To want to address parenting styles with my oldest friend

Everyone's parenting style is different, everyone thinks theirs is the right way. Sometimes we have to accept that we're all different and if we want a friendship to continue that we figure out ways to make this work.

From personal experience I had this from a family member, believe me, there's absolutely no way of wording this nicely, once those words have left their mouth the hurt is awful.

It's tricky to understand what the issue is. What exactly does "being quite dominating" and "overbearing" mean? It seems like either you're minimising the issue and the child is physically violent, or you're over-reacting to normal behaviour. Trying to take your phrasing at face value, you'll find lots of 5 year olds start getting bossy; your DS will come across that in school too and has to learn to stand up for himself. If he doesn't like the boy then just meet without kids, if he does then gently encourage him to stand up for what he wants. If there's an actual hitting problem then a breezy "I can't meet with the kids because last time Henry kept hitting George, let's do something by ourselves." is enough to make your point and move on from it.

I’d just be busy at half term, Christmas etc and phase out the meet ups.
I’ve got a lovely friend who has a difficult daughter who was hugely rude to mine every time we met, and this approach worked for us. The girls are adults now, haven’t seen each other in years and I’ve retained my friendship with the mum. I suspect she has no idea I managed our way out of the situation.

I ended up shouting at a family member’s child around the same age because of this. He was mean and violent, and would deliberately do things like shove children over or push them off equipment (no SEN before that’s suggested - he’s in sixth form now and NT).

The parents had a ‘boys will be boys’ attitude and if he hurt another child would rush to comfort their son who’d done it, bizarrely, ignoring the other child.

I regret shouting, but, it did dramatically draw to the attention of the parents how his behaviour looked from the outside and they got slightly better at actually telling him off or at least intervening before something happened. However on parent still resents me more than a decade on, I’ pretty sure!

In your case I’d calmly intervene to redirect the boys’ activity, change location (go from home to the park for example) or in the worst case find an excuse to leave early. Hopefully in time he’ll get better, but for now you’ll have to set cleverly set some boundaries around things when they are together.

You’ve said her son is domineering and yours is gentle and quiet but haven’t given any specific ways he has been unkind to your DS. It sounds like 2 very different personality types. Just meet up without the kids. If you do say something to her be prepared to have your own parenting style critiqued.

I agree with your DH - just let the friendship fade out. Don’t inflict a spoilt little bully on your child.

My DC had to endure a bit of that when I was spending time with ‘mum friends’ thinking that was the best thing for them to socialise with other children. Actually they hated it. They told me when they were older that being forced to spend time and days out with bratty precious children was miserable. And chatting mums never observed or policed half of what went on.

This will only get worse as they get older op.

God no! The most you can say is I think the boys have a bit of a personality clash at the moment and my DS is over sensitive so it’s best that we meet up without them.

She may think you are over indulgent with your shy and gentle ds. Maybe others also roll their eyes at your parenting.

Neither of you are wrong but she has his back I guess. Me and dh don’t always share the same idea of parenting and tend to disagree over things. He’s quite strict and I work in a school so I pace my feelings more.

On another note your ds sounds lovely. Reminds me of my ds when he was younger. He still is lovely but not gentle.

You cannot have that conversation with torpedoing the friendship. I have an old school friend who is really important to me, we also have girls the same age, but there’s a personality clash and we don’t parent the same way so rather than critique her which would never end well I just keep suggesting adults only meet ups. They also work better with work and whilst our girls are older our wider group mostly have chaotic toddlers that really limit what you can do. So we do dinners, gigs, pub etc. and it works for everyone. And pretty sure she has absolutely no idea I’m actively avoiding getting the girls together.

Dont intefer with her parenting style. It will only end in your friendship ending. Neither parenting style from what you have decribed is wrong just different. Like both your DS are different.
By all means intefer if you DS isn't happy and you arent happy with the situation or just dont take your DS but the I'm right you are wrong approach isnt the way to go if you want to keep the friendship

I have alot of friends with alot of different parenting style. There is always one child who is more dominating that the other. Over the years that child has changed as others have got more secure in who they are. Some children are the leaders of the pack some are the followers. Thats how it goes with adults too. As long as noone is getting hurt I'd let them work it out

I feel you have 2 options here.

1. Try to always find a reason where you’d meet up the two of you (perhaps a school day, because obviously your son is too busy weekends at clubs/at grandparents house and attends camps during school breaks).
2. Meet up as a four, intervene and make it known you won’t have your child feeling nervous around her ds. If she gets defensive calmy explain what happened and await her response.

This is quite a common dynamic i think. Parents with strong/dominant children and parents with shy/gentle children don't really understand the situation the other one finds themselves in. In most cases both children need to work on something - the shy child needs to learn to be more assertive and the dominant child needs to learn to collaborate more in playing etc. The worse thing you can do is to take a stance of "the other parent and child are wrong " which it what it sounds a bit like to me when I read your post. It's a difficult situation and it would be a shame to lose a long friendship over it. Hopefully you can raise your concerns without coming across as critical so not to get your friends back up.
Both children are young so hopefully things can be worked through

Can you suggest adult only meet ups? You could say you want a chance for a proper catch up without interruptions or you would like to let your hair down or whatever works. If she pushes back, you could say a bit more e.g. the boys are at that age where they are hard work together.

I don't think she will respond well to criticism about her parenting, and equally she might have views on your parenting that could lead to upset. Generally all parents think their way is best, as they want to do right by their children.

The thing with having "different parenting styles" between parents it is always assumed that the parent with the "stricter style" is in the right, and the more relaxed parent is some how lazy and just let's her child do what they want, which is not always the case. Some parents that are more firm can be more uptight about a lot of things and project that onto their children, which can cause further problems later down the line.
Unless her approach is resulting in actual physical harm, then I would leave well alone, and don't be so quick to assume your way is the right way.

Not unreasonable to want to, but I suspect the only impact it'll have is you won't be meeting her for lunch ever again.

Another option could be to not have the conversation until it happens again. Then say, “are you going to intervene or shall I?”

If she tries to brush it off, that would be your opportunity to explain why her child’s behaviour is unacceptable. The example would be immediate and unavoidable. You could also explain that if he is allowed to continue, nursery/ school will not be a happy experience for him.

i wouldn’t try to talk to her about it. In your post you are focussed on what she is doing wrong and have created a long psycho analysis of her and what has led to her behaving like this. That’s not a good place to start a discussion from. Instead, if you want some kind of resolution, focus on the specific behaviour each time and be there kindly but very firmly intervening for your son.

Agree with your DH.
Do not say anything. If you can’t bear to lie, be honest - ‘I’m a bit nervous about the boys getting on after last time, my ds was really upset so I think it’s best to give it more time at the moment sorry!’ And leave it at that. But I probably wouldn’t as it won’t end well!!!

Absolutely this.

I think there's ways around this that don't involve having a big conversation about parenting styles.

It's absolutely OK for you to intervene in a situation if she won't and her kid is getting out of hand, but it doesn't necessarily mean you need to "tell off" their kid. You can intervene positively. You can set boundaries in a calm but authoritative way, you can use humour, you can redirect the kids to a different activity if what they are doing isn't working well. Kids crave an adult "taking charge" - they want to feel safe. They want to have someone giving them instructions. Sometimes you have to just step in and do the parenting that she isn't, but it can be done in a positive way.

Your friend will learn from watching you and how you hold yourself around the kids. You can communicate how you parent just by showing her, not by having to have a big conversation about it that would probably only end up in her taking offence.

Also you can limit where you meet up - I have a friend who I will only meet up with outdoors as I find her kids frankly bonkers in my house and it feels stressful, but we have a great time outdoors.

You can never criticise anyone’s parenting or their driving. It never ends well

Just meet without the children. They are only 5, they have a long way to go. When they are 10, it could be a totally different picture.

If her DS is particularly domineering / aggressive, she will get the message eventually as nobody will want their kids playing with him and it will be an issue at school. This is just a point in time.

Don’t mention anything, it won’t end well. However, advocate for your child, so if her dc is being rough , selfish etc, don’t be passive and step in.

As others have suggested, meet without the children. Your husbands suggestion of letting this longstanding friendship to fade is a bit draconian. Makes me think he doesn’t like her. Maybe at a push put it on a slight back burner, but don’t relinquish it altogether.

if you want to meet up with the kids, meet in neutral territories, such as the park. I always think it’s harder to intervene when you’re hosting, or the guest, but not in neutral areas.

Obviously, do NOT meet up with her with her child, your duty is to protect your own child.

So either you see her minus the kids or you move on from the friendship, or you instigate World War III by bringing it up.

(Sorry didn't mean to quote.)

I wouldn’t, it’ll torpedo the friendship. Ask me how I know!

The strongest you might get away with imo would be “Gosh, Bob and Johnny were really at sixes and sevens last time we got together - let’s give them a break and go out one evening just us?”