To want to address parenting styles with my oldest friend

[BubbalaDetalla]

I have a friend who idolises her DS. Most of the time I admire her and think she is an amazing mum. And he is a great kid. Recently, however, I have sometimes found her approach with him quite damaging for a number of reasons. She is in my view excessively defensive of her DS to the detriment of other kids (and potentially her own DS) This recently caused an issue when her DS was being quite dominating with my (gentle and shy) DS and I intervened to separate them.
She wants to meet up in half term and I don't currently want to do this because I am uncomfortable with her parenting style. I feel like if her DS was overbearing with my DS she wouldn't intervene and would be pissed off if I did. And of course I won't put my DS in this situation.
I have known this friend for over 35 years. We have been incredibly close in the past and were a lifeline to each other during mat leave and various trials and tribulations of life. It is only since the boys turned 5, in the last year or so that this has become an issue.
My friend lost both of her parents very young and while she has dealt with this in a way I admire, and in many ways is admirably strong, I do think she has some.issues potentially related to this/abandonment issues that are born out in her parenting. I think she is quite unhappy and her DS is her primary source of price and joy. She cannot bear to tell her DS off, even when in my view she should
It's coming to the point where I love her and her DS in themselves but I don't like the dynamic of the four of us together.
My DH thinks I should not mention my views to my friend and let the relationship fade out. He has no qualms with burning bridges but I am loathe to let go of the friendship and am considering broaching the issue with her.
We have always spoken frankly in the past. Her friendship is really important to me - should I swallow her parenting style and keep our Ds's apart and not mention anything, or try to discuss this with her?
I think the reason it is difficult to discuss, beyond the fact that discussing opposing parenting styles is potentially disastrous and usually a no go area, is that she is very defended around this topic. She and her DH do not have the greatest relationship in part because she will not entertain any questions of her parenting style from him. Am I mad to want to broach this? Has anyone ever had a conversation like this that's gone well? We do have a few other mutual friends who have made comments /rolled eyes in the past regarding her indulgence of DS so I suspect I'm not the only one who views things this way. I feel like if it was me I'd want to know. But I know it won't be easy. Help!

The thing with having "different parenting styles" between parents it is always assumed that the parent with the "stricter style" is in the right, and the more relaxed parent is some how lazy and just let's her child do what they want, which is not always the case. Some parents that are more firm can be more uptight about a lot of things and project that onto their children, which can cause further problems later down the line.
Unless her approach is resulting in actual physical harm, then I would leave well alone, and don't be so quick to assume your way is the right way.

Can you suggest adult only meet ups? You could say you want a chance for a proper catch up without interruptions or you would like to let your hair down or whatever works. If she pushes back, you could say a bit more e.g. the boys are at that age where they are hard work together.

I don't think she will respond well to criticism about her parenting, and equally she might have views on your parenting that could lead to upset. Generally all parents think their way is best, as they want to do right by their children.

This is quite a common dynamic i think. Parents with strong/dominant children and parents with shy/gentle children don't really understand the situation the other one finds themselves in. In most cases both children need to work on something - the shy child needs to learn to be more assertive and the dominant child needs to learn to collaborate more in playing etc. The worse thing you can do is to take a stance of "the other parent and child are wrong " which it what it sounds a bit like to me when I read your post. It's a difficult situation and it would be a shame to lose a long friendship over it. Hopefully you can raise your concerns without coming across as critical so not to get your friends back up.
Both children are young so hopefully things can be worked through

I feel you have 2 options here.

1. Try to always find a reason where you’d meet up the two of you (perhaps a school day, because obviously your son is too busy weekends at clubs/at grandparents house and attends camps during school breaks).
2. Meet up as a four, intervene and make it known you won’t have your child feeling nervous around her ds. If she gets defensive calmy explain what happened and await her response.

Dont intefer with her parenting style. It will only end in your friendship ending. Neither parenting style from what you have decribed is wrong just different. Like both your DS are different.
By all means intefer if you DS isn't happy and you arent happy with the situation or just dont take your DS but the I'm right you are wrong approach isnt the way to go if you want to keep the friendship

I have alot of friends with alot of different parenting style. There is always one child who is more dominating that the other. Over the years that child has changed as others have got more secure in who they are. Some children are the leaders of the pack some are the followers. Thats how it goes with adults too. As long as noone is getting hurt I'd let them work it out

You cannot have that conversation with torpedoing the friendship. I have an old school friend who is really important to me, we also have girls the same age, but there’s a personality clash and we don’t parent the same way so rather than critique her which would never end well I just keep suggesting adults only meet ups. They also work better with work and whilst our girls are older our wider group mostly have chaotic toddlers that really limit what you can do. So we do dinners, gigs, pub etc. and it works for everyone. And pretty sure she has absolutely no idea I’m actively avoiding getting the girls together.

She may think you are over indulgent with your shy and gentle ds. Maybe others also roll their eyes at your parenting.

Neither of you are wrong but she has his back I guess. Me and dh don’t always share the same idea of parenting and tend to disagree over things. He’s quite strict and I work in a school so I pace my feelings more.

On another note your ds sounds lovely. Reminds me of my ds when he was younger. He still is lovely but not gentle.

God no! The most you can say is I think the boys have a bit of a personality clash at the moment and my DS is over sensitive so it’s best that we meet up without them.

I agree with your DH - just let the friendship fade out. Don’t inflict a spoilt little bully on your child.

My DC had to endure a bit of that when I was spending time with ‘mum friends’ thinking that was the best thing for them to socialise with other children. Actually they hated it. They told me when they were older that being forced to spend time and days out with bratty precious children was miserable. And chatting mums never observed or policed half of what went on.

This will only get worse as they get older op.

You’ve said her son is domineering and yours is gentle and quiet but haven’t given any specific ways he has been unkind to your DS. It sounds like 2 very different personality types. Just meet up without the kids. If you do say something to her be prepared to have your own parenting style critiqued.

I ended up shouting at a family member’s child around the same age because of this. He was mean and violent, and would deliberately do things like shove children over or push them off equipment (no SEN before that’s suggested - he’s in sixth form now and NT).

The parents had a ‘boys will be boys’ attitude and if he hurt another child would rush to comfort their son who’d done it, bizarrely, ignoring the other child.

I regret shouting, but, it did dramatically draw to the attention of the parents how his behaviour looked from the outside and they got slightly better at actually telling him off or at least intervening before something happened. However on parent still resents me more than a decade on, I’ pretty sure!

In your case I’d calmly intervene to redirect the boys’ activity, change location (go from home to the park for example) or in the worst case find an excuse to leave early. Hopefully in time he’ll get better, but for now you’ll have to set cleverly set some boundaries around things when they are together.

I’d just be busy at half term, Christmas etc and phase out the meet ups.
I’ve got a lovely friend who has a difficult daughter who was hugely rude to mine every time we met, and this approach worked for us. The girls are adults now, haven’t seen each other in years and I’ve retained my friendship with the mum. I suspect she has no idea I managed our way out of the situation.

It's tricky to understand what the issue is. What exactly does "being quite dominating" and "overbearing" mean? It seems like either you're minimising the issue and the child is physically violent, or you're over-reacting to normal behaviour. Trying to take your phrasing at face value, you'll find lots of 5 year olds start getting bossy; your DS will come across that in school too and has to learn to stand up for himself. If he doesn't like the boy then just meet without kids, if he does then gently encourage him to stand up for what he wants. If there's an actual hitting problem then a breezy "I can't meet with the kids because last time Henry kept hitting George, let's do something by ourselves." is enough to make your point and move on from it.

Everyone's parenting style is different, everyone thinks theirs is the right way. Sometimes we have to accept that we're all different and if we want a friendship to continue that we figure out ways to make this work.

From personal experience I had this from a family member, believe me, there's absolutely no way of wording this nicely, once those words have left their mouth the hurt is awful.

If there is one surefire way to end a friendship, even and especially a long-standing and pre kids one, it is to criticise your friends parenting style or child! This is something I have seen happen time and again so proceed with extreme caution. I think the context you describe of your friend losing her own parents makes this even more sensitive and honestly, speaking from experience, you cannot solve this one and there are deep seated reasons for how she feels about and is parenting her child. You are either going to have to try to maintain a friendship without the children involved which will probably be tricky given the dynamic you describe or to go lower contact until the children are old enough to choose their own friendships.

God no. Deal with incidents, hand out together outside at doing thing events or without kids. If you want to stay friends.

Your dh said to let the friendship fade out 🥺

I think i would tell her. This woman sounds like there is more going on, and like she doesnt have anyone who loves her

Its up to you, if you truly love her and want her in your life, I would speak now. Dont make it a thing of 'everyone agrees with me' but tell her everything you've said here

I feel for her. I suspect there's a breakdown coming her way

That said, you have to protect your ds. I think its great that he is your priority ❤️, as it should be

I'd speak to the friend, either way x

If you want to keep the friendship then you can't say anything.

I've had friends who are obsessed with their kids and those cute kids turned into nightmares to be around.

That's when you suggest adult only activities that kids legally aren't allowed to come to. Like bingo or something.

It really depends. My brother checked me on my parenting when I had DD - I had insane PFB syndrome, he was on his third by then. I didn’t even take it well from my own brother, and it felt like an attack on me. Now we laugh about it and he will bring it up for a joke, but at the time I didn’t talk to him for a week and that’s the longest I’ve gone without speaking to him. People take these things really really personally and there’s no way around that.

If it was me, I’d probably wait till something happens and said “can you go and deal with that” or “are you going to sort him out or shall I?” Keep the focus on the child’s behaviour and not the parenting style.

I probably wouldn’t say anything. I would just meet up without the kids. I’ve had a similar situation where my friend would discipline my child the way she disciplines her own, it didn’t sit well with me so every time she suggested meeting up with the kids, I would just say let’s meet up without them instead.

Easy this one - you meet up without them.

if she suggests the kids play say you don’t think they play that well together

im friends with loads of people and our kids dont gel or I think their parenting is odd - I just avoid the subject

At 5 he will meet many similar children at school and at groups. You could use this as any opportunity to be very present and teach him how to deal with it kindly but effectively every time. Gradually let go a bit as it starts to take effect.

Exactly this.

I agree with trying to forge ahead with spending time with her without the children. Bringing up her parenting style with her is never going to go well and the friendship will almost certainly bite the dust if you do this.
That said, if you do have to meet up with the children sometimes, I don’t think there is anything wrong with addressing behaviours as they arise or prompting her to. This might be taken as less of a criticism than having a more abstract discussion about it because you can tie it directly to the behaviour you are both seeing.
‘Look, Jack has just pushed/ taken the toy off of/been rude to Harry’. She may or may not do something about it, but she’ll get the message that you are noticing his negative behaviour. If she does nothing, say something like ‘can you ask him not to do that please?’ It’s best to do this when it’s something you know she has seen so she can’t deny it. If she refuses or does nothing then you should deal with it calmly. She’ll probably be annoyed, and you can use this is a starting point for a conversation if you like.
‘I didn’t mean to annoy you when I spoke to you about Jacks behaviour but I feel like you don’t do anything when he behave badly towards Harry’. Friends should be able to talk openly about stuff like this and if she can’t, she’s not much of a friend.
Or as I said, avoid meet ups with the children for now and perhaps he’ll mature.

I’d mention it, you’ve nothing to lose if
you’re going to let the friendship slide. My comment would be like “the boys didn’t play well last time so I think we need to manage them a bit better alternately if you’re free for a coffee without the kids let me know”