Parents that won't say the word "No", is it ridiculous to expect others to follow your rules?

[Confuzzeled]

AIBU to think this "We don't say NO to ds, we try and encourage him to do something else." is ridiculous when you are in someone else's house and your child is breaking things?

My Mum has people staying who's ds has broken a whole load of things in the last 24 hours. They also aloud him to smear food into the carpet and he tried to pull the fire guard off (it's Scotland and it's been quite cold). While they calmly wave toys at him and encourage him to do something else, he's destroying the place. He's only 19 months and I don't think at that age you know the difference between right and wrong, he needs someone to say "NO, we don't pull the fire guard because you'll get hurt".

I think you should be able to bring your child up in the way that you think is best, but I don't think other people should suffer because of it. Not to mention it's dangerous.

AIBU?

agree katiestare, poor kid is 1 1/2 yrs old

i agree there should be babyproofing-i also feel that it's the parents responsibility to provide the booster/a suitable place for their baby to eat-my baby climbs the fireguard at my parents house-i have no issue with them/my sisters stopping her.
we are all fully aware of the age of the child-however first and foremost it's our responsibility to manage our childrens behaviour-no matter where they are.

The fireguard has a chain that attaches to a hook that is nailed to the wall. If it is pulled repeatedly for long periods of time the nails come loose. It has survived both my dd and my nephew who were told not to touch it.

He can use the my nephews old high chair that my dd also used. It's clean and in good condition but they chose not to.

Breakable objects have been removed from his reach. He broke a door handle, the leg of a table, a door from a very old cabinet and a bottle of wine from a closed and latched cabenet.

just want to say I like your ZZ's

I feel sorry for your mum

You are responsible for your child's behaviour where ever they are and no matter what age..

Yanbu. Sometimes you have to say no or stop them before anything gets dameged..

My sil is like this.

Her reasons are:

• 'i want to raise confident children with high self esteem'

• 'misbehaving is sign of intelligence'

• 'i am a feminist and believe that girls should never been told no'

I feel sorry for the girl, she will probably find life, work and relationships very difficult.

Crikey -broke a table leg -ay 1.5!!! He must be super-baby ! How did he break the bottle of wine.Thet are pretty difficult to smash unless dropped from a height onto a hard tiled surface
WRT the fire guard.We had to fasten blocks of wood onto the sides of the firebreast so that the fireguard fixing had more purchase.Or could they not just take the fireguard down in the middle of summer ?

My daughter broke a metal baby gate when she was 18mths she used to sit at the gate rattling her plastic cup across the bars like a prisoner! and one day she decided to escape!...they can be vicious I tells ya..

wtf -- 'i am a feminist and believe that girls should never been told no'- thats actually quite insane.

He is super-baby, he's bigger than my dd and much heavier, she's 2.4yo. It was a small 3 legged side table, I broke it myself when I was 10. I sat on it even though I'd been told not to a million times

My Mum's not gone into details about how the table or the bottle was broken. The door handle broke because he kept rattling and hanging on it, same with the old cabinet door.

They live up north and it's been pissing down for days, it's been cold so they lit a small fire. I don't think they should have to modify their house in a huge way, they don't have kids anymore and the things they've done have served 2 other grandkids well. The fire guard is not normally there when the fire is not lit, I tell my dd to stay away from the fireplace because it's dirty. They want the fireguard left up so their ds doesn't go near the dirty area.

Children need boundaries, consistency, security and love. if there are no boundaries in place then children will keep pushing and pushing. Feel sorry for the baby and especially OP's mum. Sounds like the visit from hell.
YANBU very definitely.

Want to make it quite clear that I don't approve of parents not intervening to stop things getting broken , but I am really not sure saying ' No' to a 19m old 'hellraiser (said tongue in schhek'.is really going to achieve that much.pick them up , remove them from teh situation ,try and distract them.But it is very very difficult if there is a room with so many things he can't touch - table, cupboard doors, door handles ,fireguard.My nephews are very destructive and break loads of stuff in my mums house , so I do know how your mother feels.

One thing that I have found about unconditional parenting is that parents who practice it always excuse the missbehaviour by saying "he never ever behaves like this"

Why, because there's another adult here and you are pretending to be in charge, therefore the child is throwing a fit as he is not allowed to dictate what this parent should be doing, or not, every second? Yes, no wonder the child never acts like that.

Well, there are times when a NO is faster than picking up the child and removing him from the situation, like when they run to the road or are about to put their hands in the fire.

How on earth does a 19mth old get into a latched cupboard, get a bottle of wine and then break it all on his own surely somebody was in the room with him

and I can't believe for a second that anybody would say

'I am a feminist and believe that girls should never been told no'

they are sneaky I tell ya...surprsingly so

Sherby if you don't believe it i can sent my sil around at your house

what the op describes is not unconditional parenting.

it is crap parenting.

I don't know what they were thinking letting him get into the cabinet and why they didn't stop him pulling at wine bottles.

But then my Mum said he rattled and hung off the door handle so many times that it broke. They obviously just don't care about other peoples property or the safety of their ds. He really is watched every second so it's not like they're ignoring him.

I would call it crap parenting but they're following some book, I have no idea what it's called, I know it's from the U.S. though.

It is very unfortunate that UP is so open to misinterpretation-as HumphreyCobbler says, OP has nothing whatever to do with it.

The thing I don't understand about 'unconditional parenting' is what if the child were about to walk onto a road? I was thinking about it earlier today and was going to post about it tonight but figured that I may as well ask here as it seems to be the issue. What if the child were about to walk into a road? Or crash into an old woman whilst on their scooter or something like that? How could you not call out a no or stop in that situation?!

a prime example of what happens if you use a book as your parenting doctrine rather than using them for advice only with a hefty dose of common sense.

Well as an unconditional parent you would stop them.

The people the op describes are not practising unconditional parenting, which is about not expecting more of children than they can manage, meeting their needs (not their wants), treating their views with respect, explaining the reasons behind things and not tending towards rewards/punishments. None of these things mean that you shouldn't stop your children from trashing the house.

I probably have left a lot out of my summary, but it is a while since I read the book and I don't actually tend to follow it anyway. I just dislike seeing it misrepresented as 'let them do exactly as they want'.

as for low self-esteem, we see plenty of children who've never been told ""no" in our CAMHSA service they've certainly got lw self-esteem