AIBU re huffing child response?

[rootietootie]

Long story short, on Christmas day all five children and five grandchildren were at my mums house. This is a very rare occurrence that we are all the same house at the same time so mum wanted a photo of us all. Just at that moment brothers DD1 (6) went into a major huff (I think this had been off and on all morning) due to the fact that she thought her younger brother got a better xmas present. Due to huffing she refused to speak to anyone or come to get her photo taken. I cant stress the importance of everyone being in the photo for my mum. Mum tried to persuade her to come through but was rudely ignored. My brothers response? Just leave her. No discipline. Just leave her. Photo was taken without her and mum is really really disappointed, it kind of defeated the purpose of taking the photo iyswim. Im just so shocked at my brothers attitude towards it. Someone please come along and tell me the logic and purpose to his response because I dont understand it.

Excellent, intelligent posts from TamIAm on this thread.

At the end of the day, a 6 year old does have a right to choose to not be in a photo. It's highly likely that the grandmother has other photos of the child anyway, and if it's really important to her to have a photo with all of the grandchildren in it, then I still think photoshopping is the answer. The grandmother knows all the children were there for Christmas, the memories are there, but if this group photo was the be-all and end-all then just photoshop it.

However, one thing that doesn't add up for me is that the OP says she 'can't stress enough the importance to the grandmother of having the photo ' - yet the decision to take the photo was taken just 5 minutes before the brother had to leave!! Surely if it was so important this would have been discussed earlier? I also think a far better option would have been to present granny with a book of naturalistic photos just snapped throughout the day.

The thing that strikes me most though is the fact that the grandmother was terribly upset by having a photo with one grandchild not there. The grandmother is the adult and should be able to deal with it without feeling desperately disappointed. No adult should rely on a child complying with having their photo taken for happiness. It's just wrong. One of my children really dislikes having their photo taken, as a result we have fewer photos of this child than the other, but the ones we do have are lovely natural photos which were not a cause of stress or upset. Many adults dislike having their photo taken too. No one would dream of forcing an adult so why try to force a child?

At the end of the day, the child was not hurting anyone else, or behaving in a way which needed to be stopped. Sure, she may have been in a huff, but the op does not say that this was spoiling the day for everyone. It sounds as though ignoring and not rising to the behaviour was exactly the right response. Adults are more likely to encourage children to behave in positive social ways by modelling the behaviour they want. Certainly not by forcing the child to do something arbitrary like being in a group photo. If the child had been rude to an adult, or hurt another child, or snatched someone elses present - sure, absolutely, deal with it. But not participating in a group photo is not hurtful to others. This situation reminds me of ones where I've been in where adults have tried to make all the children join in a particular game (another bane of many family christmases). It's about the adults gratification rather than respecting that children dont have to participate in everything

I have at times felt disappointed that my reluctant child has not wanted her photo taken. There have been occasions on days out or holidays when I've thought a particular shot might be nice but she hasn't wanted to be photographed. However, I have always accepted that my disappointment doesn't trump her right to not be photographed.

If she was ever rude, or obnoxious or was spoiling our day out- then she would have been dealt with appropriately (ignoring the poor behaviour usually being the most effective strategy just like the ops brother!) Forcing a child to smile and be in a photo is not a helpful strategy for any situation

Hear hear Callmemrs!

One of my most traumatic childhood memories is when my parents & brothers forced me to pose for some professional photos. :( Awful, awful, awful. I remember screaming hysterically & the rest of the family just laughing about it.

OP YABU
Why couldn't the photo wait until later in the day?
She is six. These things happen. I hope you can all laugh about it in later years?

emo it's been said several times that some people were leaving. There was only a short window of opportunity.

A child in my class was apparently refusing to have his photo taken when the school photographer came recently. I was called upon to deal with him.
I'm here to tell you that you can get a child to physically sit in front of the camera - that was the easy bit: "Billy, in the hall. Now!", but you sure as hell can't get them to smile if they're determined not to!

I think the brother was wrong to say just leave her. If it had been my child I would have followed her and had a little chat about how lovely it would be for her grandmother to have a photo of everyone together. Then if she agreed I would have thanked her - a little psychological 'reward' for her good behaviour.
If she had refused at first then at 6 years old she's old enough to be given 5 mins to have a think and make her mind up for herself. I bet if she'd been told that she could only be in the photo if she was downstairs 'by the time the big hand reached the 7' or whatever then she would've come down of her own accord.
I don't agree with forcing children to do things against their will, but it's not helpful just to leave her to it without explaining the consequences of her actions for other people.
Always worked for me, anyhow - my 2 are 16 and 18 now and mostly lovely!

Surely you weere there all day - why did the photo have to be that point? Why didn't you try again in an hour?

stealth read my post of 11.52
Some people had arrived just as others were about to leave.

ah sorry, did wonder if it was something like that, have a skim through the beginning and end of the thread but too lazy to read it all
Need to stop telling other people off for doing the same...

oh clam sorry , didn't read all 8 pages
anyway I still think OP is BU and hope they can all have a giggle about it one day

Anyway, sounds as if there's some history here. This presumably wasn't a one-off piece of bratty behaviour.

Oh, I agree about history however I suspect that OP doesnt like the child and was going to find fault no matter what. All the descriptions of the child were negative.

Thanks for the replies, a lot to think about. Part of the problem is that nephew and niece, as much as I love them, are poorly behaved, a lot of the time. I know someone said that I should ignore other people telling me this as idle gossip but it is very hard, when family/mutual friends of my db, sil and I comment upon their dreadful behaviour. I feel inclined to defend nephew and niece, as its not their fault, they just don't know any better iyswim. For example, recently at a wedding nephew and niece were left to run riot (nephew was attacking wedding cake with his fingers despite being told not by myself and several guests, throw a chair across the room because he was not happy at being told off, niece kept running outside where she was not allowed and having to be pulled in by myself and other guests, all while db and sil said and done nothing). There were a lot of people commenting on their behaviour, and it was a topic of conversation for a while afterwards. Nephew and niece are usually well behaved if my mum/their gran has them on her own as she is a lot stricter on them and they know this, eg, nephew kicks and hits his mum, dad and other gran, but does not display this behaviour at my mums house. If I have them on my own they are usually fine, but if their dad is there it goes tits up. Re the photos, she is not photoshy, she usually is happy to get her photo taken, she was just in a bad mood because she got a different present from her brother (they were both equal in terms of monetary value, so no favouritism).

Gosh- that sound horribly like this family have become a topic for discussion about parenting and behaviour among the extended family and neighbourhood. I really can't see how any of this is helping. You may feel that your brother is making poor parenting decisions but it's really unhelpful that his family are now labelled as badly behaved and the wider family and friends seem to think it ok to sit in judgement. Nasty stuff.

callmemrs, I cant stop other people talking about their parenting skills, tbf if someones child bit and hit my child while the mum looked on and did nothing, I'd be a bit judgypants about them too. (another example of nephews behaviour). They can be really badly behaved, nobody says anything to my brother or sil, as we realise it not our place to tell them how to parent, but are you suggesting we should pretend that the children are well behaved and not mention it at all when discussing all our children?

I think I would pick my battles. A child biting another is a serious issue. A child not wanting to be in a photo isn't. I'm wondering why you post about the latter and then drip feed the former several pages later. Maybe priorities need to be rethought here

Because I was not present at the child biting incident, initially it did not seem relevant with regards to the photo. I guess this is where I differ with regard to parenting, I don't pick my battles.

His response to ignore his child in the photo situation is entirely appropriate. Ignoring a biting child isn't. However, you posted about the photo which is why people have responded to that. There is no one 'right' style of parenting- you may not pick your battles but many parents do- and there's nothing wrong with ut

I did not say there was anything wrong with it, I just dont prescribe to it. I mentioned the childbiting as an example of their behaviour as you suggested other people should not be labelling them badly behaved, and this was one of of many examples to highlight why they have been 'labelled' as badly behaved.

People come up to you and discuss the behaviour of your niece and nephew and you join in? Shocking behaviour.

If anybody ever did that with me the most I'd ever say is: 'Oh dear. I can't do anything about it so why don't you talk to my brother?'

What do you love most: your brother and his family or the chance to gossip about them?

Who wants a stroppy child in a photo anyway? And you can't 'discipline' a 6yr old into being happy. FWIW my response to sulking is always to ignore it. DH tries to be more...erm...pro-active ... at times and that's always lots of fun for everyone

OP have some sympathy for you. SIL has little shits naughty children,and have to bite my tongue when they are around and misbehaving. She will not discipline them and we do not think it's our place if she or bil is present.

People come up to you and discuss the behaviour of your niece and nephew and you join in? Shocking behaviour.

Not overly shocking. Most of the AIBU's discuss the behaviour of others, would be pretty boring if all the responses were I cant do nothing about it, go speak to your bil/mil/dp etc. I vent to my close friends about SIL children :)

The problem appears to be your brother, and not your niece. I don't think there is much you can do except leave it to him (however useless)-it is never worth criticising parenting styles of others, particularly family.