Is this normal wear and tear? Ukrainian hosting

[Isthisexpected]

Hosting a Ukrainian family. Difference of opinion between me and my husband. I feel our house is getting trashed because the mother is too hands off parenting and leaves us to tell her toddler "no". We have been clear about things such as no climbing on the furniture, child must be clean before leaving the dining room and no food in the lounge etc but I basically feel I have to be the parent. Sometimes the mum will stay upstairs letting the two year old run amok downstairs until I intervene.

My husband says it's wear and tear and part of opening up our home. Some examples:

Brand new books for our youngest, ripped.
Biro and felt tip on the walls and tables
Toaster left too close to gas hob and melted
Food stains on the new dining chairs because I am not there for every meal to keep saying "no the wooden ones are for you"
Wee on my new sofa (child climbed on and took nappy off)
Food stains (red Borscht) on lounge carpet as child wasn't clean before leaving dining room

Anyone else hosting children please comment....is this acceptable wear and tear? Yes - YABU.

Toddlers are going to toddle.

And women who have fled a war with their toddler, no idea where they are going to live or who they are going to feel endebted to when they arrive, not able to speak the language fully, are probably going to have some level of trauma and staying in their bed may be a coping mechanism. Not laziness.

I have a 3 year old and a 5 year old, they are both naughty at times and totally would do those things if unsupervised but they haven't because I parent them

Do you have access to a good translator? I would ask them to talk to the mother and say something along the lines of:

You are still very welcome here and we don't regret inviting you in, but can I ask that you are more respectful of our home. We are asking you to be responsible for XXX and try to minimise mess and damage. We realise this whole experience is difficult for you and we want to be supportive, but this arrangement has to work for us as a family too. If XXX is downstairs playing, our expectation is that you would be supervising, and ensuring his safety and behaviour.

Or something like that?

But surely it's the mother's job to police her toddler? It's so disrespectful to turn a blind eye...
OP, well done for hosting. It's an amazing thing to do. You're taking the appropriate actions (removing the new chairs)
Now be a bit less British with guiding the mother. I'm from an Eastern European background and my mother's family are pretty straightforward in giving very clear instructions- not the "would you mind..." so hand mother the scrubbing kit and get her to help out.

YANBU. Mum needs to step up and supervise her child. Pens etc need to be out of reach. I never had these issues with my own DC who were 13 months apart and thick as thieves. How could it even take its nappy off? Mine always had something on top so that couldn't happen. I'd be getting cross too (as would my DM) if these things were happening.

I think things like this are to be expected when you take in refugee families who have gone through the trauma of leaving behind their family and friends and almost every aspect of their life, who have seen awful things happening in their country and who are trying to navigate a new culture and language whilst living with stress and uncertainty of not knowing whether the people and places they left behind will still be there when they return and not knowing when or even whether they will be able to return.

Its understandable that in these circumstances there are likely to be more issues such as bad behaviour from children or disconnecting from roles/ responsibilities from adults. Welcoming refugees was never going to be the same as welcoming guests who were on holiday or had chosen to work abroad etc, the majority won’t have wanted to leave Ukraine but had little choice and they probably have mixed feelings about the situation. From reading various threads I also think there are some cultural differences regarding how hosts are expecting them to act and behave (often as guests) and how the refugees are expecting to be able to act and behave (as if they are part of the household).

The behaviours you describe from the toddler are all fairly standard, drawing on walls, making a mess, bodily fluids, ripping things etc. You can’t really compare his behaviour with your own children as presumably they didn’t have the trauma of having to leave their country and most of their family behind and travel somewhere now in their early childhoods? I also think you have to accept the mothers ability to parent her child and stay on top of his behaviours will be effected by the trauma she has gone through and the stress she will still be feeling for the people still in Ukraine. What has happened to the child father? The mother is probably exhausted from trying to navigate life in a new country where she doesn’t speak the language, living with people who she doesn’t know, trying to parent a toddler on her own without family support whilst also carrying the trauma of being a refugee. It’s understandable she might not be managing to stay on top of all of the toddler’s normal behaviours in the way you might have been able to do when you children were the same age.

I think if you thought that the mother and child were going to fit into your household and behave like guests on holiday and weren’t going to bring any issues in terms of behaviour, mess, differences in parenting styles and the effects of trauma you were going into this a bit naively and I think you need to cut the family a lot more slack than you would in normal circumstances with guests. You need to remember these are refugees who have left everything to flee a war, not people coming to the UK for a nice holiday, and their behaviours are likely to reflect this.

The fact that the mum is staying upstairs shows she doesn't feel comfortable being downstairs/around you or she feels judged by you. I don't blame you- we all have our own expectations, standards of others. I don't think this arrangement if working for you so they need to leave.

I have two sons, now grown up. yes 2 year olds do cause a mess but some of what you say is way beyond fair wear and tear. I'm surprised the mother does not make sure the child is clean when they get down from the table - it is easy to wipe the child but far more work to clear up when they leave a trail of food all over your furniture. Mine were quite creative and there were sometimes bits of scribble on their bedroom walls but certainly not in other rooms. I think in some areas there is a service to help resolve these sorts of issues - do you have access to one?

Had you fled a war alone with your 3 toddlers and moved to a country where you don't speak the language?

I'm wondering if the mum is depressed and if the toddler is getting enough outside time - yes that amount of mess/damage over a couple of years sounds normal but not in 5 weeks.

It's a big undertaking, taking on a dislocated mum and a toddler. Do they go to any play groups?

So OP, my DS did draw on the walls and the sofa once at that age but when I gave him paper and said this is what we draw on, we had no more issues. I would not have allowed DS near a biro - all art stuff was washable so no lasting damage. Likewise he ripped up every single one of his board books at this age

dining chairs did get spilt on but DS had his own chair with booster cushion and no food / drink was allowed in our 'best' lounge to avoid damage. Playroom was elsewhere. Flannel on table at meals - wipe up before leaving

So I think you have to establish some boundaries and make it clear re expectations and if mum doesn't follow the rules of the house then it is time to end the hosting arrangement

Not sure if this helps at all but I have two children who would never draw on the walls. My third is a different ball game. She draws on walls, fabric chairs, toys, floors! 😮 I was slightly horrified that before she was at that stage a niece came round and drew on our wall. Then mine did it!

Yes I've got one that did no damage, lucky me, and another that did all of this and more.

That toddler's whole life has changed so much - can you imagine the disruption and being plonked in a country where you understand no language at all?

Another idea is get a cheap easel (ikea or second hand) for standing up drawing.

@Isthisexpected I read on another Ukrainian guest thread that in Ukraine, its expected whichever adult is with the child will fulfil the parenting role so it's quite normal to leave another adult to discipline one's children. It sounds like that's what's happening here so I don't think your guest is being lazy or selfish, she just doesn't understand the cultural difference.

OP hasn’t said that the guest doesn’t speak English?

I have done loads of the welfare checks for the Ukrainian guests (work in Social Care) and most of them speak English, and the translation app is very good.

No I have not fled a war zone but I patented my children alone after suffering severe trauma, and still managed to put boundaries in place.

From what I have observed it’s a cultural thing and the parenting is very different.

I am in awe of people who offer to do this - I wouldn’t be able to as it would stress me out so much.

But surely you need to understand that you may not get the perfect family with the well behaved children? Especially after what they’ve been through. So if you can’t offer to host a toddler then complain that things are being trashed. No the mother shouldn’t be letting the 2 year old run around unsupervised and of course they should have a bed time. but I don’t know what behaviour and parenting you can expect? You have to go in to this with your eyes wide open. Mother sounds like she’s given up a bit and that could be depression/PTS

I agree there’s not enough support for people but do hosts really think this through? It’s a minimum of 6 months with a family you have no idea of their mental health needs. The general population are not trained councillors. The government should have thought of some other way of supporting the people of Ukraine as I think we are now seeing lots of issues with host families. It’s nobodies fault and people are trying to do the right thing but it’s not working in many cases.

Strict bedtime routines are very much a British thing in my experience, having lived abroad in several different cultures and also in expat communities, raising my children alongside mothers from many different cultures. The same for very early bedtimes. It's totally abnormal to put a child to bed at 6 or 7 or even 8 in a lot of other countries! I haven't known any children of any age who have been put to bed earlier than 9PM. So yes, that's kind of on you I think, to host a family from another culture without really considering any basic cultural differences like this.

As for the other stuff, yes, that's very much normal behaviour for toddlers. My toddlers did pretty much all of that stuff and I suffer from anxiety so watched them like an absolute hawk! My 2 year old daughter even hid pens so that she could draw on the walls when she had an artistic moment, having figured out that we wouldn't hand them to her for that purpose!

Considering what Ukrainian refugees have gone through, it's not something I'd mention, ever.

I don't know what you imagined hosting a (probably fairly stressed and traumatised) mother with her toddler would be like, but you can't have thought it would be totally easy and harmonious? Toddlers are hard work! You're doing a good thing hosting a Ukrainian refugee, please don't ruin it by making the poor woman feel anxious and uncomfortable and like she needs to be on edge all the time to stop her toddler behaving like a toddler!

I don't think I've ever melted a toaster and I'm 70 next year so I can't see that as normal. Brought up 4 children, had pen on the wall once so I don't see that as normal either. Wee on the sofa well that can happen, food stains will hopefully clean. Ripping the book I'd expect her to replace if she has left her child to do it.

Her leaving 2 year old and disappearing to leave you to parent him is a definite no from me, asking you to keep an eye for 10/15/20 minutes while she gets on with something fair enough but not just leaving him to it.

So some of it normal and to be expected, some of it not.

I know of a few families that are hosting. They brought the toddler to a meeting and the kid was everywhere. We had to lock windows and doors.
It could be because the child is unsettled, but the parent should intervene and not leave it to run amok.

I think you've been unlucky in ending up with a particularly lax parent, but the toaster thing is down to her, not her parenting. Its quite dangerous and coupled with the rest of the lax parenting, you must feel as if you are constantly running around after her, checking her, as she is likely to do something more serious. I would be watchful and wary and maybe make her aware that you are concerned about all of this.

an example of just not really being "with it"

I don't know how "with it" one could expect her to be as a refugee from the current situation in Ukraine? She's in a strangers house with her life in shreds behind her and all the men she knows back there in the firing line dealing with real life atrocities. It doesn't sound like you're a good fit for a toddler, nor a war traumatised mother either paticularly. She no doubt wishes a melted toaster and some pen marks were the extent of her grief.

I'm sorry you're finding the mess and inconvenience difficult, but it might be helpful to believe that she's doing her best under circumstances that are unimaginable.

I would say that these examples are on the spectrum of normal with regards to a toddler but that doesn’t make it any easier.

I don’t think you are cut out for hosting OP, and I say that with absolutely no judgement. I would also not be able to do it. I struggle with my own needs for a tidy, clean home and my own toddler (and yes they have once kindly added artwork to my beautiful white walls).

I think this scheme was a terrible idea from the start. Expecting people to take in others from a very different culture who have experienced a lot of trauma. The lack of support for hosts is awful. I’m not saying we shouldn’t help Ukrainian refugees (or other nationalities) but putting the burden on private individuals is not the way.

You have done an incredibly kind thing offering a family a home, but at the end of the day you must prioritise your own family.

The Ukrainian refugee scheme looks fantastic on paper but at the end of the day, it will often not work. That is not your fault. You are expected to cohabit with another mother and another child - they are not family or friends etc of course this was going to have problems. Refugee or no, she is not respecting your very fair, very reasonable boundaries - unfortunately this is no longer working. That does not make you a bad person and ignore the posters saying you should have expected this/put up with it because of her experiences. This is your home where you should feel comfortable and respected, at the end of the day you don't.

It's time to help find her some alternative accommodation and she can allow the toddler to ruin her own furniture, not yours.

I'd say a 2 year old still needs a lot of supervision, so would not be expect Mum to be far apart from child. At the minimum I would expect them to eat at the table and wipe wash hands after eating.