, I'm scared to think of what my daughter is going to grow up to be like with a good influence like that who she sees as being the biggest/most influential role model in her life? Strangling doesn't seem like a normal phase for a child to be going through.

And yes I do feel like keeping her away from animals. At least until she outgrows the ''stage''.

At the start it was only playing with tails and petting the animals a bit to hard but it has really escalated in the past few months. Out of the blue I saw her throwing rocks at the cat and laughing, I told her to stop that's not nice but continued on straight again throwing rocks. I think there is something else to it, like she is learning from the actions of others.

I try not to, but I think as parents sometimes we are a bit hard on ourselves.

The owner said it wasn't a problem and not to worry. I understand he thinks a kid will be a kid but I would have preferred he didn't say something like that though.

Thanks for the link. Generally, I'm not the shouting type, I raise my voice firmly and tell her to stop or we will leave, but today, I did the one thing I shouldn't have done and shouted and I spanked her on the bottom, which I never thought I'd ever do, it wasn't like fully forceful but enough to make her feel a bit or maybe quite scared as she cried. I did tell her much later that what I did was not right and apologised for my actions but I know that was hypocritical of me to react like that with her. She was torturing my neighbours pregnant cat and kicked it hard in the stomach and really felt angry. I always thought it was a stage that would quickly pass but it's been nearly a year. She does it for the sake of it and if I don't remove her from the situation, I'm sure she'd keep on happily hitting/kicking/strangling/dragging around/throwing rocks at/poking/annoying them until it was to the point she got seriously injured by the animal/s in return.

My daughter, who will be fast approaching 3 years of age, is disrespectful to animals, mostly to cats. I see that she is more rough with them then any other animal she has encountered, except she hit a horse on it's hind leg and nothing I am doing is working to discourage her behaviour.

This is what I am doing so far that isn't working.

We practise together the right way to handle and pet an animal by using a stuffed toy like a stuffed cat, stuffed dog etc.

When I witness the bad behaviour, I tell her that animals need to be respected and they don't like to be treated that way and she get's time out or something she loves taken away from her or I give her a warning that if she behaves that way again, we will go straight home (if we are out somewhere) and we will not be coming back that day and will receive no privilege.

She is gentle with animals WHEN she WANTS to be. There are 3 possible reasons where she is getting this behaviour from. She is learning from watching the Simpsons, the way Homer and Bart strangle each other and the way the cat and mouse are with each other. My husband says there is no violence in the Simpsons! I Never let her watch TV unless it's educational and there he is playing Xbox games where he is shooting people and having her watch the Simpsons and other cartoons that depict violence! She does not see this often but often enough for her to maybe remember. I told my husband to stop.

Second possibility is that she is learning from my in-laws who encourage her to pull their dogs tail by laughing when she does whilst saying no that's not right, says nothing to her when pokes him in the ears or annoys him when he is trying to sleep and when they tell her no that is not nice, they are laughing at the same time because they also think it's cute that the dog is scared of her and she is getting confused because I am encouraging the opposite. When I told them how I feel, they laughed it off that nothing bad could ever happen and there is nothing really wrong with it. Again, she does not see the dog anymore because he died and that was about 7 months ago but saw that dog often enough. She has seen their new dog once and she did this too him too and he gave her a nip on the hand like a warning and then he came and knocked her down about half an hour later and then came charging at her when I moved her away and shoved the dog aside, then I got yelled at for it. My main possibility is this one.

Third possibility. My sister-in-law once slapped me in the face when my daughter was in my arms. This happened a long time ago, when she was a baby, I don't think she could remember that but maybe she could?

Excuse the length of my thread post but it has become a problem. I respect animals so does my husband. Any ideas? In-laws don't listen so that could a problem if that is where she getting it from.