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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To find it very irritating when parents will go to any length to avoid upsetting their child?

220 replies

Audrella · 16/08/2015 19:19

Even when it means upsetting others in the process just to avoid their precious little flower from being upset.

Yesterday I took DS out with a friend and her DS, who is the same age as my son. My friend spoils her son a lot; he is quite demanding (the boys are 7), and she will do things like start talking to me and he'll make the smallest demand murmur and she will never make him wait, she'll just walk off to do whatever he wants. Anyway, yesterday my friend's DS suddenly started saying that my son's name is short for a really horrible, old fashioned name that was obviously going to wind my DS up. DS came over to me with the other boy and said "My name's not short for X is it, mum?" and I said "no, of course it's not". The other boy then started crying and my friend soothingly murmured "Yes darling, it IS short for X". Rather than tell her son he was wrong!

DS also recently had a party. One child had a tantrum when I gave out the party bags because he didn't like what was in them. Instead of telling him that it was tough luck, the mum kept being all softly softly with him, and hinting to me that he really wanted something else and trying to find out if I had something different he could have (I didn't)

AIBU to find this behaviour annoying and think that we are going to end up with a generation of spoilt, pampered kids!!

OP posts:
captainproton · 17/08/2015 08:12

I do sometimes wonder if the parents realise that if they don't start getting their children to share and hear the word no a few times, that these kids are unlikely to be asked to go on many play dates.

My eldest is 3 I've already encountered a couple of ineffectual mums, there children act up to get their own way, my DD then try's to copy it, or is either having to suffer being bashe with toys or being made to share something she's had hold of for 30 seconds.

I don't want to make my child play with these children and im not particularly loving the atmosphere either.

I once had to tell a 4 year old to leave my children and their toys alone in a hospital waiting room. My kids had brought toys with them so they had something to do whilst we waited. As soon as they started playing this kid comes out of nowhere to play along. It was fun for about 5 seconds and I had to stick up for my children. Mother was not interested and pleased he was making friends. This kid was massive compared to my 2, if my children started bossing little kids about and stealing their toys they'd be dragged away, made to say sorry and told to sit near me.

Makes my blood boil!

LittleCandle · 17/08/2015 08:19

I had something similar with my DDs' cousin, who is a boy. When they were little, he could do whatever he liked - including slamming doors, trying to catch then 2 ear old DD2's fingers in the door - and if i told him off, i was always told 'he's just being a boy'. No, he's being a nasty little shit and if he does it once more, i'm going to knock him into the middle of next week. MIL, who was as mad as a box of frogs at the best of times, insisted that both DDs got gifts on each other's birthdays so the other didn't feel left out. She also wanted to give them gifts on my birthday and XH's birthday, even though she wasn't giving me or him anything at all. I put a stop to that one, but she never would listen about the DDs' birthdays. I had to explain to them that Nana was a bit mad trying to be kind, but this was not normal behaviour.

I see badly behaved kids, whose parents pander to them all the time at work. It seems that a lot of parents are incapable of saying no. You are the adult, they are the child and that's the end of the story. If they can't control their child at 2, what the hell are they going to do when they hit their teens? Not every badly behaved child has SN of some sort - some of them just need their parents to step up and teach them how to behave. Kids aren't born knowing this.

Phew! And breathe...

laffymeal · 17/08/2015 08:25

I remember a friend's 5 year old boy thumped my 2 year old dd, then booted me in the shins. I barked at him and he started wailing, his mum said "laffy didn't mean to shout at you darling" and expected me to apologize! Em, no.

youarekiddingme · 17/08/2015 08:26

I understand exactly what your saying and have seen it loads of times.

The name one could be a misunderstanding but sounds like it was deliberate meanness.

Does anyone else ever wonder how it is when your the parent who actually sticks in boundaries and sticks to them, the mother of the child upset about name, mother of the child expected to to give up food and toys - that end up looking or feeling like the unreasonable one!

Sallyhasleftthebuilding · 17/08/2015 08:26

I had a child (4) here once who wanted to play in the field, I found her some wellies and as DD had pink, she wanted pink, I didn't have any pink. She looked at me and said "we'll go into town and buy me some then" ... Mom came not long after and she turned on the water works at how mean id been not to buy her pink wellies... Mom asked where DD had hers from and popped into town to get them!!! She didn't get an invite back.

scrappydappydoo · 17/08/2015 08:28

The thing is, these parents also make other parents jobs harder too. I find it more difficult to be firm and strict with my dc when other parents are letting their kids get away with murder. What would normally be a non issue for my dc like a simple 'no' suddenly becomes an issue with whining and stroppiness because 'tarquins allowed'. So the whole thing has grown from just having the original problem to also dealing with copy cat tantruming behaviour that i also do not tolerate.

m0therofdragons · 17/08/2015 08:44

Hmmm I worry db is this kind of parent. My nephew is lovely but he and sil spent half an hour asking dn to come and get in the car. He's 20 months old! "Please can I get you in the car? Come on honey we all need to get in the car..."etc. It was fascinating to watch but my 7 yo and 2 3yos were in the car waiting so I intervened, picked dn up and blew a raspberry on his tummy while carrying him to the car. All strapped in with no drama. With 3 dc I don't have time to faff.

BrianButterfield · 17/08/2015 08:49

I'll never forget seeing a parent let the birthday child have every other turn at opening the pass the parcel because he was whinging and whining about other children having a turn. I was gobsmacked!

SalemSaberhagen · 17/08/2015 08:50

Happened to me once with my DNephew too m0ther, about the same age. He was kicking off about getting in the car, I picked him up, put him in his seat. No more tears. SIL then says no no, we like him to CHOOSE to get into the car seat, and took him out! 10 more minutes of him refusing to get in. I was Shock

This was the same day he decided to throw a tantrum on the middle of a pelican crossing. Rather than pick him up from the floor, SIL crouched down and reasoned with him. Whilst allowing traffic to build up massively either side!

YouTheCat · 17/08/2015 08:52

At work, I was made to apologise to a child because of some perceived slight. I think he hadn't liked me telling him off for beating up another child and his mum complained.

I no longer feel able to deal with this child's behaviour because I know behaviour support are crap and will just pander to the mother and son. So I pass him on to anyone else or just let the teacher deal with him.

A lot of the other children avoid him now.

orangesandmelons23 · 17/08/2015 09:00

YANBU.
I was at a wedding a Christening a few weeks ago. It was all very serious and very solemn so not the sort of thing where kids were wandering around IYSWIM. One of the godparent's daughters (8 years old) wanted to go on stage with her mum. Her GP were quietly explaining why she couldn't. This child had an absolute meltdown. Rather than one of the GPs squirelling the screaming child out of the church, they just let her run up on stage.

On stage, she then wanted to hold the candle that her mum was holding. Her mum said 'No' so child started to have another meltdown upon which she was promptly handed the candle.

Tut tut.

orangesandmelons23 · 17/08/2015 09:04

Confused ^a Christening!

Aeroflotgirl · 17/08/2015 09:10

Exactly op, those are appealing examples, with your friend, I woukd gave sId not its not short for that name, that's incorrect. I would only meet her when ds at school. With the party bag mum, I woukd have said sorry, that's it!

zazzie · 17/08/2015 09:12

Orangesandmelons, something similar happened at one I went to but with a slightly younger child. The child had severe sn.

Aeroflotgirl · 17/08/2015 09:13

orange unless the girl has some SN, that is shocking. Even dd8 who has ASD and dev delay does nit behave like that, and understands when no is no. That is the behaviour of a 2 year old.

zazzie · 17/08/2015 09:17

Some of our 8 year olds have the understanding of 2 year olds or younger.

zazzie · 17/08/2015 09:22

I agree that the child should have been taken out if church but the behaviour leading up to that may not have been avoidable.

pictish · 17/08/2015 09:28

I was once kept waiting in cafe for 40 minutes because a friend's over indulged daughter didn't want to put her coat on to go out.
She was animatedly and apologetically telling me the saga of the repertoire she had to go through in order to convince this 4 yr old to put on her coat, chortling away as if it was an amusing anecdote and a great example of what a character her dd is.
When she eventually stopped talking and saw this Hmm face looking back at her, she looked puzzled and said, "What's up?".

Not a fucking scooby.

YouTheCat · 17/08/2015 09:29

My ds (20) has the understanding of about a 3 year old. I wouldn't have let him do that at 8. He would have been distracted and taken out before anything got to that point.

SomethingFunny · 17/08/2015 09:30

The name thing is a little difficult. If your son's name is Alfie and the other boy was calling him Alfred, they were both right- Alfie can be short for Alfred (and always used to be) but your son is and never was called Alfred always just Alfie. This should have been explained to Both children. Telling your son that Alfie is not short for Alfred doesn't help him at all, he needs to know the real explanation so he can deal with it in future. The other child needs to be taught not to tease, but also needs to know that he is right and Alfie used to be short for Alfred. At the age of 7 they are both old enough to have this explained properly to them. The ideal outcome for your son is to give him the tools to deal with a situation like this himself in the future- one where he doesn't get upset and need to come running to Mummy because someone else said something factually correct about his name.

Aeroflotgirl · 17/08/2015 09:34

Orange if the girl had something like ASD, then there should have been somebody to be with her and take her out if it gets too much for her. I woukd have removed dd from that situation.

Aeroflotgirl · 17/08/2015 09:36

zazzie do you work with children with SN? I meant if there were no SN with the girl. Dd goes to SS for ASD, there is a spectrum, some of the 8 year olds have a delay of a 2/3 year olds there.

YouTheCat · 17/08/2015 09:37

But the OP has said that the name the other child was taunting her child with wasn't a longer version of her ds's name. The other child was just doing it to be mean and his mother should have pulled him up on it instead of indulging the little bully.

I suggest the OP doesn't bother with playdates with them again.

SomethingFunny · 17/08/2015 09:39

With regards to children not told off- my friend had a son at the same age as my son so we used to meet up when they were little. Her son used to hit mine deliberately and was so horrible to mine that my DSs didn't want to see him anymore. The mum did the classic "don't do that" to him but did nothing. She once tried putting him on the naughty step but he got straight off - she just shrugged and said "I don't know how you are meant to get them to stay there" and let her son resume playing. I stopped meeting up with our children and just met up with her after that.

The children are now in junior school and we met up again recently. Her son is very well behaved and a nice boy- our children got on really well and played nicely. I don't know what has changed with her parenting in the last few years or if the child has just matured (she had no occasion to tell him off when we met up so I didn't get to see if her response has changed).

So once a spoilt bully doesn't always mean always a spoilt bully!

SomethingFunny · 17/08/2015 09:43

YouTheCat- she hasn't told us that it could never be considered a longer version of the name her son has. If her son is an Alfie, it's not clear whether the other child was calling him Alfred and she said its not a longer version of HIS name (ie his name is registered as Alfie), but historically it originated as a shorter version of Alfred. Or that the other child was calling him Frank when he is Alfie - in which case the other mum would be bonkers telling her son he was right. I suspect it's the former.