To ask, how do you challenge a friend about their DCs behaviour without falling out with your friend?

[Cherriesarelovely]

I am talking about one DC in particular who is a very longstanding friend of my DC and I am a close friend of her DM. Both of our children are 8. My friends DC is very challenging and this situation has been going on for a very long time but has come to a head in recent weeks.

My DC had a small birthday party a week ago. Friends DC totally dominated the party with constant whining, demanding and tantrumming. Complaining if others won games and then when she won throwing her prize across the room and declaring it "rubbish".

Not wanting to get cross at my DCs party I took other DC aside and talked to her calmly and firmly about her behaviour but it continued. When her other parent arrived (I'm less close to this parent than the DCs mum) the horrible behaviour continued now witnessed by her parent and parent sighed and almost laughed.

When they left my DC was really upset about the friends behaviour and said it had ruined the party, it kind of had. I felt like calling my friend and telling her but I couldn't bring myself to...feel so gutless about this. This is not the first time this DCs behaviour has spoiled events and I am getting really, really fed up with it but I am also fed up with my inability to approach my friend about it.

Is there any "good" way to approach this subject without a huge falling out?

Probably not really. Does she have SN or is she just a brat?

I reckon your dc is probably going to knock that friendship on the head before long - which will save you a job really.

Tbh it's not really the child's behaviour that is the problem but the parents. Any decent parent would take a child home who behaved like that at a friends party - and they would think twice about behaving like that again.
And I don't think there is any way to have the 'your child is a brat because you don't discipline them' discussion without risking the friendship I'm afraid.

i think it would probably end up in a falling out if you talked to the friend about it.

but if you really do want to approach her then how about wording it somehow like "is everytyhing ok with X? she seemed very agitated at the party last week and my DC were quite upset about it afterwards"

otherwise I think I would start to just socialise with your friend in adult-only situations and cool things between the kids.
Of course if she asks WHY, then I think I would tell her.

Well then I don't think she will get an invite to next years party then, quite right too!

This is really difficult as unless the parents see the difficult behaviour themselves (which they don't appear to in this case) any criticism of their DC will most likely be met with hostility and upset. I would choose to say nothing, as someone further up said your DD will probably wish to disengage from the friendship so you'll see them less anyway. We have friends with a DS who behaves appallingly at our house (no SN). We manage to maintain our relationship by not really having them at each others houses anymore. All unsaid but we arrange outings together instead. It's a shame though and a bit awkward.

I think you've done what you can. You can't change the other child's behaviour overnight, so a drip drip feed indicating that you won't put up with that behaviour may have an effect over time.

A childless friend of mine once told my DS off in my company. I was a bit at first, but when I thought about it, I realised she was quite right in pulling him up for his behaviour and he probably took more notice of her than he would have of me. As I said, she has no children of her own, but was a secondary school teacher, so obviously had a good way of dealing with children.

I honestly do not understand the "modern" belief that only a parent should be able to reprimand a naughty child.

This leads to lots of problems. If the parent is unaware that their child is behaving badly, they wont tell their child off. If nobody else says anything, both the child and the parent continue, assuming that the behaviour is being condoned and is acceptable.

My friends DC is very challenging

no, she is a little brat who needs a good whack on the backside

I'd be tempted to only have the child over if your friend is there too so that you can ask her parent to cope, remove child etc

Is this DC genuinely a friend of your DC, or does he/she end up seeing them because of the parents friendship? It sounds like your DC may well be fed up of it, and is old enough at 8 to phase out this friendship if you support that choice and don't make it sound like they have to be friends.

I reckon by 8 you have to treat the child as separate from the parents - by all means call the child on bad behaviour and don't put up with nonsense. But I don't think involving the parents is likely to be effective, whether or not you are also friends with them.

Bascially - it's not about you, or about the other parents, but it ought to be about what your child actually wants to do, and whether he/she finds this "friend" has passed their sell-by date.

i had this with a very, very good friend.

we were on a long weekend together. she is a single parent.

her elder ds was behaving really, really badly. esp towards her.

after a while of just leaving it to her to deal with, i broached the subject.

said, that i really wanted to support her, and not to interfere, but that it broke my heart to hear her 9yo son talk to her in such a rude way. she said that she would like me to help with some strategies eg not giving in, being consistent etc.

i became quite involved with the ds, stating plainly that his behaviour was unacceptable and that he owed his mum an apology.

he probably hated me, in the short term, but i couldnt just go on being an audiencce whilst my poor friend struggled with rude/ volatile behaviour.

his behaviour was spoiling everyone's weekend and wearing his mother down.

does the friend's dd speak rudely to her mum? would a similar approach help ie asking if it would be supportive if you joined forces when together to help make boundaries clearer.

Walk away slowly, anything else will just lead to ill feeling.

Maybe there is space to comment without passing judgement on their parenting, too late now, but for eg, when their parent arrived you could say something like "oh I'm glad to see you - had to tell your DD off a few times for X, Y, Z. If you could have a word with her as well that would be great."

But you run the risk that they still might be offended!

speak to her frankly and without tip toeing too much
let the parent know that your DC was upset by the behaviour and that you found it tiresome
ask is there anything you can do

be straightforward and that will come across
try not to use weird language like challenging when you mean problem naughty rude unhelpful etc..it only confuses the message
think through what you want to say and be very unemotional..do not let it move into anger on either part

No

Did you invite the badly behaved child because she is a friend of your dd or because you felt you had to because of your friendship with the mother? I think I would avoid inviting this child again and maybe just socialise with the mother separately. That's what I have ended up doing in the past. I have one friend whose dd is very spoilt and badly behaved and she came round to my new house, and one daughter dented the wall by slamming the door, the other dd threw my dd's jewellery box at the other children who were dancing. I decided then not to invite them round again. Not so friendly with the mother now.
As the children get older though, birthday parties tend to be more about your children's friendships rather than the children of your friends.

Why do you all think that the friendship is doomed if OP tells the truth about this child? If DD was behaving like a brat I would want to know about it. I would hate to think that people would pussyfoot around and not mention it for fear of me kicking off.

If it was my friend I would have said something the first time this sort of behaviour happened - along the lines of 'your DD seemed really out of sorts today, she was quite whiney and stroppy, could she be coming down with something?' If that didn't sort it, the child just wouldn't be welcome back.

It's hard to know how to react without knowing how your friend sees her daughter's behaviour. Has she ever had a conversation with you acknowledging she struggles with her daughter's behaviour or does she seem oblivious to it / not think its a problem?

As others have said, if she has already shown concern herself then offering support as a team could help if you want to try and save the children's friendship (and your own).

If she is oblivious / thinks the behaviour is fine then I think you are on to a losing battle and perhaps the children will likely drift apart if it is also upsetting your own child.

TBH OP if you don't address it what will the outcome be? At some point your DC and you are going to get so fed up that you will just not want to invite this child anymore. If/when that happens there will almost certainly be a falling out unless you can engineer it so that you have drifted apart by then. IMO - better to try and say something nicely now while it is still salvageable and take the risk of a fall out than wait until there is a definite falling out. I would perhaps raise an issue at some point when both you and your friend are witnessing the behaviour together - that would be harder to refute than an entirely third hand report of poor behaviour.

Callisto you speak as someone with enough insight and no nonsense approach not to have DC with poor behaviour. I would bet money on the parents of this child being the types to describe her as "lots of energy", "bright" "free spirited", and would no doubt never talk to the OP again should she dare to challenge this view.

I think it depends on the parent...some parents know their kids are 'challenging' and whilst they may not be able to crack why, they try to keep them in line. If they are not able to see their childs faults, you're unlikely to be able to enlighten them.
I've had this with a few of my friends and their kids (maybe I'm a bit intolerant..) and I suppose I've tacked it quite early on - usually by either telling the child off, or speaking to the parent soon after the event, I've usually taken the tack of almost apologising to the parent that I have disciplined their child, to which they have all replied that it was ok for me to do so - one close friend actually thanked me for intervening when her son was being a pain, he kept ignoring her telling him to stop doing something until I butted in and told him firmly to listen to his Mum as he was being really annoying. It worked.
I would say though that the 3 times I've done this, twice was with very close friends and once with someone I know less well, but respect her parenting and she does not have rose tinted specs with her kids!

Callisto I think that would be fair enough if there was no parent present but there was and they didn't do anything so it's not as if they don't know about the behaviour they just don't care, can't be bothered or don't see it as a problem. In fact the op said the parent 'almost laughed' so I think that is sending a clear message to their child that they can pretty much behave as they like without consequence. I don't see what telling the mother would do to help tbh - unless it is only the dad who is crap at discipline and she would actually step up and do something about it.

At 8 and visiting your house without her parents, you should be able to discipline her. If her parents don't trust you to do that, they shouldn't leave her in your care. I would imagine she is starting to feel untouchable if she acts like this regularly!

I assume that since the child is 8, the parent wouldn't be at the party.As a parent I would certainly want to know if my DC had behaved like tha at a party.

OP consider your daughter in this. I had a friend, a real queen bee who manipulated me all through primary school. My mother was afraid wary of her mother- she was a teacher at our school.

One Birthday party she behaved just like you described the other child, and when my mother told her parents at collection time exactly what a brat she'd been, I remember feeling a great sense of relief and a realisation that in the big things my Mum woulod put me first.

Put your daughter first- don't encourage the relationship, even if it means you lose a friend.