Time to splash the father
You can tell the people in here thinking it’s ok to retaliate like that are people that live alone with cats or in their parents basement with cats. I have cats and children. Y’all this isn’t the way to go about this.
It’s water, get over yourself
pours a basin of water over you
At 10 they should know better. Now, I don’t know the dynamic of this “neighborship”, and pettiness is not the way to go about anything. At the same time though, it’s only water.
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If my kid did that, I’d let you splash them again.
Seriously my first thought if I saw this all occurring and my kid came complaining to me about it is I’d just say “well this is how the cat feels”
Truly cannot conceive of any other appropriate response. My kid’s an asshole sometimes, better he get gentle lessons now.
ESH. Kid shouldn’t have done it, but also the lady shouldn’t let the cat outside
I just assumed she might be British due to spelling/tone. Cats have been around here for about 1,600 years and it’s considered fairly normal to let them out.
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You’d punch her over a harmless bit of water? Helicopter much?
Children famously not traumatised by quick-to-violence rage parents.
I doubt you would, and I’m interest in seeing how you perceive water being thrown in a child as traumatizing, when it isn’t considering traumatizing to do it to an animal. Please fire up your brain cell and let me know tough guy.
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What a gentleman.
Ah what happened? I missed it between my comment and them deleting all of theirs. Boo lol!
If someone intentionally caused harm to any of my cats, I live near a large national forest, and once you get a few hundred yards off a trail, no one is going to find a body.
Yep you harm a hair on my cats head, my vengeance will be swift and brutal
Speciesism
I’ll take things that never happened for 200$
I like to imagine she had the basin of water handy in that moment.
Dollars two hundred.
Yes, no 10 year-old ever threw water at a cat.
“Next time it won’t be water”.
Bullets?
Cat piss
A bucket of bullets does not sound that threatening. A bucket of battery acid, tepid water, or mud, a bit more. Although I would not recommend escalating stuff in general, people fucking around pets needs that sometimes.
Let’s start with feces, John Wayne.
There’s a difference between justice and revenge
Yep. There’s also a difference between “fuck around and find out” and a 1978 Ford Pinto, since we’re just stating obvious things here…
That’s true, but in what spirit are you making that observation here?
In this case, they go hand in hand
If my neighbor did ANYTHING to my pets, they’d be lucky to only get sprayed with water.
Yeah but with a ten year old, talk to their parents first. You want to drench a child without their consent? Okay but they had better be in an environment that can explain to them that this is a tit for tat type thing. A ten year old doesn’t understand a lot of things and it’s not up to the child to perform what we expect them to. Do they need to be corrected, yes. Does doing it so callously benefit anyone? Only a bully. There’s a huge difference between constructive discipline and just straight up punishment. It takes an adult to know the difference.
talk to their parents first
This is key. It’s one thing to stop a child from harassing your pet. If you “teach them a lesson” after the fact without the parents’ permission, there are now two wrongs that need to be dealt with.
Ten-year-olds understand quite a lot of things. They don’t always think before they act, but they would absolutely understand this object lesson.
It’s water. It’s not harmful. Getting splashed with water is most ten-year-olds’ idea of a good time in most scenarios.
Is this the most constructive way to go about teaching a kid how to behave properly? No.
Is this going to scar the average kid for life? Also no.
Good job making assumptions for your own argument.
I could take shit from people to some extent but if it is my pets, I am putting a smile on that face
I personally can take all kinds of shit because I know my limits. As my pets sworn caretaker I have to do everything in my power to protect them from physical and mental stress, so i won’t let them take any abuse from anyone. Frankly my pets rank higher than a lot of humans in my life and are treated accordingly, I think a lot of people feel that way tbh.
How DARE you interact with my poor, helpless cat, who I lovingly toss outside to slaughter songbirds, pick up parasites, and maybe get flattened by a car. I don’t generally give a single solitary shit what happens to it out there, but this splash of water is TOO FAR.
Edit:
Please stop letting your cat out. It’s not good for your cat or the local wildlife.
https://daily.jstor.org/environmental-danger-outdoor-cats/
https://www.bbc.com/news/scienceenvironment-21236690p
On one side, I like to prank cats. on the other, I hate other peoples children.
I think most people just have no idea how terrible outdoor cats are for native wildlife. It should be illegal, just like how you can’t let your dog wander around freely.
blocked, mauuu
As a parent, if my kid did that, I’d likely side with the neighbour. I would put it (very loosely) in the category of “natural consequence” punishments.
It fits the crime, it discourages the crime, it forces empathy with the cat, and it does no real harm.
I think it depends a bit on where the cat is. If my cat is in somebody’s yard and the owner does not like it, it’s perfectly fine to spray my cat with water. In fact I do the same to my neighbours cat to prevent cat fights. If my cat is on neutral territory, I would be more pissed.
Agreed, there are 1001 context points that could change things around, one way, or the other.
This is my favorite answer. I’d argue that he got less than the natural consequences of his actions. In nature, when one assaults another, even with something as harmless as water, it’s usually reasonable to interpret it as a threat, the response to which is usually violence. That kid is lucky he didn’t get a face full of claws. I’ve gotten a lot worse from gently touching cats that, as it turned out, didn’t want to be touched. Boundaries are important.
Natural consequences doesn’t mean “law of the jungle” here. It just means linking cause and effect in a proportionate manner.
I tend to use a lot of “natural consequence parenting”. Basically, the response should flow from the cause. If you throw water over your friend, you can’t then complain if they throw water over you. You learn that, while it’s fun when expected, it can be deeply unpleasant when unexpected.
It’s a lot more effective than random generic punishments. The trick is shielding them from excessive results, while allowing proportional ones to play out. E.g. swinging on a chair will get a warning, but often not stopped. When they fall, there’s an “I told you so” before/with the cuddle. If there is a risk of a more serious injury however, e.g. the corner of a table where their head may hit, then I step in and stop things.
I don’t have kids but this is pretty much how my dad raised me. It made me really respect when he gave me a hard no for something, it meant “no really the risk majorly outweighs the reward” and even if I didn’t understand it at the time I trusted it. I got a lot of I told you so after varying seriousness of injuries lol. Eventually I learned that the soft warning meant I was going to have a lot of fun but I needed to be ready for if it went sideways. Now I’ve got a pretty healthy sense of my own limits and when to start gauging risk/reward
That’s basically the goal I’m aiming for. It’s also worth remembering to always give an (age appropriate) explanation with the “no”. If you’re using a hard no, then there is something they don’t yet understand. Explaining it lets them integrate that knowledge into their future risk management.
The only downside is their confidence is high enough to terrify me! The job of containing and shaping that confidence, without damaging it gives me plenty of grey hairs.
It’s not really about the proportion. The rest you have right. Things (good or bad) may happen as a result of your behavior (good or bad). Those things are natural consequences. We talk about it a lot in the context of punishing behavior, but natural consequences can also reinforce behavior. Of course, if we design those consequences, they’re no longer natural.
As a native social media pedant, I’d just like to take a moment to split hairs and point out that’s the literal definition of that phrase.
With all that said, I’m glad you’ve taken that approach. They’re very lucky to have you. I wish I could’ve had more adults like that in my life as a child. Here’s to you and your contribution to supporting the next generation. May they pass on those values, too.
That’s why I clarified. There’s 2 ways to read the phrase, one a lot harsher than the other.
It seems to be working well. It also results in me being surprised a lot of the time. I’m ready to deal with a scuffed knee, or a bruised ego. Instead they either get back up and try again, or just pull it off. At that point I need to mentally correct for their new capabilities.
The key thing is, I’m not looking after a small pet, I’m training a future adult. They need to both instinctively understand how the world works, while packing as much awesomeness and magic into the formative years as possible. Letting them learn and practice is a big part of that.
I like that approach. But when the parent only has their kid’s half of the story, it’s understandable why they would be pissed. I think most of us would be. Why did they do that to my kid? I’d want answers amd I wouldn’t be happy about it.
I suspect most kids who would throw water at a cat like that would not be very good liars about it. Also, adults tend not to dump water on kids for no reason. I would definitely take the time to pick apart what happened, before going full papa bear mode.
I might be pissed, but my instinct would be to find out who I should be pissed at first, before going on the war path.
I agree with you personal. I meant more that people are irrational and if dad comes out back and the kid is soaked and crying, the kids most likely going to say idk she did this to me for no reason
Many people are not like that.
Unfortunately so. I know I’m slightly weirdly wired.
My neighbors daughter had one of those water guns. I told her if she shoots at me, I’ll get the hose and retaliate. She grinned, shot at me, and ran away laughing.
I talked to her dad, he nodded, and when she came back for more mischief, she got wet.
