I'm at my wits end, advice needed please before I scream - Aaarrggghhhh

[interflora]

I am not sure what to do in this situation.

My friend has recently started bringing her 11 year old son along with her to our house - he is the most spoiled, most ruined, most horrible, most everything-bad-you-can-think-of child I've ever come across.

My dh and I adore children, and have seven of our own, our children just cannot be in the same room as this child, even though they love to play with all other children when our other friends visit.

He walks around our house from one room to another, and is allowed to touch and play with anything he wants, he calls his own mother nasty names, and she just sits there not saying anything to him.

We were meant to go to a Halloween party last night when my friend and this 'horrid henry' of a son of hers, turned up, which meant that our children spent the evening upstairs in their bedrooms, all dressed up in their dress-up clothes, and had to stay in. He'd already been 'trick or treating' so he was fine, and if he was fine, tough, nobody else mattered.

He was rude to my husband, when my husband tried to stop him going to every room of our house, as we feared he'd go upstairs to our childrens' bedrooms.

Also, this horrible child, knows much, much, much more than most kids his age, and far too much for my liking, about sex - and when one of our children dared come downstairs to make a drink, he crept up behind her and ripped off the upper part of her halloween outfit.

DH and I don't know what to do, we're certain that if we mention it to her, it will just fall on deaf ears, as she's told us many times that she can't understand why her sister, sister in law, his grandmother etc don't like her perfect little sod son, he's even been suspended from primary school, and his mother still thinks the sun shines out of his rear end!

Please please can anyone help us, its a delicate situation obviously, we don't want to cause trouble or offend anyone, but feel that the situation cannot be allowed to continue.

TIA

Troll or not, the OP seems to have little regard for the feelings of her so-called friend and more importantly for the feelings and well-being of an 11 year old child.

The things she has said about him are awful.

Why thank you Quattrocentro.

I am not an anagram, I am a small mythical village somewhere in south Wales, you see.

pipin - may be awful - may be true - he sounds like a brat.

Oh that's ok then. Blame the child.

Er dittany, I don't think I have called her a troll or accused her of anything other than being a teeny bit heartless.

If she really is at her wits end over all this then I hope her email to her friend has sorted it all out.

So you think that she should put the naughty child before her own brood. Are you a REAL troll?

No I don't think she should put the naughty child before her own children, just maybe have a bit more sympathy for her friend and her child.

loobeylou I'm afraid you sound a tad paranoid and insecure.

Please lay off the OP. We understand you think she's a troll, but however much you may think you can see the signs, you must admit you don't know for sure. Surely it's better to tolerate / ignore a troll than run the risk that you are harrassing a genuine OP who has asked for help.

interflora sorry I don't feel qualified to offer any advice - I'm expecting my first child soon, I've got all this to come!

Someone else mentioned Autism though. It might be worth them looking at this - I know someone who was diagnosed with aspergers at 15.

Pipin

It should'nt be her problem.

Hi all,

Despite sending my friend the email last night, stating that she is more than welcome to visit any time, but not her son due to behaviour we find unacceptable as a family.

I explained that our dc don't know where they stand when her son is here as they are not allowed to do as they please in their own home, we have boundaries that the dc must adhere to, but they fail to understand why my friend's ds gets away with everything they cannot!

So far no email.....looks like she's taken offence, I hope not obviously, but if that's the only way we can keep her ds away then so be it. We have only been friends for the last 6 months or so, so not long really.

She is a really nice person though, that's what makes the situation so difficult. Anyway we'll wait and see what her reaction will be to the email I sent last night.

I shall keep you informed if she emails me, thanks all for your advice.

Forgot to ask - what would you do/how would you react if these turn up on our doorstep claiming never to have received the email I sent?

Not sure what to do, I am not the best person in the world to deal with any confrontation I am too nervous for arguments and such nonsense.

How do you lot think I should react?

What if she tells me/emails me to say that if we do not want to see her spoiled brat ds then we won't see her either. I hope it won't come to that, but I very much doubt that she'll find fault with ds.

TIA

If anyone thinks I'm over-reacting about the behaviour of this spoiled-brat you may be shocked to know that the local hospital even have seen what he's capable of.

He was at the hospital recently, and he refused to lie on the bed so doctors could see to him, he had such a tantrum his dad walked out of the hospital and left him and his mother there, the doctor had stayed outside the ward door waiting for him to calm down, but eventually told his mother to just take him home as it was pointless and a complete waste of time to expect him to calm down.

He is 11 so not a small child, his parents said he'd be 'grounded' for a week after that incident,but after just one day, he was taken shopping and bought everything he wanted, he was taken on trips etc. he knew he was not going to be grounded for long and laughed at his parents when he was told what would happen. He knows he can twist both parents round his little finger.

Its a shame really, as dh keeps telling me, its not the childs fault, the fault lies with the parents. They have no control over him whatsoever, I hate to imagine what our lives would be like if we allowed our 7 dc to be like him.

interflora, she probably has taken offence but if you feel you have done the right thing for your family then you have done the right thing.

In your OP you didn't say how long you have known this woman or how close you are.

I,wrongly, assumed that she was a longstanding friend of yours and was therefore a bit [shocked] at some of the things you said about her son.

No not a longstanding friendship pipin.

The more I think about it, I can't help wondering if she only clings to me as a friend as our house was the only house she could bring ds along.

She says that her sister, sisters-in-law, mum-in-law, other friends do not like her son very much so she can't take him along to theirs. She is well used to people telling her nasty things about her ds, but she cannot see things from their point of view.

She seems to be in denial about it at times, but has also told me she and her dh were 'thinking' of contacting social services or having a chat to the dr about him, so far nothing has been done though, they are still thinking about it as not sure what to do.

After he was suspended from school, a few days later she announced that he'd received some sort of certificate from his teacher as he was the best behaved and most polite child at the school. She just doesn't see her ds through the same eyes as the rest of us do. But having said that, I'm not sure how I'd react if someone said 'negative' things about my dc.

This is a difficult one. Will check emails now, I have huge butterflies in my stomach!!

Why have you not answered the question as to why you did not say to these people on Haloween 'sorry we are just going out'?

I realy cannot understand this.

We just don't like to offend people, that's the answer.

The kids are fine about it as we've promised to make it up for them, and anyway they enjoyed the treats we'd bought for them, after friend and ds left. They left just before 9pm, so the kids enjoyed their treats and also they were allowed to stay up late - to them that's better than going out trick-or-treating even!

We will take them somewhere nice next week also, and to an organised Guy Fawkes event. We buy them something else they want on Guy Fawkes as not buying fireworks. Kids are happy enough.

We were not impressed at their unannounced arrival on our doorstep, I promise you, but we are too soft to tell people to bugger off iyswim. But we did make it obvious that we were not too happy about them being here, but that is not something the mother had any say in, the ds rules the roost at home and dictates EVERYTHING. So, despite the mother knowing our kids were ready to out, as already in their halloween costumes, the son made sure they stayed late enough to prevent trick or treating. Never mind. Kids are looking forward to the week ahead, and NO, the spoiled brat will DEFINITELY NOT be here!!

So if you were about to leave to get a plane for a holiday, and they turned up, would you let them in because you are too soft?

Mine dressed up and went trick or treating and I can tell you that my kids come before a terror family who obviously do not give a shit about you or your kids, as they could see you were going out but selfishly prevented you.

Well if we were going on holiday that would have obviously been planned months in advance. All our friends and family would then know about it, so they would not turn up unannounced, and of course we would not let them in and miss our holiday. There is a hell of a difference IMO in a halloween night and a holiday abroad or wherever.

Anyway, there's still no email so its likely we'll never see either of them again. So you won't need to worry about us missing out on anything ever again. All our other friends/family/neighbours phone us and do not just turn up on our door step, we do the same for them, we never turn up without asking people if its alright first, as people have plans, and are not sat at home waiting for us to turn up! It looks like my 'friend' has got the message not to bring her son to ours ever again, and never to even send us an email by the looks of things?

If I were you, I woud be over the moon at not having to see them again!

Fingers crossed she never contacts you again!

I can understand. It can be really awkward when it comes to friends and their kids.

I don't think that all the posts on this thread are entirely helpful (particularly the 'troll' ones).

I often avoid confrontation and seem 'soft' but that's just the way I am. I think you are brave for sending the email. I hope you manage to sort things out with your friend.

Yes Lovesdogsandcats, I am over the moon at the thought of never having to see her ds at our home or anywhere else again, but I am worried about her not contacting us, but there we are, I suppose she's made the decision that if we don't want to see her ds then we won't see her either. She probably has the 'love me love my son' attitude - Tough!

Its not just that the kids missed out on going trick or treating, its also the fact that he was very rude to my dh, when my dh asked him not to go round our house he just told him to get out of his way frankly and just went past him and off he went round our house as if he was at home. We were [shocked] to say the least, that his mother sat and stared but said nothing to correct him for being so rude to an adult, or to prevent him from going round our house. Our dc are well behaved when we visit other people's homes, we wouldn't dare take them anywhere if we couldn't control them. Maybe things would be very different if his parents had 7 children rather than just the one?? Who knows. But enough is enough, its so unfair for our children to have to behave in their own home when this totally unruly child is allowed to do as he pleased with no boundaries whatsoever.
If only his parents realised how cruel it is to spoil a child so much, they are certainly not doing him any favours. But there we are, that is none of our business, its our business when he is allowed to roam freely and interrupt in our home. His mother is quite happy to allow him to call her a fat cow and jelly belly, ugly etc. and I suppose she expects everyone else to allow it also. But that is not the case obviously when everyone they know obviously dislike him.