I truly want to know if I am being unreasonable here.
I have loads of experiences with my primary age children's friends and their parents where their parents don't say no to their children and I then do so.
Examples:
Their primary aged child is breaking my children's toys with intention on a play date, parent says nothing and I have to interject.
Their primary aged child is going through my handbag and my personal belongings (keys, card etc) and their parent just sits there and says nothing so I have to interject and say no and tell the child why.
We are out at a restaurant and their primary aged kid runs about all over causing other customers to look frustrated and also walks round the table we are at and starts eating my dinner from my plate with their hands and parent says nothing. I have to find a way to interject.
In shops/gift shops one primary ages child screams if he can't get what he wants and the parent just buys it for him to stop the screaming. The child now knows that screaming and refusing to leave and throwing things off shelves in shops until he gets what he wants works. When the parents are there too my partner and I just walk away with our children and wait outside after we have for what we want (if we buy anything). If it's just me/my partner without the parents there then I/we tell the child we are looking after (not our own but on a play date) to pick the items up they have thrown on the floor and make clear the child will not be getting any treats if the behaviour continues. It works and the child behaves (for a while at least) but the child's own parents never do this.
At a story time event and children are asked to sit on the rug and listen but primary aged child runs and shouts all round the room spoiling things for the other children and parents say nothing... the person running story time tells them to behave each week and looks frustrated.
I also notice that if I ask a child not to do something and they then ask their parents if they can do it, their parent will say ask X (me!). Well, I've already told them no and the parent heard that but is refusing to reinforce it and simply doesn't want to parent.
I don't want to keep having to say no to their child! I've already said no.
These are just a few small examples but I'm noticing so often. I also notice it falls into two camps in our friendship group. The first are the parents who just want an easy life and don't especially want the 'inconvenience' of their child or dealing with their child's moods and negative feelings etc and the second are the parents who think their children can do no wrong and never say no to them.
Are my partner and I horrid parents for raising our children with boundaries (their own while also respecting other peoples)?
We are surrounded by so many parents who don't say no and their child/rens' behaviour impacts negatively on our kids and us too on days out etc,
These kids are neurotypical and, anyway, it's not about the kids' behaviour here (they are kids!) but rather about the fact we have so many friends who never tell their kids no or stop and so we have to sometimes when impacting on us.
How do you deal with this situation where friends' primary aged kids are misbehaving and it's impacting you directly but their parents don't say a peep?
Also, are we too harsh with our own kids?
Should we let our children run wherever they want, let them go through friends' personal possessions, break friends' toys with intention, leave their own dinner and eat someone else's dinner in a restaurant uninvited because they decided when it arrived they wanted that more?
These are just a few examples.
It's frustrating having to repeatedly put boundaries in place with other people's children while parenting your own simply because their kids have no/few boundaries but, even more so, my partner and I are wondering if we are too strict with our children because we DO have these boundaries in place (we know it's a way not only to respect other people but for our kids to respect themselves and feel healthy and secure. No can be good sometimes!).
Would love to hear thoughts.