to wonder why some intelligent educated people just don't discipline their dcs?

[mayonaise]

Me, DH and our 3 dcs have just had an exhausting week with old friends of ours who came to stay with their 3 dcs. It was a nightmare.

We were friends with this other couple before any of us had children. Me and DH are quite strict I guess, we take the view that the parents are ultimately in charge, there are consequences for undesirable behaviour and the dcs have to pull their weight around the house.

Our friends dcs were rude to us and their parents, never picked anything up and either me or their mum did it, whined and demanded everything with no manners, refused to eat the food I cooked, and one of them was quite mean to my dd.

These are lovely old friends of ours, intelligent, succesful, civilised adults, so what are they thinking letting their dcs behave like this? Can't they see they are going to have such a huge problem on their hands, tbh they do already....

Intelligent and educated does not = good parents. IMO and IME there are plenty of working class people who are better at combining standards with fun, love and affection than some middle class people, especially the ineffectual 'Oh, Daisy, Theo, please come down darling' types. (And plenty of each class who are rubbish parents, of course, I just don't think class is related to parenting ability.)

However, children of ineffectual middle class parents may do well in adult life. Apparently most company chief executives have most of the characterists of sociopaths. In order to climb the greasy pole, you have to be quite selfish/ self-centred/ ruthless about other people... the personality trait known as 'agreeableness' has a negative correlation with success in business or professions.

my neighbour doesn't like my parenting style and she has said as much - my dd2 can speak in a rude way. I have my own way of dealing with this and am actually dealing with this. generally dd2 is very well behaved but her voice when talking is really really abrut and sounds rude - I tell her afterwards and we have a talk about it, slowly it is staying the same rather than getting worse.

my neighbour shouted at her there and then - as thats how they do things, there and then shout shouting and I don't like it.

I have let it go, my neighbour hasn't got a clue about my parenting style and I am not going to be explaining whys or wherefore - its not my way...

your friends may think your parneting syle is really awful op - they may think your dc are to regimented, who knows.

live and let live and if it doesn't suit you then live away

The thing is, with all parenting styles, you don't know if you've done a good job till they are grown up. By which time it is too late.
Over disciplined kids seem to turn out the worst, imo.
My DD may become a friend when we are both adults, but I just don't see it as my role to be her buddy. Again, that's just me. What a boring world it would be if we all did everything the same.

I do think, though, that wherever you fall on the parenting spectrum, some behaviours should always and consistently be viewed as 'Not OK' across all parenting styles. IMO hitting, kicking (self or others) grabbing, shoving and answering back in older kids (above 3) are always a) inexcusable and b) should be dealt with prontissimo by the parent.

I have one 'friend' who is massively strict with her DSs about (IMO) stupid things - they will spend one hour finishing everything on their plate or get served it again for the next meal - and yet when her almost-four-year-old hits/shoves my DS (which he does, every time he sees him) she just says (to MY DS!) 'say, no thank you'. And she views ME as the lax parent cos I give my DS a lot of freedom when it comes to physical things (like, I've never bothered much if he wanted to eat sand when he was 18 months old) but I am 100% intolerant of hitting, answering back or not saying please/thank you

but your list of not ok things is different from mine and how you deal with the situation is also different form mine - everyone is different but that doesn't mean you have nicer kids or that they will be nicer when fully grown

I agree with other posters that, when it comes to disciplining their children, some parents' priorities are extremely bizarre.

Why insist that all children remain at table until everyone has finished, including a child who is a notoriously slow and picky eater; and then not curb hitting, whining and loudness?

sounds likr the fa,ilies who i used to nanny for....to scared to upset them. for fear of what exactly i never found out!!

I hope we break the "educated/middle-class = laissez-faire twats" stereotype - I never thought I would be a strict parent, I'm hardly a sticker for rules, but it turns out I'm pretty strict compared to most of the other (middle-class, professional) parents we know. I see a LOT of parents just ignoring it or brushing over it when their DC hit or bully or are horrendously rude, and I hate it.

I do think a middle line is best - I'm not mad for perfect old-fashioned table manners etc., but I will pull DS up immediately on any rudeness, unpleasantness etc., we expect him to have what he's given food-wise, or at least try everything, and we teach him to pick up after himself and so on.

I think there are two issues here though - one is how they will turn out, and it may be that all this makes little difference in the long term, as peer pressure and school etc will come to play a big part. But the other is what it's like being around people who don't control their DC and let them ruin social occasions, or as the OP says when you can't go out to eat or whatever because their DC won't behave. (NT kids obviously.)

We have friends who come round with their DC and then everyone - them, us, our DC - are expected to dance to the tune of some whiny 3-yo and what he/she wants to do. In my book, if the adults decide to go for a walk, the kids are going for a walk! I als think giving into DC whims is daft because very young DC don't often really know what they want.

stickler

ivykaty really?!

What are your not OK things? (genuinely interested...)

Oh, and I don't think my kids are 'nicer than others' (certainly not today, at least )

sometimes you just have to button it as much as you want to speak out and tell them what a shoddy job they are doing.

I know a couple who are too laid back in regards to parenting and this is now to the detriment of their DC. What can you do though - you just have to let them do it their way don't you?

Bonsoir - my ds who is 4 cannot use a knife and won't use one a whole heap for the foreseable future (although we try) because he eats a diet that doesn't require one.

Doesn't mean we're crap parents.

We try - bloody hell - I hardly ever use a knife as I don't need one.

dealt with prontissimo by the parent

I would hate it if my boss dealt promtly with me in the middle of the shop whereever - it is far nicer to be taken to one side at the best oppertunaty and a quite word about what was worng.

I would rather wait till I am on my own with my dc and sort things out of ear shot of others

I have a friend who deals with things pronto and I really don't like it, at 16 it gets embaressing - but they tell me this is how her family deal with things to do it there and then no matter where or when.

It will depend on the situation for me the age the people that are around etc - but noramlly on our own

Personally the thing I have an issue with is physical damage - this could be punching, biting, kicking an other human/animal or throwing furniture, drawing on walls, throwing drinking glass around.

And the middle class parents, who are along the lines of 'oh hugo is just in a stage he shows his affection by biting you.' this is not affection deal with it.

We offer plastic cups for the younger children, and get oh no they are capable of drinking out of a glass, well for everyone's safety we'd prefer they had it in a plastic cup, oh no only glass for them. Result 'i don't want milk' glass lobbed off table, broken glass shards on floor.

Writing on walls, we've been told this is due to not wanting to quell their artistic capability by restricting them to paper.

Totally agree about checking the bigger things, like hitting, bad manners etc, absolutely but control and ruling kids with a rod of iron no. I think a parents role is to guide, mostly gently, but firmer if for instance safety is at risk or sheer unpleasantness. Being friends is OK as long as the above is adhered to IMO.

ivykaty I see what you mean... and I actually definitely agree with you that, particularly when it comes to older kids, it goes down better to have a quiet word after the occasion - plus, the occasions get more complicated as the children get older.

BUT we are still (still...) in the baby/toddler zone, and here I think parents need to intervene/distract/redirect/admonish (whatever suits your style) quickly after, say, your 18 month old hits mine (or vice versa). A quick 'no hitting' followed by a 'here, would you like to play with this' is what seems to be the norm here... Like I said, my 'friend' who always intervenes only by telling MY DS to 'just say no' when HER DS has just shoved him really hard... well, that I find very hard to take (which is why we don't see her anymore - it was too hard to resolve our very, very different approaches).

I am nodding in agreement with so much here. A dear friend has two boys who used to be vile to my children (and some other friends' children). Sometimes I would be blinking in surprise that she really didn't seem to notice. It's so hard.

And the 'worst' behaved children of all have psychiatrist or psychologist parents.

We've had lots of friends like this over the years. We learnt to just grit our teeth and accept that everyone has different ideas and standards on child rearing, boundaries and manners. We have avoiding going on holiday many times with friends because of things like this though - an afternoon is one thing - a whole fortnight would end in tears!

Edam, I could have written your post! I think there are far too many parents who are so educated and intelligent that they over-think the whole discipline thing. Sometimes, a bit less education and a bit more common sense is called for. As I fall into the clever and grossly over-educated category, I am grateful that I have my gran's voice in my head as strongly as I do (she was clever, but completely uneducated).

OP, I ended up losing a friend over this issue. She was intelligent, educated, had read all the parenting books on talking to children so they will listen and so on - and her children were utterly obnoxious. They broke our playhouse windows and our wood-burner glass; one of them bit my DD - and my friend cuddled him and bought him an ice-cream to make up for the shock of it all. You were lucky if you could get a grunt out of them (they were 7,6 and 4 when I knew them).

I remember going out for lunch with her and her children. I'd already told mine that, regardless of what hers did, they were sitting at the table and eating their lunch as normal; they could go and play when they had finished (not when we'd finished our mammoth gossip!). As hers ran around throwing food at one another, she said: "Oh, I suppose I should make them sit down like you force yours to do - but I can't face it."

She evidently thought I was a right old meanie control freak; I thought she was creating complete brats. That was the end of that friendship, which is a shame, as we got on so well before children. I now tend to stick to people whose parenting style is at least sort of similar to mine.

14hours - mine are 17 and 11 so a lot older and I would agree if my toddler was going to stick a childs hand in the electric then a hort sharpe grab or rugby style tackel would be in order there and then

I had a friend who had both parents as [psychiatrists - she was odd but certianly not worst behaved or naughty and uncontrolled odd though but boy could she sing

Thanks for all the responses, haven't been able to get to computer until now.

My comment about my friend's ds not having any dinner - I'm not saying it was a great idea to say that, I was just really fed up and it was one of a couple of instances where I didn't manage to bite my lip! I cook one meal for everyone and expect a reasonable amount of it to be eaten before leaving the table - I don't think that's too strict, although I'll ask my dcs tomorrow what they think! We always have vegetables which they must eat some of, but oh my goodness, the fuss from the guest dcs, they obviously don't eat veggies at home. The eldest literally whined through the entire meal that he couldn't eat anything and when pressed gently by his mother shouted at her that he would only eat some if she gave him ice cream after.

The younger 2 actually behaved quite well for me when the parents were not there, but with the eldest it's like they have already left it too late. It's the constant complaining when everything is not 100% his way that winds me up the most.

I don't know how my dcs will turn out, obviously. My ds can be a handful, certainly, but he does know his boundaries and is easier to handle as he gets older, largely (imo) because we have been consistent with him since he was little.

I've never discussed all this with my friends, but I have seen her dcs at home and they are just the same as when they came to visit.

I am also very laid back in my parenting to compensate for my awfully controlled disciplined upbringing. But luckily it works for us as DD is frighteningly well behaved.

IheartJohnLewis your friend sounds very similar to mine. She has expressed surprise at the foods my dcs eat (something like peppers or wholemeal bread), and when I asked if hers would like to try them too she just said "Oh I can't be bothered with all the screaming." She also complains that she has to carry her heavy 4 year old because he doesn't want to walk. So don't carry him!

grapeandlemon I guess there are a few rare children who don't need much correcting etc....

Mine certainly need firm handling or they would have us both dancing to their 3 different tunes.

Oh god yes the carrying! People who carry great big 3- and 4yos because they don't like walking. I swear one child I know will soon be like an astronaut coming back to Earth and have no use of the muscles in his legs, because his mum can't bear him to have to walk. How long can it go on? Till he's 18?