Be Excellent To Each Other

I don't care if this is in Bits and Bobs.

[url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8971712/Girl-tw
o-beat-up-our-daughter-in-nursery-say-parents.html]Keeee-rikey. 2 year old properly beats up 3 year old at nursery[/url]

I'm not particularly inclined to comment on the behaviour of the child in question, mostly because I think some kids just happen to behave in all sorts of bizarre ways (including violence) and then turn out fine. And even if that’s not the case it’s hardly her fault, as she’s 2. Whether Chucky's mother has a case to answer for neglect is another question. We don't know whether Chucky has some sort of mental problem or it's just bad parenting. I suspect the latter, but then I’m a massive parenting snob.

Anyway, the question is, if the kid in question was (and had been on repeated occasions) a danger to other kids then why didn't the nursery (a) make provisions for this, and (b) protect the injured girl. I’m not sure why the police are banging on in that report about the kid being under the age of criminal responsibility. The point is that the nursery must have committed some sort of offence here, surely?

Also, social services need to have a word with the not bovvered mum: "my daughter is two years old and I want nothing more to do with this".

A further question that occurs, is that if this kid was causing problems to the extent that all the other parents referred to her as “chucky”, why were they (a) not complaining like heck to the nursery and (b) not pulling their kids out if the situation wasn’t dealt with?

To be fair on Mother of Chucky, she could mean "I want nothing more to do with the press". I wouldn't want to talk to the Telegraph about my loony, Duplo block-wielding two year old.

In fairness, yes. However, I'm willing to bet not. She's clearly a monsterous child neglecting harpy.

Apparently I have not yet reached this level of understand.

Or articulacy.

I thought anything non-serious under that age of 12 is classes as a "childhood fight", or is that just made up?

3 hours in Corney and Barrow does that to most people

I'm not sure what you mean. The kid clearly can't be prosecuted as she's under 10. But the nursery has a duty of care to its inmates to ensure the other inmates dont stave their faces in. Also, if someone's kid is acting like that on a regular basis I'm suspecting the parents have some failings - be it merely in the "not getting her professional help" mould rather than "ritually abusing her", if one is being generous.

I blame violent video games.

I blame the lack of Christian values that has lead to a moral collapse in this country. Also, Facebook.

I blame the 2 year old, they should be locked up.

The daughter of the most boring middle class people I have ever met was a horrid little child. The parents had plenty of money (one was one of the main long-term characters on a long-running well known TV show), she was a little princess, parents doted on her... Perhaps a little over-protective but otherwise utterly normal, but the child would beat up any other child within eyesight. She was a vicious little horrid thing. (I'm only writing in the past tense because the girl would now be six or so I think, and may well have grown up to be a lovely child).

So, what drives the behaviour there?

That's the spirit!

Bad parenting. Just because parents dote on their kids doesn't mean they're being good parents. Other than love the main thing kids need are firm boundaries*. Clearly that's lacking.

Your example sounds very similar to a couple with a daughter we know - 5 year old kid picks her own bedtime, is never disciplined, treated like a princess, etc, and unsurprisingly she's an utter little shit. You make someone the centre of the universe at that age, and they'll believe it's true.

*And Nerf guns.

Hobbes was right, young kids are, without the civilizing effect of good parents, nasty, brutish and short. It's their natural state. They've got brains designed to stop them from starving to death as part of a pack of grassland apes.

no, that's not it. I didn't mean that she got away with anything. They dote on her, but she has very strict routines for bed, play, meal times, etc (my sister was their nanny two days a week, the only reason I know this) so what I meant was it wasn't a lack of affection or anything sinister at home.

Hmmm.

Demonic possession?

I'm not suggesting anything sinister, but just a lack of properly reinforcing good behaviour. If it's not that then I can only assume that it's just one of those odd kids' behavioural things, and she'll either grow out of it or end up as a criminal.

Some people are just little shits I guess.

Taking a contrarian view, the Nursery concerned had an option regarding the bad behaviour. Try and control her while she is in their care (which is, after all, part of their job), or put the mother out of work (assuming she needs nursery care to do so). I think that by not kicking her out, and trying to manage the situation, they could have come out of this pretty well, but then it wouldn't be news.

Similarly, the mother saying "my daughter is two years old and I want nothing more to do with this" is as likely to be referring to the gaggle of press on her doorstep, rather than washing her hands of the behaviour of her child. She is quite possibly mortified that this has happened.

Reading the title I was hoping for some kind of underground gambling movement where toddlers fight to the death*. Properly disappointed.

Add 'pressure of self image' and There's a career for you in psychology AND sociology.

As a child I often had visions of black people talking in a barber shop in That London. Turns out I was possessed by Desmonds.

I thought it was going to be like that 'bumfights' thing too.

There was a case a few years ago of idiot parents forcing their toddlers to fight each other for their entertainment.

I can't find a link now, though.

Sure you're not thinking of a sketch in Blue Jam? That's what I thought of when I read the title of the thread.

Ha!
I had a go a Tae ages ago, but I wasn't bendy enough. It's been ages since I did any martial arts at all - the one in blue could probably kick my ass

I've done taekwondo ages ago too!

Oh, that toddler fight thing was this year, I'm sure. It was in like bradford or somewhere.

The missus did Taekwondo. She's got some belts, and stuff.