Active discussions

Help protect children from gaming harms.

Take our survey

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to expect a child I'm looking after to follow my rules

33 replies

GooseyLoosey · 02/04/2007 11:13

Ok - this is the scenario.

Unexpectedly ended up looking after a friend's 3 year old for the day. I have a 2yr old and a nearly 4 yr old.

Friend doesn't really have any rules and gives into her dc's every whim. I by contrast have quite a lot of rules.

I started by being more liberal with visting child than I would be with my own, but after a while I could see my dcs were puzzled by this so I changed tack.

The result was that when I refused to by chocolate in a shop for the visiting child, it sat on the pavement outside and screamed - tbh, I was not totally sure how to deal with this. I would have ignored mine and moved to about 10ft away but felt I couldn't do this, so entered into negotiations to provide chocolate at home. There were similar events at several points through the day, another one involved dh telling child 3 times that the stones in the garden had to stay there and not in the kitchen - after the thrid time of being ignored, he shut the backdoor and said no playing outside for a while which again resulted in tantrums.

It was clearly upsetting to the child to suddenly become subect to rules and I wonder if I was too harsh. On the otherhand, my dcs clearly thought it was unfair that they should be subect to rules that this child was not. Tbh I'm not sure how well I handled it and that I didn't let my friend down with my treatment of her child - what does anyone else think?

OP posts:
fennel · 02/04/2007 11:25

We have a similar situation, I often look after my sister's children and they have a very different approach to parenting. We wrote up a list of House Rules (my dds love it, they keep adding to it) and visiting children get treated to a rendition of house rules and what's allowed or not in our house. It works well, especially with visiting children who may not be used to having to do what they're told at home (she says, trying to put it politely ).

Soapbox · 02/04/2007 11:23

We tend to treat little visitors the same way that we treat any other guests and relax our rules to be welcoming in the time they are in our home.

I don't stand for bad behaviour though - but pulling up on manners and stipulating how things are done is forgone whilst we have visitors.

The reason which I give to my own children for relaxing rules is that it is polite to make people feel welcome in our home and that means that sometimes we do somethings differently when people join our family for a short time

I've never found that they are at all confused in teh long term.

kittywaitsfornumber6 · 02/04/2007 11:22

It's so tricky looking after and disciplining other people's childrne. You don't want to upset them and for them to have a bad time with you. You also don't really know just how much they're taking the piss 'cos you're not mum.

I think you struck a good balance there. I suppose if it is to become a more regular thing then it will be easier as the child will know what behaviour is acceptable when with you.

I think the line I would have taken after a while would be that " we do it like this/don't behave like that". You have your own sanity to think off too!!

Original poster
GooseyLoosey · 02/04/2007 11:22

Enid - didn't take them shopping, just walked to the swings and stopped at the village shop to buy them a balloon each. Shopping with all three would have been beyond me!

OP posts:
Enid · 02/04/2007 11:19

dont go to the shops for a start

edam · 02/04/2007 11:19

I think it's very useful to show children that there are different rules in different places, btw, learning to adjust to different situations is very important.

edam · 02/04/2007 11:18

I think it's fine to say, we have these rules in our house. But it's best if you spell them out in advance - guess you couldn't know beforehand what this child would be upset about. But no way I'd buy a visiting child chocolate if I wasn't buying it anyway!

If you do look after this child again, I'd remind him or her of the rules at the start and again before any likely flashpoints so as you set off for the shops, I'd say 'we are not going to buy any chocolate today, we are going to the shops for x, can you help me find it?' or something.

ScummyMummy · 02/04/2007 11:17

I think your house, your rules. Your mate must know what you're like (and you sound fine to me) and was happy to leave her boy with you and your rules.

Swipe left for the next trending thread