About other people’s children

[Curiousaboutchoices]

I sometimes feel like I am the only ‘strict’ parent around. We are surrounded by lovely people but many are what I would describe as permissive parents. This goes from the very extreme ‘Jane is just experimenting with gravity ’ when 3 year old Jane was deliberately throwing breakable items down a set of stairs, to a milder version whereby people consistently let their kids speak rudely, interrupt, scream and shout if they are ignored or don’t get their own way. Behaviour such as taking toys off another child, ignoring instructions/requests, being rude are often laughed at. Lots don’t restrict tv, screens or gaming, let their kids eat loads of sweets and chocolate in between meals, let their kids get up and down from the table, go to bed when they like, or put their kids to bed and then do nothing when they get back up again. This all makes play dates and sleepovers incredibly hard when all this is acceptable behaviour at home but not in my house.

No one would think it acceptable for an adult to behave like this. If I was unable to go out for dinner without getting up and wandering around people would think I was a little odd. I’m not talking toddlers, I’m talking KS1 and 2. And it’s a lot of the visitors to my house, not a small minority.

I can hear people saying already ‘not your kids, not your business’, which is right, but what these parents create is kids who are incredibly hard work outside the home. When kids stay over or come to play they are unable to cope with an adult not responding to their whims immediately, find it odd that I tell them not to help themselves my food cupboards or go into my bedroom, don’t like being told they have to sit still at a table to eat and can’t get up and down, etc.

Is this a nationwide modern phenomenon now, that children can do what they like or am I just living in a weird bubble?

Title should be other people’s children - typing fail.

Lots of people are bad/lazy at parenting and the rest of the world suffers at having to put up with the resulting unruly brats they have. It's frustrating but unfortunately we still don't require a license for people to breed in order to be certain there's actually a "pro" to their procreation.

Curiousaboutchoices

You might enjoy the humorous book "I hate other people's kids". It's a good laugh and laughing is pretty much all you can do at the situation since it's still not considered cool to tell people they suck at parenting.

No one would think it acceptable for an adult to behave like this

Children aren't adults. If you don't understand why please never comment on any children, ever.

At our house it is "our house, our rules".

I parent it would seem in a similar way to you Curiousaboutchoices

They can either abide by the rules or they won't be invited back. I do find actually that once the visiting kids realise I mean business they do abide by the rules of the house. Again if their parents have a problem with that then their child would not be invited again.

Of course I understand that children aren’t adults (err, I have children and I am an adult and am aware of the difference) but if one extrapolates on my examples, these kids are not learning early the skills they need to become a functioning member of society. It’s just as unacceptable to be unable to sit at a table and eat a meal at 10 as it is as an adult, in my view. It’s baby behaviour that should be outgrown by that age.

Leigh - off to download, coping strategies are what I really need so thank you.

Your house your rules. I tell any kids in my home that it’s not what we do here, misbehave and you go home.

This is why I don't have friends. Can't abide other people's dc.

There have been so many threads about this of late. Some people are lax, some people are overly strict. Most are somewhere in the middle. Most I know are fairly liberal, most I see out and about are more strict/harsh than I would be.

They are just making their child's life harder. I work with someone who constantly interrupts, has outbursts if he doesn't get his own way etc. You can see that he has spent his entire life being mollycoddled and expects it from everyone.

@Curiousaboutchoices I like you. You don't seem like you'd let your children zoom round the supermarket on scooters

Yes. You are right. Everybody else has been doing it wrong until you came along to enlighten us about your perfect parenting. Now we see the error of our ways and promise to change O great one. —Is that what you wanted to hear—?

"Aww, little Timmy is just expressing himself!"

No, little Timmy is drawing all over my wallpaper.

Ahh Elton, no that’s not my point at all. It’s a shame you can’t engage with the debate and defend your position constructively as that might persuade me of your point more than a silly dig.

Tea - I want to throw my four Pinter of milk at the parents of kids on scooters who are cutting up old people and those in wheelchairs while mum lags back 4 aisles away smiling wistfully that little Billy is having such fun or, even more annoyingly, calling ineffetively at him to come back whilst giving him no actual incentive to do so. Drives me mental.

Yes, Billy is such a little scamp on his scooter isn't he. Such fun. I feel like you should launch 2 pints though as you might be able to get more force behind it.

YABU to generalise on the basis of extremely limited evidence.

I want to throw my four Pinter of milk at the parents of kids on scooters

But if one of these kids who move away from a dinner table said they wanted to do this, you would deem them rude and unruly.

It can be difficult dealing with this, I know. In a way even harder if the other parents are stricter on some things and more lenient on others as then it is more about differences of opinions and priorities and things aren't so black and white.

For example, DS'1's best friend goes to bed later, when he feels like it and is up and down a lot unable to sleep in the evenings. DS1 is in bed by a set time and knows unless he was ill I would not put up with having my evening and sleep disturbed regularly! His friend's mother is much stricter about trying everything on your plate, not leaving food, perfect table manners (I also encourage but don't let it become a nightly argument). But because her living room and kitchen is in a large basement and the houses either side are 9-5 offices, her kids run riot constantly at full blast upstairs while she can't even hear them downstairs! They shout, bag, chuck noisy stuff downstairs, jump on furniture, chase, wrestle... In my terrace with actual neighbours they probably think I'm an ogre telling them to shut up and pipe down all the time! His friend has no TV and they only got a family laptop and tablet last year so v little screen time. My kids get a lot of screen time for various hobbies/homework/entertainment.

But both Oscar if have the same ethos when it comes to visiting children or our kids visiting elsewhere - my house, my rules, their house, their rules. And we both drum it into our kids to Check what the rules are, and follow them, keeping thoughts to themselves, or they may not be invited round again. Seems to work for us and other friends who behave differently.

Those types of kids don't get invited back

You don't need coping strangers - you need to say no!

I was asking whether my bubble was unusual, and whether I was wrong to generalise, that was the point of my thread. Seems my experience is not so unusual gnu?

Both Oscar if = both of us! Damn phone, sorry.

Danny, I don’t think anyone thought I would actually do this and that’s the point - differentiation between 1. what one wants to do and 2. what one ought to do and goes on to do which at ten and in relation to the given example, you ought to have nailed.

I will never throw a 4(or) 2 Pinter of milk at anyone but I will continue to want to do so at parents who think th world revolves around their offspring. It doesn’t. Your world does, but the rest of it just doesn’t.

Green - what if this rules out best friends?

I do what is best for my child and have rules that I think he can cope with. It is possible this may look to other people like he has own way to much but they don't know his needs. He is stopped sometimes physically from doing things that are dangerous or may hurt anyone. He'll always look different so I'm not bothered about that.

I had similar yesterday where I was really embarrassed by the behaviour of a child out with us, including screaming, hitting and being really rude to grownups. My DD was reduced to tears more than once by the mean behaviour of the child too.

All this happened in front of the mum who seemed to have no care about the impact on those around us.