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....

Well that sounds like us Marsha. I wouldn't have it any other way.

My cousins were brought up by very middle class academic parents (child psychologists!!!) who did not challenge their children's behaviour and let them do what they liked. Anyway, the interesting thing is, alhtough now, in their 40's the children are grown-up with families of their own, very middle class etc they went through very difficult teenage and early 20's.
As their parents did not act like a guiding parent but "let them do their own thing" they made some really dreadful job and personal decisions, ending up with one getting a crippling illness due to idiocy in a path lab, and one being bankrupted and losing their home. I still feel they might have avoided these things (among others) by getting a bit more help from their parents.

I suppose you could argue that it made them better people for making these mistakes, but the familes (spouses and children of my cousins) have been through a lot of heartache which could have been avoided by parents saying "stop drinking and sponging off me" rahter than "have another £20k dear". On top of this my aunt often said to my mum "you are so lucky with your children" and my mum (who hated this sort of parenting) would reply "I am not lucky, I brought my children up to be self reliant".

I also add my BIL was a whiny little git when young who was spoilt and got away with anything and as an adult he is still a right whinging little git who thinks the world owes him something.

I was made to finish all the food in my plate when I was growing up, plus other very strict rules. Amongst other things, I ended up anorexic at 13, overweight in my 30's, shagging everything that moved at 18, doing endless drugs by 21, and with brilliant degree a few years later and a very good job now. So, you never really know. However, when it comes to food, I never force my DS to eat anything, and he still loves most vegetables.

oooh, can't wait to read this thread, but whiny 4 year old not allowing me . I'll be back later!

oh dear, I think I fall into a couple of your overbearing rules there Orm.
DS is 2.7 though so I think it's fair enough to get him to hold my hand when we're out on the street - otherwise he'd be off into the traffic; and he's being a picky little so and so with his dinner at the mo so tonight he got no pudding because he only ate 4 mouthfuls of his perfectly-reasonably-sized dinner.
I do also ask him to keep it down when he's shrieking - because it hurts my ears.

I limit his dangerous activities (he's little) but let him get on with most other things. He seems fine so far but who knows when he'll break out!

rainbowfizz My DS does show affection in inappropiate ways (smacking, biting, pinching, grabbing, scratching) I am trying to deal with it but there is no instant fix and it takes time to drill into him an alternative and appropiate way to show his affection.

In the meantime he is asked to say sorry and I explain that he's not being nasty it means he likes you. It's not much of a consolation but surely nicer to know he wasn't meaning to be nasty or that he doesn't like you?

For this reason he did not have a birthday party. I couldn't see what fun it would be for him or his guests with them getting hurt and me having to constantly tell him off on a day that he should just be having fun.

But he's only 2 thumbwitch. I'm talking about older children really - the ones who can can reason and make quite sensible decisions.

I'm incredibly strict but don't enforce any of your rules, Orm - except the no shoes in the house on. Can't understand why anyone would wear outdoor shoes onto floors that people are going to sit/le/play on!

They were just examples of the kind of things that I've known. In some houses it seems as if the parents are forever saying 'no' and 'don't' or even 'now we don't do that in this house do we'.

Nappy addict - I have almost the opposite problem with ds1 who used to inappropriately hug people - especially when they were in groups.

All the mums in the playground were saying "oh he absolutely adores me, he's always got a hug for me!" - and I would be stood thinking 'Er, actually he is just feeling baffled and likes to hang from people's waists....'

I have had similar experiences to the original poster ... where I am sometimes shocked by what my friends let their kids get away with. It really only gets me down when my kids get physically bullied by another child. Then I will intervene. Otherwise I kind of think the main person being punished is the parents with the bed they make for themselves! For instance my friend would never consider taking her kids anywhere alone which I think is a real shame.

I am also very aware that it is all relative. I am probably seen as a very lax parent by slightly more strict parents and very strict by those particular friends. Each family has its owns ways. I tell my kids we have our own rules in our family and they seem to accept it fine.

However actually worse for me are the parents who make a running commentary on what a child can and can't do or try and interfere with their play by constantly suggesting new ideas or trying to get them to play with toys in the "correct" manner. I have come across many of those too ... basically the children are never left to relax and get on with things. I hope those parents are not like that permanently! I try very hard to give the kids a little space from nagging. Give them boundaries but give them space within those boundaries to express themselves.

I certainly don't always manage this but thats the aim!

This thread is unreal. Talk of non disciplining and how awful that is. then others commenting on over-disciplining.
disciplining doesn't work on ds1(6). it doesn't on all children. i would love to see what your advice would be when he answers back to me and dh.
you guys are so judgey.

GloriaSmut, maybe I did misunderstand your post. The thing is though is that it comes down to how you define discipline. My husband's fave quote (from the dog whisperer) is "discipline does not mean punishment". I think what he means is that discipline is about teaching your children (or in dw's case dogs) the rules and etiquette for behaviour to make their lives easier. This is obviously also your interpretation.

In saying this though, what some children get up to nowadays shocks me. If I ever saw DS being aggressive / hitting another child I would say that is the rare occasion when a smack is warranted. Equally, if another child behaved this way towards my DH I would have no problem in giving them something to think about and I am not sure I would care about the consequences to myself.

oblomov - I have a DS like that. He's 7. The more you 'discipline' him the more he carries on - he gets this desperate set look to his little face, as if he's preparing to weather a storm and knows it's going to be awful but he can't stop. He simply can't. The only way is helping him to calm down - soothing him, distracting. More often than not he will cry, apologise and then we can discuss the problem. He hates being 'bad' - it upsets him as much as us - but he can't stop himself. My other 2 are easy-going and amenable most of the time - rarely need discipline.

Ali - so you'd try and teach your dcs not to be violent by being violent yourself? It doesnt really work like that does it - in fact it has the opposite outcome.

Children hit other children - its not abnormal - its annoying but not abnormal - they do it becaue they cant control their emotions - they havent been taught how to or in some cases they just cant no matter what the parenting.

"GlorisSmut - that's all fine and good to know, but I need them to behave within reasonable bounds now not in 20 years time. "

Yes...but don't we all?

I certainly didn't sit back and think "Hey...if I do absolutely buggerall about their behaviour now I'm sure it'll be just fine in 27 years".

What I was trying to explain (and clearly not very well) is that when you are mired in micro-management, you can get tremendously stressed by your own failings and and those of others. But in retrospect, it can be surprising to see how wildly different styles of parenting even themselves out in the adult results!

But then as Mr Larkin so appropriately put it "They tuck you up, your Mam and Dad". Or something like that.

People parent differently, not better or worse differently. All children are different too, even if a friend parented identically to you her children would not behave in the same way.

OP sounds to me a little intolerant. A week is a long time for children to spend in a different environment. As for the food thing; children are allowed to have some dislikes you know, if you served an adult a meal they didn't like would you force them to eat it or deny them anything else?

Finally we all have parenting styles that annoy us; mine is when children are diciplined for single tiny indiscretion & good behaviour is not noticed or recognised. (I too think these strict diciplinarians are in for a shock sooner or later)

I'm certain people hate my style of parenting too but I won't dicipline my children just because others think I should, I deal with my dd's behaviour consistently as we (DH & I) feel is approprite for their ages.

Orm - what your say about your DS not being able to stop himself from being "bad" brought memories of my childhood flooding back.

I vividly remember many occasions crying in my room where I'd been sent for some misdemeanour or other that I really couldn't stop myself from doing. I knew I shouldn't do it, I literally couldn't stop myself.

taffeta. It's so sad. It's even more sad that it took me years to realise this was the case. And Dh still won't recognise it. He thinks he's being stubborn. I usually step in to deal with DS#2 now.

Gloria That's fine; I'm 22 and holding

Later, I'm planning on using Oscar Wilde's immortal line: 'Admitting to 35 with pink lampshades'

Oh, and I LOVE your list of characteristics to encourage in children... it really is easy to become mired in the details when you're in the middle of the hell... personally, a full eight hours of sleep would go a longer way to restoring my sanity in this house than getting DS to stop bringing sticks into it

i do worry about parents who let their children smack them.

my sil now has a teen, of 15 who spits , swears and hits her.

it seems that although this child can work out that she cant treat other adults like that, for e.g her teachers, she can do what she likes with her mother. who in turn, hasnt been able to stop this, and sees it as something child will grow out of.

I was probably in the 'ooh what terrible behaviour' camp until about 6 weeks ago when my 5 yr old DS decided he would join those behaving terribly

I am certainly no pushover and there are definate consequences for his behaviour, but for some reason at the moment he thinks it's ok to shout at me, say no when I ask him to do something, completely ignore me, whinge and whine thinking he will get his own way even if I say no (it doesn't happen!) etc etc etc. It's actually really quite draining!

I'm hoping it's a phase......pleeeease let it just be a phase and that by showing him that the behaviour isn't tolerated, he will eventually stop and go back to the very pleasant boy we once had.

There are some things that I really would not tolerate one bit though.

I know of a child who punches his mother if she upsets/annoys/says no to him. He is 4. She doesn't do anything about it, just lets him. I know another 4 yr old with a lovely mum, but the mum just has a little chuckle when she hears of his antics ie being mean to other children etc.

I can say without a doubt that my children behave wonderfully for other people and would never bully others.

Now i just need to stay sane (ish) until DS finally 'gets' that I mean business

It's not violence to smack your child and even if it were how one chooses to discipline their child, it is really nobody's business but their own and furthermore not the point of this discussion (I refer you to previous discussions on smacking for my views on the subject).

Children hitting other children when it is unprovoked is unacceptable. If you want to bring your child up with no discipline and not having any respect for adults then that is fine - however, I would like to bring my children up to be respectful of adults and authority. Why should children be respectful of adults I bet you will ask? Because we are older, we have experience of the world and we actually know what works and what doesn't.

taffeta - I hope you don't mind me asking but has your childhood changed the way you parent? I was a very quite well-behaved child with lovely (mostly) patient parents so DS#2 was a revelation to me - which is why it took me so long to understand him