I'm getting frustrated with my best friend as her whole life seems to be dominated by what her 5 year old wants and she never ever tells her no.
I try to avoid meeting up with her with our children because everything is dominated by her older child who seems to demand things all the time and she gives in otherwise she throws massive tantrums. Things like "Tilly wants to go into the café now so we need to go there."
"Tilly wants your child's trike (which I use instead of a pushchair for my youngest) so can she have it now?"
Then she will buy her endless things from machines and shops when we are out which pressures me as my children are allowed to only select one item now and then as the outing is the main treat. My friend just doesn't know how to say no. She's also allowed to skip having a main meal for lunch completely and just have a slice of cake, which I won't allow and then my children complain as they want the same.
She has also told me that her daughter's school have said that her behaviour is sometimes a problem as she won't follow instructions (not surprising). But my friend has convinced herself that all children misbehave at school at her age. I know they don't as I've never had bad reports from school about my two eldest childrens' behaviour.
She also calls me to chat at times and is upset because she's struggling with the chaos of everything and yet, the primary issue is that she needs to stop just doing whatever her child wants to do all the time. Her weekends seem to be governed by her child's demands to go to certain places and do certain things which she's having to juggle with a 2 year old in tow. This is to a point where they will stay out late and bypass bedtime regularly because her daughter "wanted to do X." Her husband is often away on long business trips (which we both suspect he's dragging out unnecessarily) she must find things tough, but when he's home he seems to be the same. There is very little proactive parenting going on at all. I have been quite blunt recently and told her- just tell her no. She seems stumped when I say this and goes quiet and then will change the topic as if she couldn't even consider telling her no.
I'm finding it a bit tricky as we've always been close, I've always loved and respected her but I'm quite flummoxed at her parenting. Mainly because we are both social workers so we have to speak to other parents about parenting etc and she seems to completely grasp that other parents need to have boundaries with their children and healthy patterns. Yet, she isn't doing this with her own child. It's as if self awareness is non-existant. It is affecting my relationship with her because I keep having to make excuses not to meet up with her when she's with the children. Also, I'm not sure what to say to her when she's telling me about how she's finding this tough, other than to say "start saying no."
Any thoughts?