In wanting to tell my friend her children are rude

[misspedantic]

I've just found this site and I'm loving the feedback I've had from other post. This problem is ongoing and I'm hoping for some advice...

About 2 months ago a friend called me to say she was upset that one of her friends has call her 6yr old ds and her 8yr old dd rude.

At first I was on her side, saying that her friend was rude for saying that. But over the past few weeks I have notice how rude they actually are and that she says nothing to them when they are being rude. The don't talk to adults, even if you ask them a question and she never pulls them up about this but instead answers for them.

examples:

1. we were out and her dd turned to her mother and asked when are they (meaning me and my dd) going home. I said that was a very nice thing to say but my friend said nothing to her dd.

2. we were on the train and her children didn't want to sit next to my dd which made her cry. When I finally had enough I told them to stop making a fuss and sit down, my friend said nothing. When they had sat down her dd kept on moving away from my dd saying "her coat is touching me".

3. the other day her dd whispered something into her mother ear. I heard my name and asked what she had said. My friend said "oh nothing". I then turned to her dd and told her that it was rude to whisper about people. Again my friend said nothing.

The problem is, my friend has mentioned that she doesn't think her children are rude. Other people have mentioned it to me, even without me saying anything to them. The next time she brings it up WIBU in saying "well yeah they are".

It sounds like perfectly normal childish behaviour to me, but you're right...they do need pulling up about it.

oh dear they do sound rude

no idea how you can say anything without her falling out with you though...

its one of my pet annoyances with children when adults speak to them, and the child just IGNORES the adult. so very rude and i do not tolerate it in my dc. and they are younger than your friends dc.

anyway i am sure someone else will be along with some actual useful advice :o

Reading through that I think I may have a problem with my friend not pulling her dc up about her dc's behaviour rather than her dc being rude.

Why are you even hanging out with these rude little gifts? Surely the way to hammer home the message to mummy is to avoid the like the plague. She will get the message. Hate horrid children, no need for it.

Gits! Obviously

They sound rude.

To be honest from my experience some mothers refuse to think their little darlings do anything wrong,it will bite them on the bum later.

I wouldn't bother speaking to her,she'll be upset but still refuse to believe her dc are anything but perfect.

You could just avoid doing things saying your dd doesn't enjoy it.That way the ball is in her court and in a polite way you're saying there aren't behaving well and it needs sorting iykwim(not explaining myself well).

YANBU but keep dealing with the child directly as you did in the last example. If the parent can't be bothered tand a child is being rude, pick them up on it directly rather than waiting for mum to act. She doesn't seem to mind.

God, this would really annoy me.

I have a "friend" who never disciplines her kids and thinks it perfectly ok for her DD to push my DS (they are both 6) really hard on a kerb (he was on a scooter) so he rolled into a road. She also did nothing (the mother obv).

I think it will be a hard lesson for the kids when they realise that no body wants to play with them/be their friend.

i agree on all the points except the first.

my DD wont speak to adults at all and finds it difficult to speak to children, though everyone who knows her knows about this. I find myself apologising to strangers when they speak to her and she wont speak back, but that just exacerbates the peoblem, becuase she isnt going to speak if she knows i will do it for her.

however it seems that these children are plain rude.

She sounds dumb as shit and in possession of very little manners herself. Letting her dd whisper about an adult in company! That's one way to train a brat.

They sound rude.

If mum wont pull them up on rude behavior when they are with you, I suggest you do, and then ask your friend why she is ignoring rude behaviour?

The children are behaving in a rude way - but the mother doesn't need to pull her dd's up about their rude ways as the OP is doing this all the time.

I wish I had a friend to pull my children up when they where this ages - it would have meant so much less work for me

It's a difficult one as saying directly to her that you think her children are rude is a bit confrontational I would say. Maybe you could say something like: 'i find a lot of children don't really answer me when I talk to them directly. It's really frustrating. I wonder why it is?' so kind of discuss the behaviour as a problem, without making it so personal to the child.

Actually, although it's not great and children do need to be taught about it, i think all thhe examples you gave are really common types of behaviour from those ages. Many children do find it hard to talk to others, particularly adults, that they don't know very well. I think seeing it as 'rude' is judging from too adult a perspective.

They are rude. The mother is weak not to deal with it. As long as you pull the kids up, she won't bother.

However, she won't thank you for telling her how rude they are. Can your friendship survive the row that will follow? Answer yes, go for it. Answer no, see her without your children.

Stay away if your DD doesn't particularly like them anyway, if she notices you steering clear for bit or you say you don't want to go to the park (for instance) maybe she will ask why and you can tell her. Or just tell her when she asks you to the park.

How close are you to her?

I think that you should say some of the stuff you find rude and say the proverbial 'im not being funny but......' line or directly say to the children 'im talking to you' (i would im quite direct lol) Id also have to say something about your dds coat touching her but then again im quite straight about this stuff.

A lot of my friends children are now teens and theyve grown up with and appreciate my direct speech .

Its not rude though if their own mum has never taught them to behave.

We've know each other for about 5yrs. Our children have grown up together. It's hard because we fell out over Christmas because I took them to a magic show and found the whole day hard. My dd kept on crying because the way her dc were treating her and I fell out with the mum because I lost my temper and walked off. We've only just stared talking again. My daughter is one of a handful of children in her class that has never had a child complain about her, she's very sweet and gets eaten alive by her two when we are out. Playdates at her house are fine but when she comes here her dc hang off her, don't speak and whisper everything in their mums ear for the first half hour. I can't remember the last time I heard them speak... seriously can't. I really like my friend but I feel that this is coming between our friendship.

From the examples you give actually you come across as rude too.

1. Asking when you're going home would depend on the tone of voice. If it's said in the tone of "I hope soon", yes, it's rude, but in some contexts it might be fine. eg. because if they're staying another couple of hours we could get the paddling pool out. A child of that age does not typically have the tact to get information in an indirect way. I've had conversations with my dc where after the event I have given them different ways of asking a question that's less direct and more tactful.
2. Very typical children behaviour. Distraction is often better than confrontation. If you distract them and get them looking at something together then they'll join in together.
3. I'm just remembering one time my dd2 came in and whispered in my ear "I'm making a surprise for Julie, don't tell her". If Julie had then said "It's rude to whisper about other people" I would have been very irritated.

If you haven't had a shy child who finds talking to others very difficult then it is easy to judge them, and even when the child manages to say "hello" it can often come across as rude because the embarassment they have effects the tone of voice which can sound very rude.
For me, my dc have never had this problem, but I know other children that this has been a huge issue, and another adult telling them off would have effected them badly, they needed encouragement that what they said was worth listening to.

They all sound pretty rude to me!

god, if this is 'rude' behaviour, I'll keep my kids away from you, lol!

I know someone with a child like this, although she's only three so I wouldn't want to call her rude just yet. We go to some of the same playgroups and activities so even though we aren't exactly friends with them we see a lot of them.

If you speak to her she looks at you but won't reply, even something as simple as saying hello or goodbye and my DS doesn't like her because she's always slapping and poking and nipping whenever other children come near her.

It's her parents that annoy me though, because they don't do anything about it and her mother in particular finds it funny. She poked DS in his face one day and her mum asked what had happen. When I said her daughter had poked DS just under his eye she said "oh right, she does that" and laughed. She left a crescent nail mark under his eye and it bruised for a few days.

So although I am reluctant to call a child that young rude, I think she will grow up to be rude because nobody is teaching her otherwise now.

I do compare her a bit to DS, because he has never really been one for hurting other children and if one hurts him like that he's more surprised than anything else. And he loves it when people talk to him and will chat to anybody when we are out and about. But if he were doing the things she does, I would be telling him not to be rude or silly and to reply etc.

Have you ever thought, that perhaps, her children do not like you?

And it seems to me that her children are just being 'childish'.

Do these three examples follow the incident when you lost your temper with them at Xmas and walked off?