Is it ever OK to discipline someone else's child? Talking Honey weighs in
By 9Honey Parenting|
Whether you're a mum, dad, grandparent or carer, there is no topic more hotly debated than raising kids. Welcome to Talking Honey Parenting.
We've all been there - you're at the playground, and your outing is suddenly ruined by another child's poor behaviour.
The mood switches from calm to chaos as one kid, or a group of kids, get in others' space, push in line, act aggressively or tear around the little ones. ?
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More often than not, this behaviour either goes unchecked by their parents, or said parent is nowhere to be seen.
And that begs the question, is it ever ok to step in and discipline someone else's child??
In this week's segment of Talking Honey Parenting, Nine Presenter Jayne Azzopardi joined Today Extra host David Campbell, AFLW star Moana Hope and 9Honey writer Nikolina Koevska Kharoufeh to discuss the controversial topic.
For Hope, herself one of 14 kids, shocked the panel after admitting she'd felt like fighting another child before.
"It happened to me two weeks ago. I was at the park with my daughter and she was playing on those bouncy trampolines and this kid who must have been two years older, this little boy, started jumping at her, to make her fall," she shared.
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"And he made her fall and then he was trying to jump on her. In that moment - don't judge me for this, I was like 'I'll fight a kid'."
However, Hope, who is mum to Svea, two and Ahi, nine months, said despite her 'protective' instincts, she didn't believe it was her job to teach other children right from wrong.
?Campbell, who is dad to son Leo and twins Billy and Betty, disagreed, saying he not only felt compelled to rectify other kids' behaviour, he hoped others would do the same for his own.
"If you have to go down to their level and go 'hey, we don't do that here', or 'we don't touch, grab, hit', if that freaks that other kid out, that's ok," he explained.
"But I have to protect my kid and the boundaries of my kid."
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Kharoufeh agreed, adding she had spoken with her toddler's daycare educators to ask they discipline her son so there was consistency in the approach across the week.
But when it came to calling another child a bully, the panel were unanimous that was unfair. ?
"There's no need for that, were trying to all exist in a society and teach our kids to be better," Campbell said.
For Hope, Campbell and Koevska Kharoufeh's take on who and in what situations it may be ok to step in, watch the video above.
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