When my sister's children where young, I distinctly remember her telling me that she didn't like to set boundaries for her children as she felt that it would encourage independence if they learnt their own lessons and learnt to set their own boundaries. As a result she'd never discipline them. As they've grown older, I think she's changed her stance a bit and given she lives abroad I can't really see the result.
However, there's a women who lives in my village who I'd really like to be friends with as I think she's fab. HOWEVER, she seems to follow the philosophy of no discipline for children. I've never asked her why she doesn't discipline them - didn't think it would go down too well. But her son (nearly 3) is a nightmare.
Today he came to our house and was repeatedly naughty. If she tried to say: Don't do that (and she would say as a casual sentence rather than a reprimand) he would growl at her. Two of the top incidents involved him pulling a chair over to our fridge which dispenses water. We were outside. When I noticed my child coming out with water on his shirt I asked what they were up to. There he was standing on the chair holding the water button down so that there was a vast puddle on the floor.
About 15 minutes after than he took a coffee mug that my son (admittedly) had thrown on the grass. I yelled at my son to stop knowing it was a matter of time before it broke in some kind of fun throwing game. The other child immediately picked it up. I asked him to put it down. He just looked at me and raised his arm. I again said firmly: put it down now. He looked at me and flung the mug into the bushes, hitting a tree and causing it to chip.
Mother said nothing. I yelled at him and made him go get it. I then said to mum: sorry for yelling at him but it's not on. She just feigned ignorance.
We've been out before where she's ordered a cup of tea and piece of cake, only to have her son crumble her cake all over the table and into her tea so that she ends up not being able to have either. And during this, she just laughs and says: Oh xx! what are boys like! Ha ha.
I genuinely just don't understand the hands off approach. Surely it just makes life a million times harder? And surely they will just get worse and worse as they get older without ever having been set any boundaries. She constantly says things to me like: Gosh you're so strict. I really don't think I am overly strict - I just don't want my house destroyed on a daily basis.
So if anyone has any insight into what the benefits of this approach are, please enlighten me because my DH has now said he doesn't want the child to play with ours as they pick up on his behaviour. I think it would be a shame not to particularly as they will all go to the same school.