I am slowly starting to doubt myself. I have two siblings ages 5 and 7 and to me they seriously lack manners and respect and because of this I have been trying to drill some into them and to an extent it's working, but I just wondered really whether this is normal, whether I'm expecting too much?
I'll give you some examples:
During the first meeting with the mum I suggested the boys try and play with some toys in the other room (as we had to speak a lot about contract and shifts etc), they broke one toy straight off. I then suggested they play in our (quite large) garden, they kicked two balls straight over the fence and threw the last ball over as well. I can put most of this down to overexuberance but in the hols I expect at least one broken toy a day - many times I've caught them forcing toys and playing much too rough with them and tbh I think they just don't respect the toys at all.
For the first couple of days they never (and I mean never) said please or thank you.
For the first 3 days when I opened the door to greet them they'd push around me and run into the house still in their shoes and then throw their coats and bags on my living room floor for me to pick up. On the 3rd day I stood like a rock infront of the door and one of them physically tried to push me out of the way!! They now know to take shoes off, hang up coats etc.
Up until last week when I imposed a new rule (contract has been in place for 11 weeks now) they never once replied to me when I said 'morning' at the door, they just walked past me completely silent. When they are picked up to go to school they do the same, don't say bye and get into the taxi without saying hello even to the driver. The new rule says they must greet both me and the driver and it's been successful I have to admit.
Is this normal for a 5 and 7y/o? I would be livid if my DD behaved like that but maybe I'm strict? There are things like getting down from the table before people have finished etc that I am strict about but I know other parents aren't ....
Lastly, they physically fight right infront of me and think nothing of it (they fought in the first week and do still every now and again). In fact, a couple of weekends ago I had my next door neighbours over for an hour whilst I was minding as it was their DDs 1st birthday (yes yes, I'm one of those CMs who have guests around when they're working!!) and the boys came into the room we were in and started physically fighting right infront of me, my DP and my guests - they'd never met them before so not only are the mindees fighting in someone elses house but they're also doing it in a room of adults they've never met! I found that amazingly disrespectful and my DP was livid, not to mention embarrassed.
It took me a while to loosen up with how roughly they play with eachother but I feel I'm less uptight now with their rough-and-tumble, they're boys after all so I should let them be boys when they're just playing, but fighting in someone elses house, infront of people they don't know, isn't right surely???