to be driven nuts by friends who pander to their dc's unreasonable requests?

[deaconblue]

examples from different friends recently
child 1 "I want to wash the baby's neck"
me "sorry darling but dd has a sore neck so only I can wash it"
her mother "don't worry darling you can wash mummy's neck instead"

child 2 " I want to get in the baby's buggy"
me "sorry but she's only just gone to sleep so you can't get in the buggy with her"
his mother "can he get in and I'll push it around so she doesn't wake up"
me "umm no"

is the baby yours?
if so yanbu

but i have noticed i give inn far more with regard to her baby bro to try and ease jealousy etc. so i think its different if its her baby

but im sure you will see that with toddlers distraction is better than a flat no and a tantrum-because that really would wake the b\aby up!

Well the neck one she might just have been trying to stop the child hassling you and your baby- so for that one YABU

The ide of a child getting in a buggy with someone else's baby is ludicrous no YANBU with that one.

Do you only have 1 baby?

the first example you give seems fine, mother just giving child an alternative.

2nd example mother tyring to find a way to make it OK with you, but it's not OK with you so presume they didn't do it? Fien also.

When you have just a baby you can think that all older children are just dangerous out of control demons but when your baby gets to be 2/3/4/5yrs, you realise they are still little and need managing in more complex ways than the simple 'no' you imagine should suffice before you have little children of your own.

You sound very unecesarily judgemental to me.

I now see from your profile that you also have a 2yrold.

I would have thought you would also then be mangaging his behaviour through distraction, compromise and acceptable alterantives, in the way you describe your friends doing.

It would be unreasonable if friends tries to insist thier child could wash the baby or get in the buggy, but to offer an aceptable alternative seems good managemnt.

1st one = seems reasonable enough, why did that one bother you so much??

2nd one = why on earth did she think it was alright for a toddler to get in the buggy with a sleeping baby, I take it it was a single buggy? Ludicrous...FFS this kind of thing annoys me too, child should be told 'no' leave the sleeping baby alone, end of. When mothers pander like this it bugs me.YANBU

But TBH the first example is no biggie, pretty good distraction tactic if you ask me.

1st example - that is distraction not pandering, pandering would be insisting she washed the babies neck. YABU. What should she have done in your opinion?

2nd example - That is pandering and YANBU.

I remember someone on here once saying that a visiting child threw a tantrum because she wanted a pink cup, and the visiting mum started looking through the cupboards trying to find soemthing to placate her (and there were worse examples too iirc). Now that sort of thing would really annoy me!

Agree with Shoegazer.

Unreasonable giving in imo is a friend who has a 3 yr old who is still spoon-fed, but spoon-fed a spoonful of savoury immediately followed by a spoonful of something sugary sweet, as he doesn't like savoury foods. But hey that's her choice.

dont worry you can wash mummys neck instead???-PANDERING.

Just tell kid NO

was it a double buggy? otherwise bizarre!

My friend's DD at her 5th party had to win all the games.

She won the pass the parcel, was allowed to do the pin the tail on the donkey without a blindfold so she could win etc.

I was quite surprised by this.

NBU - pandering.

good grief marmaduke !

Is your friend frightened of her dd?

I must admit I do find it extremley irritating when parents over pander to children.

Worst I've encountered was a nativity and Mary suddenly decided she didn't want to wear a blue dress she wanted pink and her mum expected everyone to wait while she went home for a pink party dress

I came across something similiar to Marmaduke's experience. My friend's kids, when they were smaller, had to win all the games. At her dd's 5th birthday, they both took turns crying after each game 'cos they didn't win! I was partly for my friend and partly at the kids.

ahhh this drives me mad as well.

there was one on here ages ago. It was a lady at a swimming pool who sat down on the end of a bench to watch her child in a swimming lesson.
Another parent sitting next to her, asked her to stand up because the seat was her daughters seat(who was about 5).
I was utterly speachless at this, BUT people were arguing that the child had the right to sit down as much as the adult and if the kid was sat there then fair is fair. WTF
turns out the kid was running riot up and down and not sitting at all. Just kicked off to see this lady in the seat.

Makes you wonder who the parent is in the relationship.

Yes YABU

What's wrong with pandering? All of us pander sometimes, depending on circumstances. Unless you're saying they pander 100% of the time, which is unlikely.

slightly different example as much older child but yesterday I was coming back from holiday in Italy, filling up the hire car before returning it. petrol station was self service and all a bit complicated, (unless you read the instructions ). lots of people waiting while an English couple and their 10 yo boy were trying to work out the system. it was patently obvious that you all 4 pumps could be used at once, but 10yo was holding court and TELLING other adults that they should wait and not try to use the other pumps while they were filling up - and they were obeying him! and his parents were letting him dictate how to work the pump, payment machine etc, unsuccessfully I might add.

and yes of course I ignored said child. I do think that children have rights, including to express opinions and to be heard, but was amazed that people would just stand there and be told. that seems like pandering to me.

Yes BUT, how do you teach them that they cant have everything that they want?

Are you not teaching them that if they make enough noise and fuss they will get their own way?

There is a definite line between "negotiating" and "pandering" isnt there?

I am off the negotiating camp, couldnt bring myself to give in to unreasonable demands.
Its the unreasonable demands that is key here, but then each of us will interpret unreasonable demands diferently wont we?

Not 100%, but when an adult starts making decisions based on what her children say, then I think something's gone wrong.

I think it depends very much on the child. If her child is prone to huge tantrums then I think the friend is being reasonable in going quite a long way to avoid one, particularly when with another family. Easy to say that it is pandering if you have a compliant child.