To HATE the way my friends educate their children?

[Littlefrenchmummy]

I love reading things on mumsnet, especially this section. Today I was confronted with a situation that happens so often in my life and really gets me angry... You ladies are very honest so tell me if Im being a bitch or if you would feel the same.

Today my husband and I caught up with some old friends, like us they have a 4 year old boy. From the minute we met to when we left he trantrumed. He cried for EVERYTHING and not once was disciplined. (By that I dont mean punched in the face btw, I just mean told to behave).
He cried because he could only use his bike and not his scooter (sat on the pavement and screamed for 10 mins while we waited. Eventually parents gave in).
He cried because we crossed the road before him.
He cried because we were talking.
He cried because he couldn't get juice at the restaurant even though his parents were ordering him the juice.
He stood on tables, rode his scooter in the restaurant, shouted constantly.
He wouldn't speak to my son, only watch cartoons on his parents phone, wouldn't share the crayons to draw even though he didn't want to draw.
Kicked his brothers pram while he was sleeping. Etc etc... And all his parents were saying was "OH NO, if you do this again we are going to get cross!"

I just can't bare it. Its so horrible to sit through this, you can't have a conversation, my son isn't having fun, people at the restaurant are staring. I never want to hang out with my friends again. I love them but I hate their child, or more exactly I hate the way they educate him and turn him into complete dick head.

I have so many friends like them... so so many. Some worse, some less, but the result is the same: hanging out with them is painful. People who think you dont need to educate your children, that they have 'difficult' kid who cry a lot. They think its normal that if their child screams their name in the middle of a conversation, 10x times during 1 conversation, they should always stop and say yes darling instead of teaching them not to interrupt and wait while adults are talking.

I know some children are more difficult than others and that disorders exist. One of my son's is difficult and has a terrible character, still he doesn't behave like this. If I let him he would but I dont. I also have friends who have children with disorders, but in the cases Im talking about, its just complete lack of education.

Im loosing so many friends over this. I stop answering calls and make excuses not to hang out with them because I can't tell them how to educate their children. Who can tell a mother in the face that you dont like their child's behaviour? How awkward would that be?

We have made such a cut in our friends and now I am so picky. it sucks !
But why aren't people educating their children to behave?

Am I being unreasonable to feel this way or do other parents feel like this?

LFM, you have to understand why people do this. Some people do it because it instills a huge amount of self confidence in the child. That might be a great thing for the child and be a good building block - I have seen children treated like this grow up and they tend to be hugely confident, but also a little narcissistic and tend towards dominating others.

And I have seen the polite children grow up too, frequently they are slightly less confident and are deferential, don't go through your things when they come round and know 'the right time and place' for different behaviours. But they grow up (huge generalisation) to have a better moral compass and self belief and above all, empathy for others.

It is a dilemma, but it's perfectly acceptable to walk away from these parents. They might be doing it in the best interests of their child but they might also be doing it because it makes life easier for them. It is a cultural thing, but not a French/English one, but about personal beliefs in parenting and lifestyle.

Having only read the OP's comments and not everyone else's, I would say that i agree with her. I used to feel the same.

If a child has SN then its understandable but so many children did what they wanted because their parents wouldn't give them appropriate boundaries. It was as though the parents generally simply thought that everyone else must simply see their child's innate cuteness which meant that they could never do anything that wasn't acceptable.

One example springs to mind when some friends were visiting us. Ds2 was 4 and their Ds2 was 6. Their DS2 was climbing onto the back on my sofa (with his shoes on) and jumping off, then climbing up and doing it again. I was talking to the father and i stopped and pointed it out to him. His response? "Don't worry.. if he hurts himself then he'll learn not to do it". I remember thinking that I'd never have let my children do that, in my own house, never mind in someone else's.

I'm starting to think of a great game show, Come Dine With Us With Your Children. Marks out of 10 for behaviour. I do miss House of Tiny Tearaways...

My Dc loved that Will and SuperNanny
"Its not asseptable behaviour"

Mind you both shows rather proved the point it was down to crap parenting!

Come Dine with Us- love it !
Oh dear little Johnny ( age 2 ) doesn't think you used enough seasoning in the soup so quite rightly he spat it all over the carpet, poor little mite.

They don't make programmes like that any more, I wonder if it's a child protection thing? They were so useful when ours were little. Reading about it in a book isn't quite the same. As much as anything else it is very helpful to see that what your child does isn't unique to them and that there are a lot of grey areas when it comes to behaviour.

Doctor Tanya was brilliant !

Not so keen on Jo Frost - she did get the issues sorted out but in a bolshy way

Dr Tanya even

I go to loads of toddler groups and have tea and never issues with dc knocking into me, always have it safe.

Id love to know where you live LFM, I get around the country quite a bit with relis all over and I like to go to on weekend away rather than long holidays.

I have seen the odd mum ignoring repeatedly every week violent child in toddler groups, I have a friend who never disciplines child, and its annoying, very very frustrating, however I have not seen it that much, more the odd one here and there.

Never in a restaurant but maybe we don't go to specific family ones so never have this?

My old neighbour had two totally out of control children she tried to discipline them but then would tuck them under the chin and laugh and say how cheeky they were. She was a good person but her dc.....

But I have only really noticed children since having mine and in 7 years maybe being able to name 5 ...and never had a meal disturbed in restaurant etc...no problems on holidays either...

When I grow up I want to be Dr Tanya. I like Jo Frost because she ignores adults almost completely and doesn't entertain their sob stories.

I dont want to give too many details as I would hate my friends to some how figure out this is about them. But its an area famous for having babies everywhere, literally.

My friend actually spoke to me a bit during the day saying she was fed up he was being very hard and her hubby was sweet but never followed through (not once did she follow through on anything she told him during the day either tbh) and there was a complete lack of consistency in anything he did. I did try and say maybe you should try and be a bit more consistent then and make sure he knows what NO means, and get him to respect things a little but its so difficult. Its not my place to say anything.

As people have said I think she thinks she is doing her best. I think Im doing my best with my children. I know Im not perfect but Im doing my best and Im pleased with how my children are. Maybe she is more or less happy that way who am I to tell her to change. Saturday she confided in me a bit so I suggested a few things but I would find it very awkward telling her she actually isn't teaching him any manners. Its not in the law to teach your children manners after all! And at the time I wasn't sure I wasn't over reacting! Since talking to you all I realise his behaviour was as bad as my husband and I thought it was but yeah at the time I just thought, being supportive more than criticising was the better thing to do.

She actually sent me a lovely msg today saying what a nice day we had all had which made me feel terrible. She is so so sweet, so fun and kind and funny. But on the other hand I dont get how she thought those 4 hours together were nice? They really were not.

I dont know about those TV programs you are talking about. I know about super nanny. I struggle to watch it actually I find it really frustrating, some of the children on there are really out of control..

I think I will stay in touch with our friends via email and fb and stuff and not meet up with the children. It did upset me a lot, I was on edge all evening after leaving them it was so nerve racking.

What would you have said when she confided in me saying this was really hard? (she spoke to me 10 minutes into him lying on the pavement screaming and refusing to get up because we had crossed the road before him).
I said what i said above, but also said parenting was hard and he might just be tired, have a cold coming up, etc. And then she said he was very often like that, What would you have said?

LFM Have you considered that perhaps if she is getting no support from her dh that she may no be following through because she is absolutely worn down? Maybe while you didn't think that time was "nice", she has been struggling and isolated in some way and that meeting with you was possibly the closest to "normal" that she's been in a while and thus was nice for her. I have been in that situation, to some extent, and it's just so exhausting to be isolated and without support that getting out of the house and having a meal with someone else would seem like a lovely reprieve in any form.

I will also point out that dcs need consistency, generally, so if (as she said) her dh is not following through, then she will most likely struggle simply because it makes things inconsistent and she may be so tired of it that she is letting it slide because she doesn't know what else to do right now. We ALL reach that worn down point at some time or another. If you're a friend, the best thing is to be supportive without being judgemental and ask her if there's anything you can do to help.

We felt similar with a few of our parent friends when their children were young...BUT and it is a big but, it is important to make a distinction between the way they choose to bring up their children and whether they are worth keeping in touch with.

We may have found their behaviour round their children a bit frustrating ( and their children's behaviour disruptive and unattractive) but NEVER thought to cut them out of our lives.

Children grow up, most into lovely reasonable people; what a shame that you have burnt your bridges early on and no longer see your friends because of a few years of frustration.

And it is worth mentioning that you can dislike a child's behaviour but it is damaging to label that child, in your mind as a child you dislike; as I said, children grow up...you run the risk of always applying a dislike to that child based on behaviour in infanthood.
To not let go of grudges is infantile too.

I used to be terribly smug about my first 2 DDs. They behaved perfectly in every situation.
We had little tolerance for tantrums, they were taught to say please and thank you, ate everything put in front of them and I was always being complemented on their behaviour.

At this stage we really felt that our strategy worked, we were clearly producing perfect children and, well, we thought we were just great parents and others were.....not so great.

Then DD3 arrived. She has a completely different personality. We did all the things with her that we did with the others but they didnt work and still don't.
She is capable of ruining a meal, wrecking an outing, embarrassing us etc etc.

So I came to the conclusion that really it wasn't just our perfect parenting that was responsible for our first 2 DDs behaviour, it was their inherent characters. DD3 just doesnt have that same character, she is a wonderful child but just not the same.

I will never stop teaching her manners or appropriate behaviour (on Sunday she had crayons taken off her at Church because she wouldnt say thank you to the lady handing them out), however I am much more sympathetic to parents who have difficult children.

It may well be down to their lack of disipline but it could just be a difficult child

I agree with what you say that sometimes women just need support (which is what i did btw) BUT remember Ive known them for a while. They are a happy couple, when something is wrong (she is overwhelmed with work, argued with hubby, normal life stuff) she confides in me and this was not an 'Im at the end of my tether' chat, it was just an err Im fed up right now chat. Dont know if you see what I mean.

AND Ive known them for a while so we have had SO many play dates. And they have gotten worse and worse and worse. Because he can do whatever he wants. It genuinely is that. So with the years he is more and more wild!

Of course its hard when you dont have the support of your partner but they are happy and she blamed him for something she wasn't doing her self, and has never really done.

And honestly I can't deal with 4 hour lunches filled with screaming, crying, being mean to my son, embarrassing because other people were seriously getting pissed off. I dont think you realise just how ridiculous it was. We didn't actually get to have more than a 5 min chat with them. These people are lovely and they are worth keeping in touch with but Im never putting myself through a lunch like that. There will be some adjusting to how we keep in touch.

Maybe you would be willing to do that regularly for a few years with the hope it gets better for the sake of your friendship and in this respect we're different and I respect that. I guess people have different levels of tolerance for different things.

I think if they dont help him behave a bit better he will struggle later in school, in social environments because Im sorry standing on a table in a restaurant is just not right.

I have a difficult child I have said this. My second son is TOUGH.
STILL he wont behave like that Im sorry. Of course there is are children that are easier than others and education is not all. Still you dont allow children to do everything they want?

I have said it once and I'll say it again....are you willing to loose friends over what is just a phase of a few years' duration?

I agree with Grammar on this one. Soft pedal it a bit, just meet up without children when you can for a year or so and see how it goes. After all, I highly doubt they'll be standing on tables at 8 or 9 yo. I don't think that kind of behaviour shows up again until they're 18 and drinking.

Has the child already started school LFM?

Yes i think Ill leave it for a good year before we meet up as families again, I think thats what Im going to do. If we have the opportunity to go out for diner just us couples or girls then Ill do that. But then maybe it will be hard to always say no to play dates and our friendship might gradually disappear. That would make me sad but I can't let my son around hers. My son was so unhappy saturday, he kept trying to play with him or talk to him and the boy was scaring him, screaming and being mean to him, his mother can be the nicest person on earth its not worth my son being sad.

Yes the little boy started in september and apparently its going very well.

What would you have said when she confided in me saying this was really hard? (she spoke to me 10 minutes into him lying on the pavement screaming and refusing to get up because we had crossed the road before him).

I'd ask her what the school or nurseries take on his behaviour is.

Is he capable of behaving for others or not do they thing there is something else going on.

While I would say most/all DC have off days and tantrums and some like one of mine are bloody hard work and difficult to tell off ( something the school has also commented on at times) - the behaviour here really isn't normal as a common occurrence - I just wouldn't allow the restaurant stuff running round or climbing on tables .

It doesn't surprise me though she has an unsupportive DP.

I've know two families with very passive wet parenting - one where the DC was almost as bad as described here and people were according to the mother very critical of her parenting in public to her face but now he's a lovely confidence pleasant to be round 10 year old now but parents split he now part of a blended family with new younger siblings and his Dad left for another country.

Other family - mother was a close friend she wanted our DD to get on as she stated she wanted my DC good behaviour to rub off on her own - but she couldn't set boundaries - couldn't even say no with any conviction. Her DH - who had split for a while - actively undermined her with the DC and she explained to others she hated disciplining her DC as she felt so guilty that she worked and didn't have more time for them. I was relived when they moved away - as it was awkward to avoid socilailisng with their DC - I liked the DC though not her behaviour. The mother would moan about her DD behaviour but would dismiss the schools views, would never implement any advice given - avoiding was only real option.

All my DC have had spectacular tantrums in public over minor things even at advance age of 4 and even 6. It is very hard and there are occasions when you are stuck about doing much as leaving isn't an option and distraction isn't working - and even after looks, firm no and threats that will be carried out later - and your in lets get through this mode. These are rare events - and we would obviously try and do something.

Honestly avoiding and trying when the DC are older is probably only option.

Re. children climbing on tables - this is slightly different because it's a playgroup setting, not a restaurant, but still:
at one of the playgroups I attend with Ds2, there is a lady with 2 sons, neither of whom have proper boundaries because she doesn't set them. They aren't horrible children, but they are undisciplined - and it has included the younger one (nearly 2) climbing on the tea-break table while the others are sitting at it, knocking over cups of water and trying to grab food off a plate on the other side, while his mum just watches on and says nothing. The older one hurt my DS2 by standing on the back of a hoop DS2 was carrying as he trotted along (he was inside the circle of it, holding the front almost in front of his face, so as the momentum was stopped, the hoop hit him in the throat) - his mum was inside, not in sight, so I told him off and he immediately ran in to his mum.
There are numerous small instances of her failing to correct her children in matters of them hitting the other children, refusing to share toys, taking toys off others etc. - and finally one of the lovely ladies (honestly) who helps run the playgroup had had enough and shouted at the older one because he was doing something dangerous.
So this mum picked up both the boys and said "Come on, we'd better leave before we ALL get shouted at!" and left in a massive huff. She hasn't returned (we're not sorry).

I've been resisting posting this next bit because it sounds insufferably smug but hey - a restaurant we go to regularly (once a month at least) with our 2 DSs, aged 6 and 2, nearly went child-free recently due to bad behaviour of uncontrolled children. The proprietor actually said this to us last time we were there - one of the reasons she decided not to go completely child-free was because of our DS1, who she really likes because he behaves. She told us as a compliment to DS1, which was lovely - and I hope that once DS2 is out of the highchair she will still feel the same way about us, although I'm not too sure about it, as he's a completely different kettle of fish!

I used to get moaned at at playgroup as my DD would take other kids stuff even though I'd be doing my best.

Now it transpires Dd has severe SN. It wasnt obvious then, she probably looked a bit wild and uncontrolled..really she had strong impulses and no understanding.

So now I wouldn't give another parent a hard time even on here as you never know what people are dealing with. Even that woman who was driven away from.playgroup.

Luckily now DD sits nicely in public. But not always especially not at playgroup age.

I would have suggested she read some parenting books as thats what lots of parents do when stuck. Look at reviews on Amazon