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?

Noone is saying that.

I simply said you cannot tell what is going on with other people so people should dial back the judging.

Especially if a child is exhibiting extreme unusual behaviour.

I said nothing about how people shoukd be with their own children.

Unlike some who seem desperate to be smug and judge. Bit sad really.

Discipline your own kids however you like.

But would be lovely not to go around judging others constantly.

Still seems that is hard for some.

Am off to bed now.

Would be nice if you didnt twist my words again. Thanks awfully.

Spot on Pumpkin .

There are a lot of people getting very defensive about this post. I guess there must be some children out there that are so difficult to handle that they cannot be controlled by their parents regardless of the effort they put in. However, it seems pretty clear, at least to me, that Littlefrenchmummy is not criticizing difficult children, but rather a particular parenting style.

I really do think there is a trend in parenting today whereby children are treated like little adults who should have equal say, who cannot be told off in public because it is "humiliating" and who do not get to hear the word "no" because it is too upsetting. I actually have a friend who does not use the word "no" at all with her children. (That doesn't mean she never denies them anything, but she thinks the word itself has some kind of negative effect and always finds another way to say what she needs to say.)

My point is that children are people and they need to live in society with the rest of us. We cannot prepare the world for our child, we need to prepare our children for the world. And we cannot do that if we treat our children like some rare unicorns whose needs are always paramount at the expense of everyone else, including their parents. What kind of society will we have when they grow up?

Yes thank you Anna

Am staggered that anyone can tell if a child has SN or not just by looking.

Be honest....you can see the obvious distability but not the invisible ones.

My son has autism and ADHD, I would be amazed if you could tell on glance that he had either.

Take him u to a supermarket though where he is overwhelmed by lights and noise and people then you will see a difference between him and others of his age. Mostly this takes the form of pacing, talking to himself and head bobbing. Occasionally though he can be problematic....raging and crying for X reason. This week it was because the Travelator broke meaning we could t use it. As we were upstairs with a trolley we needed to use the lift....one of his fears and hates. It was either abandon the trolley or carry him in there shouting and yelling. I opted for the latter having managed to somehow magically calm him down slightly. Thankfully another woman took one look and said "Autistic?" and helped me when I affirmed that by taking my trolley for me. I don't know who she was but she was a bloody angel. Before she arrived there were others just tutting and shaking their heads in disgust...I wanted to just scream at them in despair.

Sadly we still live in a vwry judgemental society.

Agree with you totally Anna but the world also has to understand that sme people will struggle to live in that world. Thankfully I feel DSL will cope well as he grows and matures. He might always be the eccentric one in the office. Though.

Supermarkets are hard for us too. Massive sensory overload. This takes the form of dd attacking me, kicking me, screaming at me and calling me names. If she shows me something I have to respond in exactly the right way with the right level of enthusiasm or she will lose it and become very stressed. No one could tell she has autism, even her school didn't pick up on it. I did because ds had it and I knew the signs though it does present very differently in girls. It's absolute nonsense to say you can tell the difference. You cannot unless you are a trained professional or have masses of experience. I do and CAN generally tell when challenging behaviour is down to SN. Often I can tell when it's only written about on here too.

who cannot be told off in public because it is "humiliating"

I think this is way off base. What possible benefit is there in "humiliating" a child? Disciplining a child does not need to also be humiliating. You can have one without the other. My parents regularly humiliated us when disciplining us and it was awful. I can still remember the sick feeling I had even now, 40 years later.

Alice I was referring to Troublesometrucker, who wrote:

"chances are some of my friends think we're awful at parenting because we refuse to humiliate our kids in front of their friends just to satisfy other people. That doesn't mean our kids get away with it however. In the privacy of our home if they behave appallingly in public - they are dealt with."

I personally do not see how it would be humiliating to a child to be told that he cannot use his scooter in a restaurant, or stand on the tables, for example. It totally depends on how you deal with it. And I don't believe in the idea that you should always put in a united front for your child, no matter what he or she does, just to go home and tell them off in private. Surely that sends the message that it is NOT OK to make mistakes and we must always keep up outward appearances of being perfect (even when we are wrong) instead of apologising and moving on?

I always suspected that some of the head shakers were people who were arrogant enough to think they could assess SN across a room.

It is a combination of arrogance and utter stupidity that borders on the impressive.
Trained professionals may take several hours of assessments to get a handle on a child's behaviour. But some on here don't need that. They have some kind of super sense. I should think of a name for that...

Ok so its ok for you to be offensive because you don't like an opinion.

Do you know my background? No, you don't.

I understand its hard for SN parents, I work with many, but generally yes I can spot a badly behaved childs tantrum vs a SN child tantrum. When you get past those younger years they are very different, in my experience.

Sorry you don't agree but I won't get into name calling

Someone should alert the NHS. They could save themselves a fortune!

My ds spent a week being assessed by a Paediatrician, a Child Psych, a SALT, an OT, and a Physio.

And all they really needed was someone to look at him from across a room for a few minutes to get the same result...

I don't believe in the idea that you should always put in a united front for your child, no matter what he or she does, just to go home and tell them off in private. Surely that sends the message that it is NOT OK to make mistakes and we must always keep up outward appearances of being perfect (even when we are wrong) instead of apologising and moving on?

Not quite sure what this is all about. If that's in response to me, I didn't say that I did that. So a bit puzzled.

coppertop Amazing, isn't it? People make me laugh sometimes. I want a psychic beanie as well, don't you? I find it's best to just nod your head and offer the standard response.. "of course you can, dear."

No one has been offensive to you at all and there's no "getting into name calling" because no one has done that. I asked you how you're able to tell if behaviours are down to SN or not and you still haven't answered that. Tell us about your background instead of being defensive.

It's also worth noting here that it is quite possible to have unrecognised and undiagnosed SN which impact on behaviour. Even parents may not have a clue. Sadly this is very common and some will be the kids that many on this thread are dismissing as badly behaved and brought up brats. I have had direct experience of this for many years because my dc appear so high functioning.

I understand its hard for SN parents, I work with many, but generally yes I can spot a badly behaved childs tantrum vs a SN child tantrum.

Of course you can, dear.

Something to lighten the tone

:o at that link!

Oh, that's summed up my half term so far just perfectly! :o

That's brilliant youthecat.

I am not being offensive and name calling. I am pointing out that anyone who thinks that a process which can take months if not years to identify complex special needs in a child is possible to circumvent by looking across a room, is an idiot. Which is patently obvious.

Saying that a patently stupid statement is, in fact, stupid is neither offensive not name calling.
The grown up thing to do would be to recognise that knowing many parents of children with SN absoloutely does not qualify you to spot SN from across the room and in fact you are worse than those with ignorant uninformed opinions because you pretend that a little contact makes you an expert.

The woman who first diagnosed my son had studied autism for 18 years, diagnosed and taught and spent her entire working life around children with autism and she said to me 'this is my job and I know nothing of you life because I simply see glimpses of it from the sidelines'

You could learn a great deal from that level of understanding and professionalism.

To the OP: Just a thought but is it possible that when your friend texted to say what a nice time she and her family had had, she was only being polite? i.e. she was only demonstrating good manners?

Maybe she did have a lovely time, maybe she didn't, but many people would say they had unless there had been an argument or something that could not be glossed over. Its the modern equivalent of the handwritten thankyou note.

I say it every time I see friends, always within 24 hours of having left them even though I don't always have a wonderful time.

Similarly, when she said sometime about finding her child difficult to manage occasionally, it was her way of acknowledging to you that he had misbehaved a little and that she was aware of it.

If that's what she was trying to communicate, then the last thing she would have wanted was for you to agree with her! Rather the recipient is supposed to pretend that they had not noticed the poor behaviour, or at worst, simply brush it off as something that happens with all children some time or other and you'd barely given it a thought.

I'd be mortified if I said something like that and the other person agreed that I needed help and started to offer advice!

(Just thinking of the unwritten rules of social interaction as I know them).

Pagwatch, ok then you are the expert and I shall slink away.

For goodness sake, Pagwatch is not claiming to be an expert! She's just a parent who has been through the process of diagnosis and knows there's more to it than watching a child having tantrum!

Although I have no experience of it myself I can guess that even an expert would need to observe a child over a period of time, have an in depth discussion with the parents etc.