I’m failing as a parent here because I really don’t know where the boundary is.
my DD (8) has a friend (8) who really behaves badly, like all the time. On play dates, she is rude, never says please/thank you, throws things, breaks things (in my house) will have meltdowns and cry literally like a baby over the smallest things. Demands food then won’t eat it, defies rules when we’re together. Just everything annoying you could possibley think of in a child.
I’m ADHD, single mum & can get triggered when im overwhelmed. She came over for a play date yesterday and pushed me beyond my limits. I get a splitting headache whenever she’s around.
the mum is a good friend of mine, and I’ve tried speaking to her about it and suggesting small edits to how we parent in the pretence that we’re both fumbling through this journey. For example I suggest encouraging her to model using word when daughter cries instead of tears, or encouring our children to put on their own shoes (this child refuses to get dressed alone). My friend insists that my daughter is just as bad (she really isn’t) but I say yeah yeah, so as not to offend and to let them be as they’re finding their way in the world. I just disagree with this and feel that the girl plays up because the mum never models good behaviour.
Here is where everyone will shoot me…, my friend says she suspects her now to be SEN/autistic which would make sense - only SUSPECTS, not diagnosed. My daughter IS diagnosed with SEN.
But now my daughter accepts this awful behaviour when they’re on play dates and I don’t think my daughter should be putting up with this. One time this girl refused to wipe her bum after a poo and asked me to do it (our house). I explained that I wasn’t going to touch her body as it was private and that she ought to wipe herself or pull up her pants and deal with it at home. She screamed and cried for me to do it but I kindly declined as o didn’t think it was right to touch her, after all I wouldn’t be comfortable with someone doing it to my daughter at 8. After a few minutes all was quiet. When I went to check, my daughter, was wiping her bum for her. I pulled daughter aside and said ‘honey. That’s not your responsibility but your friends’ but my daughter said she would do it as she has special needs (not diagnosed, mind).
I told the mum and she said she thought it was fine as that’s what friends should do…. 🤯
help me, I want to guide my daughter and I don’t think she should be putting up with this in a friendship.
if I am wrong then please tell me gently.