A nasty blow-up is taking place between me and some friends about the fact that my twin 9 yr old sons no longer want to go to theirs to stay overnight - and nor do I want them to stay. They've stayed about twice a year over the last 2 to 3 yrs.
I had tried to do all this without a big show-down by both saying the twins were busy with other things and then, when the friends pushed for a better explanation - that perhaps my sons had outgrown the novelty of staying with this couple, although still enjoyed seeing them.
There have now been several phone messages left by the friends who are 'up in arms' about the situation and who are demanding to talk directtly to my little boys about why they don't want to stay with them anymore.
To me this doesn't feel appropriate. I feel it'd be best for me, as the adult, to sort it out with the other adults and then only at the end perhaps have the children saying their bit. In fact the issues about the friends enforcing their own rules and ideas on my sons without first checking with me that this is OK is right at the centre of me not wanting my sons to stay overnight with them.
I previously posted on here some time ago about these same friends giving alcohol to my sons without my permission and also cups of tea (which they'd also never had), which made one of them vomit copiously. They've driven the children around after they, the adults, have been drinking (alcohol), let one DS stay all day in vomit soaked clothing whilst taking him out and about. They've let them go to the local shops on their own, in the busy city where they live, when my sons have never yet been allowed to cross roads etc independently in a similarly busy city. I feel I should be the one to do these things first with my DCs - not the friends - and do it in my time and in my way, as they're MY children!
The issue for me is not so much that they let or encourage the DCs to do things that I wouldn't but more that they've not discussed anything first with me and checked I'm OK with this. Perhaps worst of all is that they've continued to take a 'parental' role with my DCs even whilst I've been there, in direct opposition to what I've been saying.
One eg is them making DS1 eat everything on his plate, when he was too full to do so and saying if he didn't, he'd have to pay them money. They insisted that he was resisting for psychological reasons. When I intervened and said to DS, as I always do, "only eat what your body tells you you want/ need", the friends became enraged and I ended up paying Ds's 'fine' just to stop the whole horrible situation.
These friends are very controlling but have also been v supportive to me as a single mum. I've continued to let the DCs stay with them as I believed my DSs wanted to go, despite some of my own misgivings but the last 2 times, DCs haven't wanted to stay at all and I've then felt bad about making them go, in order not to upset/ anger the friends. Now I know DCs don't want to go to stay, I don't want to make them.
The friends concerned are an elderly lady of 78 - but who acts more as if she's in her early 60's and her much younger husband in his fifties. She's had children of her own yrs ago but he never has and I've sort of let them off the hook for the way they are because of this. But now the more I think about it, the more it feels as if they want parental control of my DCs (there are LOTS of other incidents exemplifying this) but in a way that is obviously detrimental to my sons.
Is 9 yrs old (one has Asperger's traits BTW) too young to become involved with the current dispute or should I let DCs tell the friends what they really think? The friends are highly likely to express their anger and upset v freely and be emotionally manipulative and try to get DCs to say what they want them to say.