Is my brother pushing my nephew too hard?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My nephew, H, is 4 and a half. He’s best friends with a girl aged 5. When I went to visit them, we took the two out for a walk / cycle ride / play. She took the lead in everything and H tagged along. Too late my brother spotted that H was getting tired, and on the way back got tired out and threw a tantrum.

Discussing it afterwards, my brother seemed keen on the idea of pushing H. Now, this girl is 6 months older and is also a girl, which means that at that age she’s more developed than a boy. I’m rather concerned that this was not a good idea: at every stage, he was being shown up; he couldn’t keep up. Especially in front of other members of his family. He’s also having to put up with a new baby in the family.

Is my brother doing the right thing? Is he pushing H too hard?

2

Why on earth does he want to push a four year old on anything?! :frowning: :confused: Just let the kid be a kid, that will keep him fit! Gently encourage him to be active, and play outdoors, (as opposed to vegging in front of the TV most of the time) but don’t make him “workout” to get in shape. As you said, he’s still developing.

3

Well, if he enjoyed the play date, then there should be more. But I’m definitely not in favor of pushing children of that age. He has many, many years to be an adult, with all the accompanying pressures and such. But he has a very short time to be a child.

OTOH, if you’re going to tell your brother this, be very, very cautious how you phrase it. People tend to get defensive when they feel like their parenting skills are being questioned.

4

I’m gonna need more to go on to answer that. From your description of the day I don’t see anyone being pushed to do anything. You said the boy tagged along and followed his friends lead and that his father didn’t realize he was getting tired. I just don’t see any “pushing” in that scenario.

5

Apart from the fact that in discussion afterwards he seemed keen on the idea? And he was pairing a child with another that was developmentally well ahead of him?

6

I don’t understand quite what that sentence means - “seemed keen” doesn’t really make it clear as to what your brother said or did. Right now, I’d agree with Antinor01. You haven’t really described any pushing.

If the threshold for “pushing” is that low, the baby is going to be “pushed” simply by being in the same family as your nephew, as undoubtedly, your brother and his SO are going to have the kids to play together sometimes.

7

I’m not sure what you mean by him being keen on the idea of pushing him, but every kid is going to spend time with other kids who are older and younger than he is, who are ‘behind’ and ‘ahead.’ That’s not a bad thing, it’s just life; you can’t possibly only pick friends who are doing exactly the same thing at the same time and who have the same interests! Even if you found another 4.5 yo-boy who was doing the same physical stuff now, they wouldn’t be the same in 6 months.

It’s fine to spend time with another kid who is doint different things. It’s even fine to wear your kids out, and it’s normal not to always notice when the tipping point arrives. “Pushing” a 4-yo is not OK, but that means forcing him to read before he’s ready or making him run laps. I’m not convinced that your brother is doing that yet.

8

There’s nothing in either paragraph that explains how “at every stage, he was being shown up”, so you might want to expand on that.

Also, pick two young kids of the same age and gender and you can still get one being more physically developed than the other. The fact that they are friends, and that the boy played till he was tired seems to belie any idea that your nephew is being pushed into doing anything.

If anything, you seem to be suggesting that the boy should be held back from playing with his friend? Where’s the benefit in that?

9

From your op:

“My nephew, H, is 4 and a half. He’s best friends with a girl aged 5.”

That rather suggests the kids have paired themselves off.

Also, at the very most, there’s a years gap in age between them. I really don’t see just why there’s a problem here?

10

Out of interest, are you the older brother? Do you have any other siblings?

I ask because the, “He’s also having to put up with a new baby in the family.” line really sounds like projection to me. Actually, the idea that “at every stage, he was being shown up” also smacks of projection as well.

He’s a four year old kid who was having a great time with his mate and got a bit nadgered at the end of it. Which is perfectly normal. He’s having fun, making friends and gaining social skills. Oh, and having tantrums, like most normal and healthy four year olds do.

11

I’m also not sure I agree with your assumption that a 6 month older girl would be more “developed” than a boy. Social and verbally, that’s a good guess. But probably not physically, in terms of gross-motor skills. That is, I’ll take your word for it that this particular girl is more developed, but it’s not a blanket assumption. Boys tend to be a bit ahead of girls at that age. Statistically speaking, I’d have guessed they’d be about even, but there’s a wide range of ability at this age.

Anyhow, I see several issues here:

ONE, is it good for a kid to be the follower? Sure, why not? Some people are leaders (as it sounds this girl is) and some are worker bees. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, and it’s something that will change a dozen times as they grow. If she’s just started kindergarten this fall, she’s probably more exposed to “bossiness” at school and wants to try out that role. This too shall pass.

TWO, is it good for a kid to ALWAYS be the follower? No, probably not. But, in this relationship, she may be the alpha. He should be encouraged to play with other kids other days when he can try on the leader role.

THREE, should kids be paired up or grouped according to age and/or development? To this I offer a resounding NO! Kids learn from each other at least as much as they do from us, and it’s best done in a mixed age environment. If you’re always with people who know and do what you know and do, any innovation comes only from serendipity, and that’s a good way to get stagnant. I despise age grouping in daycare and school. That’s not to say they should never play with age-mates, they should, but they should also play with kids and adults of other ages, abilities, interests and backgrounds.

FOUR, the question in the OP, is your brother pushing your nephew too hard. “Too hard” is hard to define, impossible to identify in one day, and I don’t see evidence of it in the OP. Some kids need to have their boundaries pushed, because they won’t do it themselves. How do you know when it’s too much? When the kid shows a change in personality or coping skills over a period of time. If an outgoing kid becomes shy, or a problem-solver becomes helpless, or a generous kid becomes selfish, these are signs that the parents are trying to make the kid into something they’re not. An isolated meltdown from tiredness isn’t neglect or abuse. It may be a temporarily flaky parent who was having too much fun and didn’t judge the kid’s capabilities in time. If it’s a pattern, then I might be concerned. If the parent isn’t sympathetic to the kid, (if he yells at him not to be tired, or tells him he’s being a wimp or something) then I might be worried. If he laughs at him, I’d be worried. Maybe some of this happened, and that’s what got you alarmed?

12

My son is 5. His cousin, who he loves madly, is a 4 1/2 year old girl. In some areas, he’s more developmentally ahead, and in some areas, she is. She is rather bossy, and he often follows her when they are playing, but he’s perfectly capable of deciding he’s tired of that and wants to do his own thing. She almost never follows him; when he decides to do something else, she gets my 2 1/2 year old son to play with her.

I don’t see your nephew being pushed into anything. The 6-month difference isn’t all that big; developmentally, they’re pretty close. I’ve watched my son and his cousin play since they were old enough to do so, and each of them decides when they’ve had enough. If they’re tired, there will be screaming involved.

Each kid is different, no matter what the age. My son, the older one, is pretty mellow. My husband’s niece is much more intense and can be very pushy. They get along great though. If your nephew is friends with that girl, then he already knows her personality. If he didn’t like it, he wouldn’t want to play with her.

13

Those were his grandmother’s words.

No, I’m not projecting. I’m relating what seemed to be happenning. She was better than him at everything. And he has a new baby sister. For the past four and a half years, he’s been the centre of attention, and now he isn’t, and he’s got to learn to deal with that.

14

Very true, it’s called life. I was raised by my mother until I was four. It was just her and me, which made me basically the center of her world. Then she got married and had another kid when I was 5. It can suck to go through that, but it’s just part of growing up.

Perhaps I’m just being obtuse here, but I still don’t know what you mean by ‘pushing’. Are you saying that H’s father makes him play with this girl and tries to force him to keep up with her? Earlier you mentioned that the father is pairing the boy with the older girl. Do you mean that there are other kids he could be playing with but his dad keeps him apart from the others in an attempt to make him be as good at things as she is? If either of those two are the case, I agree that doesn’t sound healthy. Otherwise it just sounds like normal kid interaction.

15

A couple of small points about your interpretation, first. Gross motor skills develop equally between boys and girls. That is not what happen. Second, 1 year is a huge difference at that age. More than the 25% between a 16 year old and a 20 year old. Little kids develop so fast that you can see changes month to month. I would expect a 5 year old girl to have much more stamina than a 4 year old boy, even if he is bigger than she is. I would expect her to be faster, talk more, etc. He wasn’t been shown up. They were perfectly normal. The tantrum was hardly unusual, either. I wouldn’t expect it of a 5 or 6 year old, although, it could happen with a new baby or some other circumstance.

When you say your brother was “keen” on pushing him, what do you mean? Did he just want his son to walk the walk, so to speak? Did the boy throw a tantrum because he wanted to be carried, and dad wouldn’t? Was this walk twice as far as he would normally go, or just the usual distance?

16

It’s a six month age difference. The boy is 4.5 years old, the girl is 5.0 years old. :wink:

17

Still, a big difference. Like I said, you can see a month to month change in their abilities.

Somehow, I missed WhyNot’s post. What she said.

18

I don’t see what is pushing about it either unless the father found him an older woman on match.com just so that he could show him up.

Pushing would be making him take karate lessons and spare against 7 year olds just to toughen him up or grounding him when his pre-school artwork comes home looking like crap.

19

It must suck for him, but I don’t think his father is pushing him too hard if that’s all he’s dealing with.

I think you sympathize with your nephew, seeing the stressors in his life that your brother may not see. Which is sweet. But I don’t think the brother is doing anything wrong. He would be totally coddling his son if he kept him from “being shown up”. Sometimes you can be shown up by someone who’s your exact age and size (try being the “slow” twin like I was :wink: )…and you just gotta suck it up and deal.* And temper tantrums must be always dealt with firmly, even if they are understandable. So I say lighten up on bro.

It could be that the little boy didn’t even know he was being “shown up”. Competitiveness doesn’t develop until later in life. Unless the little girl was rubbing in his face at how “slow” he was, I say don’t worry about the interaction so much.

*When his little sister is four and he’s eight, he’s going to be on the other side of the “showing someone up” game. So his time to shine will come all in due time. :slight_smile:

20

Well, it seems that the consensus is that my brother isn’t pushing H too hard, and I’m glad.