What are your 'rules' for dealing with other people's children?

[fizzpops]

I am of the opinion that when my daughter is old enough if she is doing something dangerous or destructive that I would be happy for another mother to kindly stop her but I have been told recently that the done thing is as a parent of a child in danger of being throttled etc that you should say nothing but remove your child from the situation.

I can see this working if a child is targetting one other, but what if there is more than one child at risk. Do I just remove my own child and tell the mother of the boisterous child or leave the others to fend for themselves? Or what if someone else's child is scribbling on my walls. There must be occasions where quick action is necessary to prevent accidents or damage and a kindly 'Please be careful with that' etc etc is acceptable.

Also do I have to keep moving my happily playing child from place to place because someone else is not controlling their child? And what happens when another child snatches a toy from mine, can I then say, 'X was playing with that' or does this constitute interfering?

I sound as though I am over analysing this but it has been a cause of some unpleasantness between me and another mother recently and I really feel that the issue is more about the other mother being in control than that their child was upset or confused by my saying something. I am very confused and upset about the whole thing and would like some feedback so I can either avoid offending people in the future or at least have some idea of what is generally acceptable.

Ok re your last post he is only 18 months old and when your daughter is that age you'll realise its still a baby. Unfortunately biting is a phase that many children go through and if he's in that stage i'd just keep your DD close at all times.

Boys do tend to get a bit boisterous and to be honest i'd tend not to put your baby on the floor so much when he's around if he's likely to bang into her/drop a toy on her etc.

Avoidance and distraction work well i find

I also know that when my eldest DS was a baby toddlers seemed huge and very rough but they're not really.

Its one of those things that when children come along you realise that some of your friends have very different parenting styles and in some cases its just best to accept that and perhaps see them minus the children.

Thanks, I know he is not really scary and a sweetheart really. I think the problem for me now is they have shown that they don't really care as much about my daughter's safety as I might have assumed. I should have mentioned before that they are family and therefore the whole point is that we generally see them with children. I was trying to be slightly anonymous and get some feedback not based on family relationships which I have got and has been very interesting and useful.

I don't feel I could ever leave my daughter for a minute to be watched by them as they obviously are focused on their son and probably feel I am being overprotective. Perhaps there is an element of this but the dismissiveness that was shown to me when I explained that I was trying to protect my daughter really shocked me.

Ironically this child's mother never fails to butt into my parenting, giving 'advice' that is unwanted and redundant although kindly meant so I generally say nothing.

The family element could be the very part that grates with everyone so not a lot I can do about that!

Its difficult isnt it?
I was at toddler group the other day and a group of children were playing on the slide outside.
One child who's mum was with her was sitting at the top and taking ages to go down as they do when the child behind climbed on and pushed her with his feet.The girls mother said "Dont do that its not nice!" It wasnt what she said but the tone in which she said it that bothered me, i would have been if she had spoken to my DD like that.
i dont have a problem with other people telling her off at all but would expect them to do it nicely and would be if anyone raised their voice at her.

well I think that the whole issue of how to discipline other peoples' kids is very tricky once they hit about 3.

But the child in question here is- 18 months?
18 month olds ARE boistrous. They can't speak properly, they are even (usually) too young for tantrums. Their parents WILL tend to be very focused on them as they are hard to keep track of.

I actually don't use set rules, I try to help the kids negotiate using the "how to talk" methods (faber/mazlish), which works well. But this would be utterly impossible with an 18 month old. I think it started working with dd1 when she was about 2.5, but she'd grown up with it AND w3as very verbal.

Oh dear, I am not trying to be patronising, not at all, I do remember how HUGE and utterly grown up 18 month olds seemed when my eldest was about 6 months, but honestly, they are slightly more upright babies. an 18 month old has no concept at all of sharing. And its exhausting parenting them.

there is a possible guest/sharing thing too. I tend to take the line that all toys brought into common areas must be shared, also all toys (except a few special ones) must be shared with guests. May be in a minority on that though.

The sharing thing is fine I didn't mind him looking at her toys, but they had started off sharing with her. Saying 'Ask little fizzpops if you can play with her teddy' and praising when he waited etc. Then trying to get him to 'lend' her a toy too. He does offer toys but as soon as she reaches out her hand to touch he snatches away which irritates me (irrationally I know).

Then they stopped even this so he would just go and take some of her toys and no-one would even mention they were hers.

I feel partly that she is being used to teach him how to share which would be better done with a child of his own age, and partly that she would genuinely like to see some new and different toys but isn't being given the chance as he can't share yet (again understandable, I know it will take a while).

She was just spending a lot of time having things snatched away even that were hers when she could have been having a nice play time. Again he would not be very gentle in taking something once she had got her hand around it so another situation where I would want to say, 'Be careful she's very little etc'. According to their rules this is not acceptable and asking the parent to intervene would be too late so keeping separate is all I can think of as a compromise.

I'm probably projecting my own feelings on to this as it never upset her but I suppose these kinds of things are partly what I mean when I say they are very focused on their child and are not really concerned with mine. I think they are more used to him playing with other toddlers where their rules make more sense and they haven't considered the differences with a smaller child.

If they won't even let you say "Be careful" then I think you have to see them without children or keep the children separate until they are older. IME an 18-month old playing with a younger baby needs a lot of supervision and reinforcement ("gentle hands... oh, you're being very gentle there... careful, she's very little...") and if they won't provide that themselves and object to your doing it then there isn't any real option.

Thank you PortandLemon. I'm hoping if I can show them there are grey areas which can't be 'regulated' they will see that they have been a little bit unreasonable in their expectations. I think to be honest they know they were a bit over the top but it was obviously irking them for a while and they were tired and it all came out as these things do just not in the best context to illustrate their point so they are having to do some speedy backtracking.

I had an incident at a playcentre the other day, when my son was seen hitting another child (who had been tormenting him). I was dealing with my other younger son at the time so didn't see how this unfolded and was first alerted to it by the other child's mother flying across the room to rescue her son. She was screaming at the top of her voice and you'd have thought that he was being murdered. Now, I am the first to admit that my son's behaviour was totally unacceptable and I told him so and made him apologise to the other boy (who actually didn't seem nearly half as upset as his mother).

I did find her behaviour as unacceptable as my son's, possibly more so because he is only 5 years old and she was about 40 and should know better. I've got no problem with someone telling him off if he is behaving badly, but this woman scared him and me. I actually still feel in shock at her reaction. Kids fight, they have to learn that it's not right but if she reacts like this every time he gets into a scrap then I feel sorry for her...and her kids. I'm incredibly shocked and angry about the whole incident.

Fizzpops, I think your expectations of an 18 month old are quite unreasonable. I have an 18 month old DD who snatches toys from her 3 yr old brother. It is very hard to deal with because she doesn't understand the concept of snatching, sharing or ownership yet - she just wants what her brother has. I can't punish her because she is too little (and doesn't understand). I take the toy away, which results in a little tantrum, but I have to be fair to her brother. And how on earth do you think an 18 month old is going to ask for a toy????

If, however, she took a toy from a 5 month old I might react differently. For example when it was DS snatching from 5 month old DD (because you should realise that this kind of behaviour goes on a while) I would probably have just replaced the toy with something else. Because a 5 month old does not think that she owns toys and is unlikely to object when something is taken away. Your friends probably think that there is little harm in their child taking something from a child who doesn't care if that thing is taken.

If I had a boisterous 18 month old around I would probably have my 5 month old in my lap or be sitting close to her - not leaving her to be knocked around by a bigger child. Your job is to look after your dd in this situation, not to try to instruct or discipline another child - especially when that instruction is not developmentally appropriate. Your friends might well get annoyed and think that you have no idea! They probably can't wait until you have a toddler.

And agree with Fillyjonk that if you have other children over they are entitled to play with everything that is out. I would be furious if I went to someone's house and was told my children couldn't play with the toys. In fact, I did go once to a friend whose 3 children refused to let my ds play with anything. Everytime he tried to take something one would say 'mine!' and grab it. Unsurprisingly he had a major tantrum. My friend didn't intervene and I have never returned to her house.

I think I am lucky so far - most of the mums at the playgroups I go to are very similar in attitude to me with regard to telling off other DC. We "group parent" - so if a child falls over, the nearest mum will pick it up (and if serious take it to the right mum); if there is a fight, often the nearest mum will deal with it unless a tantrum is involved at which point the relevant mum is called on. If there is a toy battle going on, it's usually resolved quite quickly by someone.

Classic scenario the other day:
Me: DS, don't slide down the slide while X is in the way!
X's mum: X! get out the way so 'DS' can slide down the slide!

No hassles, no problems - it works for us. Afaik we don't have any mums who do the "thou shalt not discipline/tell off my Precious Angel Child Who Does No Wrong" - thankfully!

what thumbwitch said...but appreciate I am lucky wiht my group of mums, but also think we've learn from each other when the moments are to stress over our PFB and when to leave them to fight their own battles.

On a side note, all my childless friends know it's ok to tell off DS if he does something intentionally naughty and I'm not around!