To not be able to deal with other peoples children?

[mrsshears]

I have posted about this before,however i seem to be getting more and more intollerent of other peoples children.
In social situations,my own dd's play dates and basically everywhere else,i just find them intensely annoying,the noise,the craziness etc.
Am i on my own in this? i feel mean saying it but its true,i dread situations that involve other peoples children,AIBU?

My brothers used to try and make bombs in Lyles golden syrup tins.
Once we went camping and they decided to see if they could move someones caravan.They had lifted it between them and were literally carrying it down the field. I just remember my step dad bellowing "put that caravan DOWN !"when he caught them.
The same holiday we all piled in a tractor that had been left in a field and one of my brothers figured out how to drive it. Near a cliff.
My ds is quite a quiet soul-I would have white hair if I had sons like my brothers! I wouldn't have blamed any parent for not liking us as kids, horrors that we were.

YABU. I like children much more since having my own. I understand them more and am more able to see the good in them. Not all of them obviously, I'm not Mary Poppins, but the vast majority of them. It's rare I meet a child and think 'you are an unmitigated little shit', they usually have redeeming features.

Adults on the other hand...unpleasant, selfish, intolerant, judgemental, boastful, vacuous and stupid most of them. Give me a room full of kids telling fart jokes over a room full of adults discussing X Factor any day of the week.

Everything LeQueen said.
Mostly dislike OPC. Got half way through a Montessori Teacher Training course when the awful revelation dawned upon me, that I really didn't like most children very much at all.

I just surprised disappointed that no-one has ever picked up on my username........

As long as you realise that everyone else feels the same about your DC's.

Also I find the comments being spewed out by adults against children very distubing. I do not yet have my own DC's so I am not biased towards my own as I don't have any.

However alot of my friends have children and I babysat loads of different children when i was teens and 20's. I have only genuinely disliked one child I have met. Even then I didn't dislike him all the time: he had his moments but he could be very sweet too. I used my adult maturity to reason that it was not his fault and his behaviour was down to his parents never ever saying no, hence why he was the most spoiled, unruly child I'd ever met.

Adults on the other hand...unpleasant, selfish, intolerant, judgemental, boastful, vacuous and stupid most of them. Give me a room full of kids telling fart jokes over a room full of adults discussing X Factor any day of the week.

I agree with this 100%. Children are more optimistic and imaginative. They will talk about wanting to be an astronaut when they grow up and truly believe it will happen one day. Adults are boring...... same old gripes about work, relationships, money, and making bitchey comments about OPC's!

I'm much more tolerant of OPC now I am pregnant myself. Find them fascinating. Never saw the appeal before.

I like my friends kids - well m almost all of them anyway. All characters, confident and sweet like my kid

I can't say I always find my children pleasanter and well behaved than other people's children; am wondering if this disqualifies me from being a Mumsnetter.

I do love my own children best though.

YANBU

I too am not over keen on other peoples' children, apart from my niece and nephew.

The problem seems to be a) a lack of manners and b) a massive sense of entitlement that many children seem to have these days. Parents indulging their childrens' every whim don't help matters.

When I was a child I would go round a friend's house or vice versa and we would just play in their bedroom, or mine if at my house, and that was that. We didn't ask for anything, just a quick biscuit when we got back from school. When my 7 year old DD has had friends round recently we have had one that kept going in and out of mine and DH's room and looking in the drawers, and constantly hounded me for food, and another that got all of DD's clothes out of her wardrobe and screwed them all up into bags.

Another time I gave one of DD's friends and her mum a lift home from a party and when we got back to their house it took the child 20 minutes to undo her seatbelt and climb out of the car. I kept telling her to be quick as we were in a hurry to get home, and her mum just smiled indulgently and didn't say a word, whilst her DD kept belting herself back in again, and getting things out of her party bag to look at, then took ages to climb out of the car (a normal car BTW, not a mahoosive thing 10ft off the ground or anything like that).

It's those sorts of things that make me less than keen on other peoples' children.

LeQ I agree with you on all your pointers and follow them fairly religiously myself esp about not giving children too much choice or negotiating with them ffs

However my 2 are boisterous and noisy despite all of this! It doesn't always follow that if you stick to the common sense rules you will have angels!! dd now 5 in particular is extremely emotionally labile and is a complete demon when hungry. It seems almost impossible to keep her topped up with food at the moment. big breakfast, mid morning fruit snack at school, then school lunch of pasta or jacket potato, then when i pick her up she's literally screaming with hunger, banana, raisins and a frube and normality is regained for a short time then by teatime a screaming banshee again then she wants supper!!

And I'm not overfeeding her, she's a slim little thing.

Anyway OP YANBU I get quite anxious at the thought of other peoples children, strangely I don't mind 2 year olds so much (ds age) as i kind of expect them to be contrary, obsessional little tantrummers, but dds 5 year old girl mates Lord give me strength!! The whining, the mess, the defiance, the tell tales, the pestering, the "your not my friend" crap etc.etc.etc. I have developed an aversion to them, although staying that she did have one of them round recently who was a delight but there are a couple who're effectively banned.

I enjoy having OPC around, means the DC are quiet and entertained while i can do something in peace!

hexagonal i know totally where you're coming from on these issues. dd has a friend who just empties everything out of cupboards and drawers and helps herself to my make up, another friend parked herself in my our en suite bathroom and refused to move as she thought she had a right to play there.

Also a lot of them seem to want us to play with them and pester relentlessly coming to show is things, trying to get us (me and dh) to join in. Drives me mental, f**k off and play for goodness sake!!

Also another one who refuses to put her coat, shoes, anything on for herself, won't take her seatbelt off, close the car door, carry her bag, nothing. It all gets done for her.

I don't mind OPC too much as they are usually nicer and quieter than my lot however I often can't find energy for the extra patience and enthusiasm required when they come over to play.

My favourite ones are the mormon family of 9 kids as they are so used to doing everything for themselves when they come over they don't expect anything.

LeQueen your strategies have worked on 2 of mine. I would like to give you my other one for a day and see what you can do with him.

I'm a SAHM at the moment and we have a particular type of daycare in my country which is run by the Mums. I remember it from my childhood and when we returned here from the UK I decided to give it a go...

DH was most bemused... Do you really want to hang around with OPC, he asked? I was like, I know, but if it's dreadful, I can always give it up as a bad lot.

But do you know what? It's actually OK. It's only three hours at a time, twice a week. I probably couldn't handle any more than that. But because it's not just coffee with a Mum friend whilst her offspring run rings somewhere in your peripheral vision, pissing you off just with their presence - and instead you're actually interacting with the kids in their environment, the vast majority of them are actually really nice. There's only one boy out of 20-odd children who I try to avoid.

And I have to say the ones with a bit of something about them, a bit of get up and go, personality, even boisterousness from time to time - they're much better craic than the ones that just want to sit and do play doh or collage the whole time.

Dare I say it, in my experience, this is down to nature, not nurture. Or at least nature as much as nurture. If your children are happy to sit doing not very much and playing prettily, it's probably because that's their personality as much as any effort you've expended on them. Some children are sitters, some are thinkers, some are observers, some are followers, some are doers, some are experimenters, some are explorers, some are risk-takers, etc, etc, ad Infinitum... And regardless, disciplining is not done on a level playing field. Some children are quite obviously going to be way, way more pliable than others.

Anyway, I have really surprised myself, it's fair to say. OPC aren't all bad.

lequeen my mother used the line 'because I told you' and it riled me so much I vowed I'd never ever use it on my own dc and I haven't. It probably works on not very bright dc but I was very bright so a simple explanation would have sufficed. I was deemed a horrible kid by my mother but I think her parental skills were lacking so I rebelled against that.

My dc are very bright and very well mannered, I reward them for good behaviour and when they're kind and thoughtful. My dd always asks me if I'd like a cup of tea if she sees I'm tired, she's 9. She's a darling. My 5 yo son is really helpful too. I find dc who aren't expected to help out at home the rudest and most spoilt.

I definitely get the best out of dc because I know how awful it is to be parented badly. So even if a badly behaved friend of my dc comes round I usually get the best out of them by the end.

I find being firm with basic rules and having a sense of humour helps. Also, I hated all dc until I had my own, now I like most of them.

minxofmancunia I too hate it when visiting children keep constantly coming downstairs to tell me things or show me things. The most recent friend DD2 had round kept coming and standing in the kitchen and just saying "Hello" and standing there whilst I was cooking dinner.

The child that won't do anything for herself sounds like the child that took 20 minutes to get out of her car. The child I know also has everything done for her. She is nearly 8 and her mum still wipes her bum for her and sometimes feeds her at parties. It's the parents fault really, they should be encouraging independence. I find that type of child so annoying though.

that should have read out of my car not her car

Hexagonal, god forbid the unpleasant little bastards actually speak to you. I hope you told them to shut the fuck up. Slinking I agree with everything you've said, lequeen has been posting about her wonderful parenting skills for years and I always think she doesn't give her kids enough credit - it is insanely egocentric to think their good behaviour is all down to her, their own sweet natures might have something to do with it. If it really was as simple as lequeen makes out then the world would be full of quiet tapestry making kids.

There are about 5 that I like, the others I can't stand but the 5 OPC that I like are truly wonderful little people. Other ones are all little feckers.

My own child is a virtue of paragon. Other people beg me to take her to their houses for playdates, so they can show their children how they should behave. They ask her to sleepover and threaten to steal her. She's 10 now and clearly a product of my magnificent parenting.

OK I fell lucky. She's placid and pliant (on the whole) cos she takes after her dad and is rarely any trouble for other people. She's starting to get a bit cocky with me though. In terms of OPC, I generally love having them around. That's probably because DD is a PFB/OC. I was determined to make her sociable, as it was clearly not her nature, so she's had people round to play ever since she started school on a regular basis.

I don't think children are imps with hearts of tinsel, but I do like them and I work with them too. I can only think of a couple of kids I've met that I would cheerfully have mangled and they were extremely rude, which is unforgiveable!

I meant paragon of virtue .

because I told you isnt something I would advocte using on young children from a professional perspective. Children are very perceptive and like having things explained to them so they get an understanding of the world saying because I told you is just because you cant be bothered to answer properly in my opinion. If something in the adult world asked you something and you said no and they said why and you said because I told you so they wouldnt feel respected.

Also its pretty easy to get most children to do what you want them to do if you treat them with respect and as if they are intelligent , regardless of their personalities and I have worked with children with all types of issues/personalities.

OPC are insufferable gits. Mine are lovely. Except on the days when they are gits as well. But my children would never annoy anyone else the way OPC do.