Tricky: not happy with behaviour of friend's son

[hawkmcqueen]

Hi there so this is a tricky one. My son is best friends with my friend's son, they have been more like brothers. Both are five. I know it might be unusual at this age but they genuinely have been inseparable.

Recently, well, since Xmas, I am unhappy with my friend's son's behaviour. This is why:

1. Usually when they play my DD is also here and he will physically hurt her. At Xmas he had a chord around her neck/ he pulls her hair/ throws sand.
2. He is very cheeky when he is at our house without his mum and demands things as well as just throwing rubbish on the floor. I do put him on the naughty step but the behaviour continues.
3. He has started to hurt my son as well and hit him in the eye with a stick and started a fight at the weekend punching him in the face. My son is able to defend himself but No other friends do this.

I am actually annoyed at my friend's reaction to all this, he gets told off and told to say sorry but no punishment is actually given. With the stick incident in which my son was lucky it missed his eye ball she was just worried about comforting her son and telling him not to worry it was an accident.

What do I do/say? I want to remedy the situation, not fall out.

Thank you.

Sorry friend I can't have your son over. He hurts my dd, has now hurt my ds and is rude and disrespectful.
What about we all go to the park together instead.

Sorry ds your friend isn't coming to play until his behaviour improves. What about if I invited xx instead.

I know you are right Chocco, I am so scared to have a confrontation as we are so close! I am shaking thinking about it as I don't want to ruin everything. Our two families have been inseparable and I don't want to spoil it for everyone by opening my mouth. But I know I have to as my children's safety comes first.

You said it. Your children's safety comes first. I would hope the mum will take your concerns seriously but if not you may have to consider changing the nature of your friendship and just seeing her in the evening without the children.
I have personal experience of this and we are no longer friends with the family concerned. Put your kids first.

Choco has it spot on. Have a word with her, explain your concerns in a non-judgemental way and nip out in the bud now. If you keep going without saying something you risk it getting worse which will be much harder to handle.

Good luck

If you look at what could have happened in the examples above.

You could be sitting here today with a dd seriously hurt or worse by having a cord round her neck.
Your ds could have lost his sight.

I'm not one to overanalyse things but these are avoidable things.

And your dc's are going to start to copy him - why should they go and put rubbish in the bin when he just trows it away.

Oh I am freaking out here! I am trying to plan the conversation in my head. Thanks all. Once I get the guts together to say something I will update with the outcome.

This is hard, because the DM isn't realising how serious it is. I have a friend with a DS and we had a similar situation, except it was her DS being rough with my DS and she did realise how unacceptable it was. So whenever her DS started being rough or acting out, either we would leave if we were at hers, or she would leave if they were at ours, so our friendship survived and her DS is much better now than he was.

My position was always that I would not allow my DC to be bullied - and that dictated how I handled it. On the rare occasions her DS was at mine without her I would be very strict and firm with him over any bad behaviour and I'd have called her and asked her to pick him up if he'd carried on after me disciplining him verbally or with naughty step. Whatever you do, put your DC first, not your friendship.

If you are afraid then just get your children to defend themselves more and put that little brat in his place. That is all you can do if you want to not cause a problem with your friend. When he acts like that have your kid pop him upside his head and when he gets whopped a few times maybe he will learn to stop hitting and throwing. You can't make her raise her kid differently but you can teach your kids to put bullies in their places. I was mean to kids who were mean to me and it worked. Limit their interactions then maybe he will be nicer cuz he will not be so comfortable and more grateful to have good friends.

Sorry but my children's welfare comes first, no matter what the situation. I would be straight, her son is misbehaving and putting your children at risk. You can't have him over until the siuation improves. I don't think your place to put him on the naughty step either.

I had this 7 years ago with my best friends son. I can tell you how it panned out for us. I asked for the children to have a break as my DS was struggling with friends DS behaviour (made it sound like my DS was the issue). Friend understood and we met evenings only for a while. After two months we tried again with the kids and I text my friend beforehand to say that we will only stay for a short time as DS is rather worried about seeing child (enabling me to leave easily if there were any issues). Thankfully her DS improved and improved. They are now very close after a rocky start.

I recommend you have a break, then simply leave after the first incident or ask mother to collect her child after the first incident. Tell them DS finds it too stressful/upsetting and you worry about him.