To want to bring up my dcs the way I see fit even though we're living in a different culture?

[KTNoo]

We are British but live in North Africa due to work. Because of the crazy roads where we live we have a driver to take us around. He is a lovely, lovely guy who genuinely cares about our 3 dcs and I feel we are lucky to have found him.

Only problem is, he constantly undermines me when I discipline my dcs. I feel that he thinks I am a real witch the way I talk to them and he tells me something to that effect. This happened today. If we are waiting in the car for any reason (e.g. to collect dh from work), driver always lets them toot the horn and generally fiddle with everything, move mirrors, change settings etc. I have asked him not to let them do this but he still lets them. Today I told ds (5) to stop moving the rear view mirror and he started screaming and hitting me. I warned him that if he did that again I was going to put him outside the car while we waited. He did it again so I lifted him out and sat him on the pavement (I was standing there, I wasn't going to leave him on his own). Driver immediately gets out and starts talking in soothing tones to ds, then goes to lift him back into the car. I said to driver that ds was to stay out of the car for now as he had been hitting me and that is not ok. Driver then tried again to appease ds (who is screaming) and I then said he needed to ignore him. He did, but was clearly offended and funny with me for the rest of the day.

I'm just wondering what everyone thinks - I want to be able to discipline my dc but don't want to stomp over a culture that hates to see children crying.

oooh...have come back late to all these replies! Couldn't get internet connected over the weekend (another one of the joys of living here).

Good idea to get my dh (who is as british as me) to speak to the driver. I don;t want to come across as lecturing as really he is a great driver - always on time, drives safely etc, which is hard to find, believe me!

I will also accept the sweets for after lunch only! But yes, sometimes they do just put them in the child's mouth, they also kiss them on the mouth too (nice).

Bit of a tangent, but something I've been wondering about. If children are so indulged (especially boys), how do they suddenly tell them they have to marry a certain person?

And, no, I don't think the driver would let the kids do whatever they like if my dh were in the car. I've also seen him raise an eyebrow if I "stand up" to my dh (read from that what you will!)Maybe because it's really him who is paying the salary and not me.

Acinonyx, what you say is true about the environment not suiting me. I am not unhappy here but would never be here if we didn't have to be.