Maybe this is a cultural thing, or maybe I’m just the odd one out here, but you’re way overthinking it. I particularly disdain drawing a no means no corollary between some horseplay with a nephew in the pool and rape. Really? :rolleyes:
Obviously I wasn’t there, and I don’t know the dynamic between you and your nephew, but to me a nephew + an uncle in the pool pretty much = mucking about and general horseplay. If I had to beg and grovel and apologise everytime I pissed off one of my nephews when we were horsing around in the pool I would’ve worn out the knees in several pairs of pants by now. On contemplation, my only qualifier is if your nephew is not comfortable in the water, then perhaps an apology is in order.
It’s not horseplay when someone says no but someone bigger and more powerful forces the action on them against their will - it’s bullying at best and assault at worst. If they had a history of pranks and such, that would be one thing. But they don’t.
I disagree totally. It’s perfectly possible to play without overpowering a child and doing something they don’t want you to do. Granted you might find it hard to understand as someone who pushes his kids into the pool and doesn’t care if it distresses them.
People have said, in this very thread, that similar stunts either left them with a fear of water or would have seriously panicked them at that age. That alone is proof it isn’t harmless fun.
Kids should toughen up a tad bit anyway. Everyone’s trying to turn a brutal and harsh world into a Sesame Street episode and all it hurts is the kids. 24% of young adults still live with their parents. I’ve been tossed off the edge of an old rock quarry into the water, a good 30 ft drop and I didn’t like it either but I didn’t cry about it throughout my life either.
I don’t believe I would’ve done it had there been any actual fear of water or panic involved (at least, I hope so).
One “funny” thing about it was that he wanted me to do it to his little brother too (they’re at the sibling stage where the older wants everything, including attention, the younger has). I explained that it was just wrong of me to do it to either of them, since neither wanted to, but I’m not sure he internalized it, for obvious reasons.
I hate having to feel like I’m on thin ice all the time now, but that’s my own fault.
Anyway, despite the fact that I think you shouldn’t have done it, it’s done so there is no point stressing out about it now. You apologized, and maybe some good can come of this in terms of a learning experience (how its wrong to mess with people just because you can etc.). So move on.
I did care that she freaked out and tried to figure out a way to fix it as soon as the first scream came out of her mouth. I jumped in, got her out and cuddled her while she bitched me out in 7 year old girl style for a while. I let her have at it and apologized but that didn’t really fix things.
You know what did? I told her she could push me into the pool as payback. I walked up to the edge facing the pool and let her run up behind me me to try and push me in. I put up some fake resistance until I knew she was giving it all she had and then I fell in as awkwardly as I could, went under and came up with a couple of fake chokes. She thought that was the funniest thing she had seen all week and things were perfectly fine from then on. She jumped in the pool herself and had a great time.
I am not a big fan of cruel pranks in general but I truly play with my kids as well as other people’s. Sometimes things go wrong inadvertently. I agree with the comment above that it does as disservice to kids if you treat them like they are made of glass unless they really have something wrong with them because the vast majority of them are not. They can get mad if you make a bad assumption or even a simple mistake but that is no reason to think you have to carefully tiptoe around them from then on.
Virtually all swimmers have had the experience of someone dunking them or throwing them into water at some point. It is a mistake to think that is the root cause of water phobias. Sure, some people have true fear of the water and almost all of them can tell you about a time when they had a bad experience like this but so can everyone else. It would be like a former hockey player explaining his new phobia of ice covered surfaces on the fact that he once got knocked down on ice very hard.
I don’t advocate intentionally cruel jokes of any sort on anyone but sometimes things happen and healthy people, especially kids, are a lot more resilient than many people choose to think.
So your kid was clearly unhappy with being pushed in the pool but you don’t see anything wrong with doing it? And your response was to let her push you into the pool and to pretend choke on water for a bit.
Far be it from me to question other people’s parenting, but aren’t you concerned that your lesson was essentially ‘if someone does something mean to you, do it back’? As for pretend choking, good luck if she tries that on somebody who genuinely can’t swim. I would sooner stick with telling my kids not to push people in the water thanks.
So bad experiences with water aren’t the ‘root cause’ of water phobia? You may want to check your psychology with that one. What exactly is the ‘root cause’?
Kids aren’t made of glass, I agree. Neither are adults. But it doesn’t mean that doing stuff to people that they don’t like because you are physically stronger than they are is OK. My rule is that if you would have a hard time justifying why you flipped a weaker adult over in the water (after he repeatedly told you not to) then you probably shouldn’t do it to a kid.
Kids are different, their reactions vary widely. Some will get over it by the time the cock crows, others will carry the memory (not necessarily the anger) into adulthood. I’m sure most of us can recall a childhood memory of an adult being mean to us.
My only advice is to learn from this and not beat yourself up over it.
When my nephew was little he used to like it when I put him on my shoulders and walked/galloped around. Until the doorway incident. He is in his 30s now and has no memory of the event.
I remember when I was probably around 7 or 8 my Uncle B thought I was taking too long to jump off the dock into the water. So he picked me up and threw me in. Ick ick ick, I landed on the silty bottom, even more ick I had seaweed clinging to my arms, and horror of horrors, a crab walked past my foot.
Uncle D took great delight by catching grasshoppers and throwing them at me. Sure to get a scream out of me, I was terrified of them. Then when we went down to the creek he showed me the crayfish he’d caught and how they could pinch. Then he threw a couple of those at me too.
He’s also the one who taught me my numbers by teaching me to play poker, made me laugh by making the car jerk when he shifted gears, and made my stomach flip when he hit the dips in the road.
Every time I’d run to greet my Uncle P, I’d remember too late that he was the one who’d dangle me upside down by my ankles.
Uncle G had a horrible glow in the dark skull and he’d chase me through the house with it while laughing an evil laugh.
Don’t even get me started on the tricks, pranks, and teasing of the older male cousins. Torturing us girls was their biggest pleasure, the louder we screamed the harder they laughed. Seeing them getting yelled out by the parents for making us scream is what made us laugh.
Scare the crap out of me at the time, you bet.
Now I look back fondly and think of them as the fun uncles.
I don’t believe anyone suggested that dunking the kid was akin to rape. Treating other people respectfully, even small people, even when playing, means hearing them when they tell you not to do something.
Kids are tricky of course, because we tell them to do their homework and to be nice to the dog, even if they don’t want us to.
I don’t think the OP did anything most of us haven’t done before in some way. Figuring out when to override the desires of children is one of the hard parts of raising them. Pool dunking is an easy case as the OP obviously learned. I think he’s a great uncle to be so concerned with his nephew’s feelings afterward.
Yes, we are not saying it was akin to rape. We’re saying young people have autonomy over their bodies and should be taught so. Yes, grandma just wants to squeeze those cheeks and kiss the kid and tickle him, but the kid should have the right to, and be empowered to, say no. So that later if someone does try to touch him inappropriately, he knows how to say no. And so that all his life, he knows that his body is his own.
I think it’s a bad thing we teach in the name of adulthood; that any adult can touch you and you just have to put up with it. This is why we complain about tickling when the child is not enjoying it, about pool dunkings, and about forced hugs/kisses.
It’s easy to have a lot of mutual fun with a nephew in a pool without upsetting them.
I’m wary of actions that are fun for one person only (I remember being strangled unconscious in a school playground - the boy who did it said it was just ‘fun’.)
I was playing “tollgate” with my nephew, a Kindergartener, when I was on the couch and he wanted to enter the living room. He bit me and I reflexively lashed out. Didn’t realize that I had hit him until I later heard he didn’t want to come visit his grandparents anymore if I was home.
I found him, apologized, and said that if I ever hurt him he can hurt me back. He found that acceptable.