Would you be upset

[tavia'smom]

She was very spoiled by my dad and never punished for anything. She had a heart murmur and the doctor told dad to not upset her or she would die. She has been spoiled her whole life. When she was a teenager dad finally tried to set some rules and she began hitting him and he even had to call the police on her but he still picks her and she does have a personality disorder she suffers from anxiety issues and from stuff due to past drug use. And she worries way too much about what other people think. As in at a restraunt you can try to have a normal conversation and she is shushing you the whole time and making a scene trying to avoid people looking at her. She will yell at you if you look at a cop car driving by and swear they will come back and she spent some time in jail. That being said I don't think it justifies her treating me as if I were cinderella.

 

[Winchester]

Originally Posted by Willowy

I don't think the child should be punished, as she obviously doesn't know any better. At her age, it would make perfect sense to put the kitty in the drawer for next time, if nobody has ever taught her that kitties shouldn't be closed in drawers. Perhaps if you kindly explained to her next time she comes that kitties don't like to be locked up in dressers, and it made the kitty sad that she got closed up like that, maybe she'd actually learn something, instead of punishing her for something she doesn't understand. That wouldn't teach her anything at all.

That makes sense to me, depending on how old your niece is. Although if your sister is such a witch, it probably wouldn't do any good anyway.

Our grandson will be 5 and our granddaughter will be 3 years old and they've been brought up to understand that cats are living creatures who suffer pain when we do bad things to them. They've been so good around our cats, for the most part.

Except for the one time that our grandson decided to try to kick BooBoo a couple of months ago. It wouldn't have been a hard kick and he missed Boo anyway and he was watching me the whole time, probably trying to figure out what I would do. I did take hold of GS's shoulder and say, "You do not EVER hurt a kitty! EVER! And kicking will hurt him!" He started to cry, but they were just crocodile tears and I think I may have scared him more than anything. But nobody even tries to hurt one of our cats and gets away with it. Not even our beloved grandson. Once he calmed down, GS went over to Boo, petted him, and said, "BooBoo, I'm sorry." On his own...I never said anything. Then he came to me and said, "Grandma, I'm sorry about hurting BooBoo" and gave me a hug.

I think part of it is that they have an adorable HUGE yellow lab that puts up with a lot from both kids. Maggie just adores the children and they can ride her and do anything to her. And she just goes with the flow. (Although our son will tell the kids when they're being too rough with her.) She's the biggest lab I've ever seen in my life. Just a beautiful dog. So the kids are used to rough-housing with this huge animal and they're not really used to small cats.