Has anyone had a 4 year old be abusive to your pets? How do you make it stop? My son got caught…

Maybe just talk to him and be over dramatic about how animals are our friends and we love them so much and they are so soft to pet and teach him the right way to pet them and explain to him we can't hit them because they are our friends and we can't hurt our friends.

Also at 4 babies usually just want to make mama proud and happy so if he hits them let it show that you disapprove but also when he pets them nicely make sure to praise him little boys love hearing good job from their mama. I'm not an expert or anything that's just what I've learned working at the daycare with that age group. Praise goes a long way at that age

Oh ok thanks @Liz41395 weve told him time and time again it's not right even when he's all in his face because when we aren't around he ends up with scratches on his arms sometimes face because he messes with the cat but still hasn't learned his lesson so I'll try that and hope it works

No problem like I said I'm not an expert by any means all of us mamas are still trying to figure this out. At least we have each other lol

I had an issue with my almost six year old and our cat when he was around that age. As bad as it sounds, punishment was the only way to get him to stop. He wasn't allowed to so much as touch the cat for a while without a swat on the hand or time out. Lots of tempertantrums and spankings and scratches later, he proudly tells me "look momma, I'm being nice to kitty." and "see momma, she loves me because I'm being nice." I had to be very strict for a while and not allow them to be unsupervised. Sometimes he will still chase her with a toy or throw something if she is annoying him and I have to take away whatever toy it is and put him in time out. Toys that can't be played nice with get put above the closet until he is ready to play with them the right way. Sitting down and talking to him was only a temporary fix for us, aka, for as long as it was fresh on his mind before he got worked up again and was back to terrorizing her.

Yes that is so true @liz41395 and wow that sounds exactly like my son when he's bring nice to the cat he shows me and I say good keep it that way but last night was the worst I think I'm not even sure if he's done worse and we didn't see so this morning I told him if he hits the cat anymore he'll go to jail because that's not nice and he just stared and said ok I won't do it again I told him to leave him alone today so we will see @babyreeves