A good lesson or animal cruelty?  

There are probably more humane ways they could have shown him to defend himself from the rooster. I don't really know anything about roosters. Would it be bad for it to get a spray with the hose?

It does seem cruel that he hit the rooster, and it probably isn't the best idea to teach a child to hit animals that bother him. It doesn't work all the time with all animals.

Personally, I would rather get rid of the rooster and get a new one than let it terrorize my son, and vise versa.

I hate a flogging rooster, they are territorial, and the rooster for what ever reason decided that boy was a threat. Once they do there is no other way to make a dang rooster stop its attacts unless its the chicken pot on the stove. And thats exactly what my mother would do when we were children and we had a rooster that would not let us into the hen house! So the tap with the boys sword is just comical. The rooster should have ended up chicken and dumplins!

Hmmmm.....
This is a tough one!
I think there is a thin line between right and wrong here and this is teetering right on that line.
They COULD have done something diferent but that may not have really fixed the situation.
I dont usually like the idea of hitting and animal.
But I have to put myself in a similarly frighten situation.
IF I were being attacked by say a dog, my first concern would be for my own well-being. And I would probably have to hit the dog.
I think the rooster was NOT the only one to learn a very valuable lesson.
The parents learned to step back and let the boy have a little control in his life.
Josie learned to overcome his fear of the rooster and not be soully dependant on his parents.
My hope is that Josie's parents explained to him that it is not ok to hit animals just to be hitting animals. I hope that they explain why it was ok to hit this particular animal for the sake of protecting himself.

Roosters can be both mean and territorial. The fact that he hasn't bothered the child again doesn't mean he won't so the parents need to be careful. I don't believe in hurting animals, but if an animal started going after my child they wouldn't survive long. In the case of a chicken - it would soon be barbeque.

I think it is a bad idea for any child to be encouraged to be cruel to animals. It would have been much better to have tried to find the source of the problem.

I don't think that is animal cruelty. I would have gotten rid of the rooster though.

cindy

I understand why, but I think that a more humane way of handling it would have been nicer, since I am an animal lover.

I think they did the right thing. A rooster isn't like a dog, cat, horse, etc. You can't really train them. I know, now your going to say what about fighting roosters. Those aren't TRAINED to fight. They just piss them off just enough, attach some knives to their feet and let them go at each other. Anyway, your friend did the right thing as far as the rooster was concerned.

I don't think thats animal cruelty since the animal was obviously in a position to harm the boy, being 3 years old every little thing that he does can hurt him. as long as he doesnt continue to beat the rooster then I dont see that any harm was done

I can see why you had some mixed feelings about the situation. I agree with most of the previous posters saying that there may have been better solutions to the problem.
I don't believe that a three year old can really decipher between right and wrong, especiallly whenever the parents have suggested and/or permitted such behavior. If he were to hit a dog, the dog may have become even more aggressive and it would make things worse.
Personally, I'd have to get rid of any animal that was terrifying my child!
It sounds like Josiah has taught the bird a lesson but his parents might have taught Josiah animal cruelty.