Would you avoid a good friend because of her childrens' effects on yours?

[Twiglett]

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Yes I would avoid this family (have done just that in RL in fact)
Have a word with the staff at preschool and tell the the situation.

Twiglett, I can totally relate to this (although have no useful advice whatsoever) as we have one friend who came round and drew on our windows with dd's crayons (his mother didn't reprimand him at all - apart from to call him a little bugger!!! - and I was too shocked to say anything). The next day dd started to draw on the windows. I am extremely strict about respecting furniture, property and treating things well etc and so this really upset me as it is not something dd would have ever done without someone else's influence. The other situation we have had with another friend is that her child came round and started throwing dd's toys down the stairs (stairway is freshly painted by dh and this went down very badly) which is something I would never let dd do as I can't stand the idea of toys getting broken, paintwork getting ruined and someone at the bottom of the stairs getting hurt - to me it just shows a complete lack of respect but I am useless at being assertive or disiplining other people's children so didn't say anything apart from asking her not to do that and then was ignored so after that it took a week or so for me to get dd to realise that that kind of behaviour wasn't acceptable in our house. I can't really offer any advice - in both situations I like the parents (although obviously everyone has their different methods of dicipline/things they will or won't let their child do) and don't want to lose contact with them, but now find their visits very traumatic as both these sets of friends allow their children to completely trash the house and it does set a bad example to dd and so I try to keep their visits quite spaced out, but really don't want to lose contact as I value them as friends. I would have thought that when your ds starts pre-school perhaps they may be in different classes or that the nursery teachers will be more strict than the boy's mother, so hopefully it won't be an issue for you - children are normally much better behaved in a nursery/school environment that they are at home.

Well there's nothing you can do to prevent him to go to the same school, is it?

Something that I have noticed is that children act up according to the expectations of the person who is around to care for them. So if they act like that in fron of the mother it may well be because the mother allows them, but probably the teacher at school won't take that behaviour so it is more than likely that being at the same school is not going to affect your child.

I would speak to DS and explain why that behaviour won't be tolerated and tell him whatever the other children do is independant from what is expected from him at home.

I have also stop seeing people who can't/won't control their children but have also being advised to tell the child that something is not permited in YOUR house, however there's always the risk that the mother gets offended.

Think yourself lucky that you are not related to them, my 7 and 5 year old neices frqequently call each other and their mother a bitch and constantly fight, kick, scream. My children love them but I do worry thathey will pick up this behaviour, they once spoke beautifully but are now dropping their T's when they speak. Not sure what I can do about it but you cant not visit your family can you, besides I love them all to bits.

twiglett - i'm going through the same with my ds1 - heartbraking when you hear another childs rude words through your own. i got some brilliant advice from my friend last week which seems to be working for the moment. i'll try and put this into context otherwise my rambling won't make sense
say your ds is called bob and the troublemaker is called jim.....
bob:'hey you are a pooh pooh head!'
twiglett:'bob, those aren't your words - are you pretending to be jim? i want to speak with bob please, where's bob?' etc.
you basically give ownership of the offensive words/ behaviour to the other child so your child totally associates it with that child and realise its the other child words not his. if he persists keep repeating the above, make him know that when he says those words it makes you feel very upset as he knows better/more grown up words than that.if he's saying the offensive words when he is angry then label it and say oh i can see you are upset/angry/frustrated - do you need help/hug etc. then try to ignore it. this is so hard. i am actively making excuses not to have this particular friend over as he's such an influence.
good luck x

Just think yourself lucky you don't have them in the same house! Ds2 copies everything ds1 does. Luckily he's not too destructive- just weird, but it can be a nightmare.

Depends how important the friendship is. I have my friend visit with her 7 year old autistic dd even though I know she will almost certainly draw on something (doors/books in the past) because her friendship is more important to me than the doors (also our house is pretty much undecorated so she can't do that much harm). Mind you DS1 would never copy and she's too busy going off by herself for ds2 to see. But always in these cases - depends how important the friendship is.

I can understand your problem and the only advice I can give you is that whether it be from school, friends children, or pre-school at some point your children will pick up behaviour that is not acceptable to you. All I can suggest is that if children are around your house doing something unexceptable and parent is not having respect for your rules and home, is to maybe explain to the child that they musnt do that in your home otherwise your child will get in trouble for doing it. Even if the child doesnt understand that, it is a big hint to parent without being too offensive. And I agree that at school, teachers wouldn't allow bad behaviour if possible. I think your ds will soon learn whats allowed and not, its just another stage of pushing boundaries again, and learning that other people have different boundaries to them.

I can't wait till my dd tells me her friends are allowed out till 11pm at 13yrs old. Now that's going to be a battle!!!

good luck.

I have told other people's children what the rules are in our house "no saying stupid", "meals and drinks at the table only",taking your own plate to the dishwasher etc. and I am prepared to stand my ground. IME the parents just let me get on with it because it's my house. I think it's important that ds realises that house rules are for everyone, which is why I sit at the table to have a sandwich when I would rather have it on my knee with the newspaper.

Ds also knows that at other places he gets a lot more slack, and can wander around at his grandparents with a biscuit hanging out of his mouth and nothing will be said. Having said that he usually tried to get someone to lift him onto their knee which is what we do when we are out.

I'd just say "this is the way we do things in our house" and be the way you want, but be prepared to be more hippish in her house, which is the trade off.

I like the bob and jim idea, and how useful I won't have to change one of the names!

this is what parks are for! if you have different house rules to your friend and her child, and things are stressing you out, arrange park meetups, not home meetups. Easy at this time of year, too.

I think familiarity breeds contempt. So yes, I agree it's something that just happens even to the two most well behaved children . Three full days in a week is a lot of time to spend with other friends, and IME when this happens, bad habits and playing up creep in. So limit the times you all meet.

Step in now and change the way you meet, so that you don't build up resentment between you and your friend.

It might not be that the other children are especially bad, just that they all get overexcited and have a slightly bad effect on one another.

In RL I had to do just that as my dd hated playing with my good friend's dd and so much so that it wasnt' fair on her. It was really a hard thing for me but in the end it showed the so-called friends' true colours anyway, which were anything for an easy life and no understanding of our feelings. Her dd was v v rough and loud ALL the time.

I do the same as toddlerbob. I have my house rules and expect other children to follow them even if they don't have those rules in their house. And conversely, when we go to someone's house who has different or stricter rules than mine, I expect my children to follow them.

I wouldn't worry too much about what happens at pre-school. If the school is good (and firm) it will probably calm the children down quite a bit. I have a friend whose son was really quite difficult and badly behaved (particularly around her) and I didn't care for his influence on my ds, but he started at preschool a few months ago and it has made an enormous difference in his behavior.

Twiglett - if she is a good friend then I would not avoid her because of children. In my experience even the best behaved children turn into 'shits' of their own accord. They will become nice again around the age of 17 yrs.
I have learned that I would have no friends left if I let children's behaviour influence my adult relationships. Rise above it and if it is really getting to be a problem, discuss it with your friend. I found that my best friends and I told each others children off with more effect when they were misbehaving.

When you have children, whether they are 'well' behaved or 'not' you as a mother need friends. My ds was being bullied by a group of kids that we hung out with most weeks, the other kids' parents could see as well as I what was going on, but only until I mentioned that it was becoming upsetting did anything change. As soon as I spoke about it there was a huge sigh of relief and we tried to tackle it together. DS is still 'different' from the other kids but because we have coached him and the other kids on how to avoid confrontation it is much easier to spend time together. They have a better understanding of him and he is beginning to have a better understanding of them. It is a really hard subject to tackle, but I bet if the friend you are talking about is a fraction of the person you need her to be she will understand, It is not that she is wrong and you are right, you are just both different in some ways and thank goodness for that...Vive le difference..!