To Wish People With Younger Children Than Mine Would Stop Giving Me 'Advice'.

[FiveHoursSleep]

Our youngest is 4 and my eldest is 10, and none of them are 'easy'. No doubt we've made some parenting mistakes, as you do, but we think we have learned from them and are trying to set good examples with our own behaviour now.
But I have a couple of friends/acquaintances with one or two children ( eldest is 5) who keep giving 'advice' about how to make my children behave better.
AIBU to think they can get back to me when they have kids the same age mine are now?
I see people with teenagers behaving in ways that make me go but just think I could quite possibly be in the same situation when my kids get to that age.
Is there really any way to know that your kids are not going to be challenging at some point?

Yabu. People can have good advice anyway.

YABU. Supernanny doesn't have any (and neither do many teachers and childcare workers). I'm sure they would have some good tips.

YANBU. One of my sisters said to another (with older children) "I've seen how your children have turned out and so I'm going to make sure I discipline mine". Years later and guess what? Until you have walked in the other person's shoes...

YANBU.
I also get pissed off when people without any children think they are full of brilliant advice. Which is also why Supernanny makes my teeth itch

I think yab a bit u. It's not about their children's ages - they might have something useful to say. They might not. It would be weird if we could only have reflections on things we have actually been through. If we haven't been through them or are a bit removed from them we might be able to offer a different perspective.

If they are just wrong/annoying that's another matter but the fact that their children are younger is neither here no there. Even childless people have useful things to say sometimes

I certainly don't trust teachers who've not had kids :-) their advice is hopeless - school and home are two completely different matters

i bet it's not all parents - it's the smug ones - so sure their own kids won't end up like that.

YANBU.

It always makes me want to pull a face when friends tell me to 'wait until DD is in school, you wont know what to do with yourself' or 'Wait until DD goes to secondary school ON THE BUS!!!! You'll know what worry is then.' or 'You have no idea what it is like for me when my DC goes off to their fathers for half of the school holidays, because your DD is always at home with you and isn't taken away from you for weeks at a time.'

I do however know what it is like for my DS to decide to leave home without discussing it with me, or telling me he is going, completely out of the blue and he has never come back!! I do know what it feels like to walk into a bedroom where no scent lingers, no clothes are left, no sign that the week before, he lived with me and we had a laugh are there. I do know what it is like to go for months without hearing a peep from DS, and knowing if I don't pick up the phone, it would probably be a long time until I heard from him again. I do know what it feels like to have my DS scuttle past the house en route to his best friends, rather than pop in and say 'Hi Mum', when I haven't seen him for weeks and weeks. I do know what it is like to have a child go to primary, secondary, and college, and I have never relied on DS to fill my life up, so found plenty to do when he wasn't here....and a lot of that was working. I do know what it is like to have my DD taken away from me by XP when she was only 6 mnths old, and all that was left of my 6 month old baby was one solitary lonely dummy left on the mantelpiece, and although she was only gone for 5 nights, I didn't know when or if she was going to come home. I know what it feels like to hear ex on the phone telling me he was refusing to return her because I wouldn't resume a relationship with him.

However, I now have DD (3.6) and as such, I have apparently never known what it is like to wave my child off at school, or feel like my house is just a house because she is not here like my friends DC when they go on holiday.

And after I have said all that, I'm not even sure that this is what this thread is about. Sorry.

My friends do give me advice...I just nod and listen now, and say 'Thanks, that's given me something to think about.'

I think YABU

SOme people with no kids are awesome with advice and some people with kids of all ages are clueless.

I don't know why you wouldn't trust a teacher just because they have no kids, mercibucket. I am a teacher with 2 children and I ask colleagues with no children about them all the time - there's at least two who would raise them far better than I will ever be able to!

I really don't care for any random, un-asked for advice from anyone, whether they're a friend or stranger, or what age their DCs are. YANBU

Just because people have younger kids it doesn't mean they have no experience of life itself..if I was ever to advise anyone on older kids than mine it would be purely from the pov of the child concerned, because I know for a fact if I had been treated differently I would never have been the horrible bratty teenager I became who went off the rails full of excuses to do so..and do you know what..my advice might even work and be useful, so don't go judging us as useless and smug until you've actually heard the reason for said advice..just trying to help..if the advice is crap then ignore it..its quite simple... I can't know til I've been there..if people are giving you "advice" with no cue from you then try to let it wash over you..some parents are daft enough to think their kids will turn out perfect, but they'll learn, and they'll also get a hell of a shock while they're at it..and that gives you something to feel a bit smug about..I know I do when some donut tries to tell me whats what when they have no kids and blatantly no idea..heehee! smug as a bug in a snug rug