1 child families + holidays + I don’t want to watch your kids

I don't see why a 7 yo needs watching. I think it's nice if someone wants to play with your kids, and I'd assume they welcome that as it happens alot so the more the merrier. I'm being a but facetious but if you already have 4, what's one more!

Im not a cold hearted bitch, I had 4 kids so I wouldn’t have to entertain them all the time and I get that there are a number of reasons someone may only have 1 child. But that doesn’t mean I want to look after them on my holiday.

Seems like you don't want to look after your own on 'your' holiday either ! ' I had 4 kids so I wouldn't have to entertain them all the time ' 🤣 why stop at 4 ? Have 8 then each one would have a partner and you wouldn't have to watch any of them ever !

As a side note - someone doesn't have ONLY 1 child , they have 1 child , there is no ONLY about it. ONLY implies that it is less than , which it is not.

Thank you, this perfectly articulates what I meant. Of course we didn't raise our only DD to think she had to share EVERY item she owned, which is what some posters seem to have interpreted me as saying! 🙄

I agree on the autonomy point but it depends on the context. It's fine for kids to have special toys and treats that they don't want to share, but they can't use those things to lord it over others. Our rule is that we don't eat treats in front of others unless we're sharing them/they're having something too and we don't play with toys in front of our friends unless we're happy to share.

When DC1 was younger, I ended a playdate early because the host child wouldn't let him touch any of his toys and the mother didn't intervene.

I agree with this. My DD had a particular 'item' back in the mid noughties that she hadn't used/played with for about a year. DH took it upon himself to GIVE said item to a little girl DD had been playing with on and off for a few days just because DD hadn't used it/played with it for awhile! She was 1 year younger than her (DD was 8 and the girl was 7,) and she had only known the girl for 2 weeks!

DD went batshit. It was a Christmas gift 3 years earlier and it was HERS. DH had the mindset 'well she didn't pay for it - we did!' Dopey eejit. It was HERS!

He said DD was being unreasonable and bratty. I disagreed, and told him I would be going to that child's house later to get the item back. Before I could do it, her mother came round and said 'Hi fortnight, I'm sorry to ask this but did you give this to Anna? It's got to be worth quite a lot of money.' I told her what had happened, and she happily gave it back. Not sure what her DD said or did when she got back having taken said item back, but it was 100% DD's and NOT DH's to give away!

And yeah, you're right. children have the right to autonomy and the right to say 'that is MINE, I don't want to share it, or give it away!'

What does SEN have to do with it? I have 2 x dcs (one is ND) and they both have dh, and my undivided attention. We wouldn't need an only dc for that to be the case.
Also, it is okay for children to have some things that they don't want to share. Special toys/possessions should be put away when other children come over to play and left at home when they go somewhere else. Teaching your child that others should respect their possessions, and not advocating force sharing is good.

I'll never forget when a friend came over, and my child and hers, were playing with a toy. Her child ran off with my dc's toy, wouldn’t let him play with it, and then mu dc got upset, and she reprimanded my dc for "not sharing!" He was a year younger, and it was his toy, there is definately a balance!

7 is very young, they need watching imo, in a busy pool area with lots of people you don't know.

I don't see why a 7 yo needs watching. I think it's nice if someone wants to play with your kids, and I'd assume they welcome that as it happens alot so the more the merrier. I'm being a but facetious but if you already have 4, what's one more!

It’s all well and good to say they aren’t ’asking’ you but sometimes you are left with no choice. In my most recent experience, a child whose parents fucked off and left him unsupervised at the pool for several hours so couldn’t be found to be told to take responsibility for their child near the water in a foreign country, and kept encouraging my younger child to break rules he had up until this point been following so required additional supervision.

I don't see why a 7 yo needs watching. I think it's nice if someone wants to play with your kids, and I'd assume they welcome that as it happens alot so the more the merrier. I'm being a but facetious but if you already have 4, what's one more!

What does SEN have to do with it? I have 2 x dcs (one is ND) and they both have dh, and my undivided attention. We wouldn't need an only dc for that to be the case.
Also, it is okay for children to have some things that they don't want to share. Special toys/possessions should be put away when other children come over to play and left at home when they go somewhere else. Teaching your child that others should respect their possessions, and not advocating force sharing is good.

I'll never forget when a friend came over, and my child and hers, were playing with a toy. Her child ran off with my dc's toy, wouldn’t let him play with it, and then mu dc got upset, and she reprimanded my dc for "not sharing!" He was a year younger, and it was his toy, there is definately a balance!

Confusion, I think!

Was the OP in Australia?
Or was this another family?

Sorry, must be me who missed something.

No only parent I know carries a chip. But we do get regularly and repeatedly fucked off because of the ignorant and sweeping generalisations made by parents of multiples about our 'lonely' DC and our parenting abilities.

Well, lucky I can answer that. They were on holiday in Australia. But to be honest I would have felt the same anywhere - pissed off that the parents thought it was appropriate to leave their child for others to parent for a significant amount of time.

I get where you're coming from. My DD has friends with SEN younger siblings and it's been really hard on them. They envy DD because she has our undivided attention (albeit when she wants it – she's a teen now and mostly in her room!). But equally we've probably been harder on her to buck the stereotype of spoiled brat – she doesn't get everything she asks for and when she was little we instilled it in her that she had to share her toys etc.

In your experience, maybe, but not in mine. My only child dd was never really the one pursuing other kids on holiday. Other kids did tend to pursue her, including kids with siblings. I know other one-child families where the dynamic has been similar. If you think only children are more likely to attach themselves to other families, it's probably just confirmation bias - you notice it more when they're only children because of your preconceived ideas about them.

Of course, only children like to play as much as other children, but kids with siblings like to make friends outside of their family group as well. I think these stereotypes arise be a the parents of multiples often assume that only children will be lonely and that they will therefore need to seek out other kids in order to be happy. However, the parents of only children often tend to interact with their kids in a different way, and the kids are often more than happy to spend their holidays with just their parents.

My dd was always very sociable and she had loads of social interaction with kids when we were at home and holidays were supposed to be about our time as a family. We didn't need other people's children to entertain her in the slightest.

What are "holiday in jokes?" I'm intrigued.

My 2 are similar, they get lost in their own little games. Dc1 is ND, and will love chatting to another kid for awhile, but then easily gets bored/or realises they're on a different wavelength, and politely tells them finished playing. I just wish the parent would get the memo when their dc is still repeatedly hanging around, and pestering dc1.

Unless they're on holiday in Australia that is probably irrelevant too.

I've spent a lot of time in Australia and yes, the safety level regarding pools is much higher than in the UK and probably European countries too. The homes I know with pools in back yards have sturdy fences with a child-proof gate too.
Australians are to be applauded for it.

Under eights must be accompanied by an adult here in the UK. However, a couple of my DC were extremely competent swimmers by that age.